Proposal to declare Baguio Special Heritage City underway

BAGUIO CITY — A proposal to declare Baguio City as a Special Heritage City is underway.

A "Petition for Baguio" is currently being circulated over the Internet signed by hundreds of people, including former Tourism Secretary Gemma Cruz Araneta.

"We believe that in the past two decades, the city of Baguio has experienced a substantial degradation of its unique culture, environment and art," the petition read.

During the campaign for the May 10 elections, newly elected Mayor Braulio Yaranon, a former councilor and Regional Trial Court judge, vowed to "reclaim Baguio" and "bring Baguio back to the people," apparently hitting on incumbent officials’ strategy for development, which was centered on building concrete structures such as malls, overpasses and flyovers.

The petitioners said that Baguio’s so-called "overdevelopment" has contributed to pollution and the lamentable decay of the City of Pines.

A controversial study done by the World Bank tagged Baguio as the most polluted city among five key cities in the country. But the report was contested by incumbent mayor Bernardo Vergara, who said that the report has maligned the country’s summer capital.

But the petition claimed that "everyone who has gone to Sagada, Pulag, Ifugao and other places in the Cordillera, will notice that Baguio has lost its charm; it is crowded and polluted."

Water is scarce even in watershed areas, it further stated.

The petitioners claim that as Baguio is different from other cities in the Philippines, the national government should declare it a Special Heritage Zone so that the environmental degradation brought about by overdevelopment can be minimized and gradually controlled.

"Baguio City’s heritage as a center of culture and environmental awareness is a valuable asset not just to the Philippines, but also to the world," they said.