Tell it to SunStar: The price of ‘progress’

By Julia Mikaela Uy

IN CATBALOGAN, there used to be a place where silence stood tall.

Not the empty kind of silence -- but the sacred kind. The kind that gently reminded you that some things should not be forgotten. That place was Pieta Park. And now it’s gone -- ripped apart to make way for a pizza chain.

This is the cost of calling anything “progress.”

What once was a space of remembrance -- home to a replica of La Pieta honoring the lives lost in the Doña Paz tragedy -- was flattened, discarded, and repurposed into a parking lot. There wasn’t even a public announcement, no official farewell. Just rubble where reverence used to be.

People call it development. I call it erasure.

The park wasn’t grand. It wasn’t shiny. But it was solemn. It was where students rested after school, where families lit candles for loved ones lost, where survivors revisited their pain with dignity. Its statue stood for grief, yes -- but also for hope. A memorial born from grief, standing for grace.

Today, it stands for nothing. Because it no longer stands at all.

There was no public announcement. No farewell ceremony. No notice. Just rubble. Just silence -- this time, the wrong kind. The kind that comes after something sacred has been carelessly broken.

How do you begin to grieve a second time for something already rooted in grief?

There are many ways to improve a city. Demolishing its soul is not one of them.

This isn’t just about one park. It’s about what kind of city we are building. In the past few years, Catbalogan has become home to more and more big-name chains. Restaurants, groceries, fast-food spots -- the kind of urban glow-ups people celebrate on Facebook with a selfie and a milk tea in hand. I get it. We all want comfort. We want progress.

But what we rarely ask is: What are we losing while we gain?

Our local vendors, family-owned eateries, sari-sari stores -- those are the ones who carry the city’s heartbeat. The ones who stay long after grand openings fade and promos end. And more importantly, they’re not built on top of sacred ground.

Pieta Park wasn’t just another corner of the city. It was layered in memory. Beneath it rested pieces of our past -- of our people, our pain, our prayers. The land itself bore witness to centuries of struggle and story. But none of that mattered when development came knocking. Or rather -- when it came bulldozing.

And the way it happened? Careless. Quiet. Quick.

No permits. No consultation. No reverence. The sculpture wasn’t relocated -- it was shattered. Its pieces scattered. Its message forgotten.

You can’t call it urban planning when the plan is to destroy without asking.

Here, we put a pizza place on top of pain.

If something sacred can be demolished this easily -- without a voice raised in power to stop it -- what does that say about who we are? About what we value?

History isn’t just about museums and monuments. Sometimes it’s in the quietest corners. The places where kids play beside candles. The benches where lolo and lola sit in silence. The spot where someone kneels, remembering a sibling lost to sea.

Those places matter.

I’m scared for Catbalogan. Not just because we’re losing landmarks, but because we’re losing memory. And when memory goes, everything else goes with it -- our sense of identity, our strength, our soul.

Let this be more than a eulogy. Let this be a reckoning. A resistance. A reminder.

Because if we keep paving over grief and calling it growth, we’ll wake up one day surrounded by lights and logos -- but haunted by silence. The kind we can’t pray through. The kind we can’t fix. The kind that says: We forgot.

And when the last sacred space is gone, when the last meaningful place is destroyed, we won’t even notice.

We’ll be too busy waiting for our order.

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Julia Mikaela Uy, a native of Catbalogan City in Samar province, is a Beyond Loyola staffer (2023–present) for The Guidon, the official student newspaper of Ateneo de Manila University. She actively participates in The Guidon’s coverage of social, political, and economic events outside the campus.