Beautification

Roxas Boulevard is looking better these days. The center island now has yellow and green plants while the bayfront promenade – one of the few decent sidewalks in Metro Manila – is also undergoing landscaping.

The Department of Public Works and Highways has announced that the orb-type streetlights along Manila’s Baywalk, described as “Sputnik lights” by someone who found them aesthetically offensive, will soon be replaced with uniform lampposts throughout the boulevard. The Sputnik lights look expensive and should not be dumped; maybe they can be used in a public playground. Several statues along the boulevard are also being relocated.

It looks like the street beautification program is being undertaken for Manila’s hosting of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November. So we know that the landscaping will last at least until Christmas.

The landscaper has also picked plants that are relatively low maintenance and can withstand Manila’s heat, torrential monsoons and smog. What the plants won’t withstand is destruction from human activities.

Roxas Boulevard is home to hundreds of street dwellers. At night you can see them asleep all over the bayfront promenade, many of them using aluminum foil sheets for blankets. A few have hammocks tied to coconut trees. When it rains they take shelter in the public toilet near the Manila Yacht Club.

Across the boulevard bushes used to serve as shelters for street people. Most of the bushes have disappeared in the ongoing landscaping, replaced with the hardy plants. I’m wondering how long it will take before clearings are made in the greenery to make room for sleeping areas.

Street dwellers aren’t the only culprits. All over Metro Manila, people too lazy to walk to the nearest pedestrian lane or overpass clamber over traffic islands to cross streets, often destroying plants and the island walls. To discourage this, metal railings have been installed in the middle of some traffic islands. Or else thorny shrubs such as bougainvillea have been planted. Other traffic islands have been built higher than usual, but vandals use the walls for graffiti.

Barangay personnel can prevent this, if they aren’t preoccupied with collecting parking fees, harassing small micro entrepreneurs and sponsoring sakla at wakes. Among the most glaring proofs that this isn’t happening is that vandals manage to paint large graffiti even on hard-to-reach but highly visible spots under well-lit bridges in Metro Manila. The vandals aren’t Spider-Man; they need special equipment to reach those spots.

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Metro Manila’s globetrotting first governor got it right, promoting beautification and what she described as a green revolution before being green became fashionable. Imelda Marcos, as first lady and governor of what was initially called Greater Manila, had good projects – the Light Rail Transit (running without glitches), air-conditioned buses (called the Love Bus), the Cultural Center of the Philippines, hospitals specializing in various illnesses. If only the lion’s share of funding for the projects didn’t go to personal bank accounts – although we still haven’t managed to prove such accusations or punish anyone for large-scale corruption. But the accusations against Imeldific soured Pinoys to beautification programs.

The world’s most livable cities all feature well maintained patches of greenery. In these cities, you will really stop to admire and smell the flowers.

In my first visit to Singapore, the first thing that struck me (after Changi Airport of course) was the traffic island of neatly trimmed bougainvillea lining the road from the airport to the city center, and the many well manicured green areas.

The most expensive pieces of real estate in the world’s most livable cities are usually those with a view of public gardens and even smaller patches of greenery, often described as the lungs of a city, or those overlooking bodies of water.

Obviously, their bodies of water aren’t dumping grounds for trash, industrial effluvia, and the waste of those whose homes lack toilets. In Metro Manila, concerns about finding discarded fetuses and bodies of murder victims floating in the Pasig (not to mention the sewer stink that becomes stronger when it rains) have made property developers avoid designing homes and buildings facing the river.

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About two decades ago an outdoor area alongside a creek in Manila’s Chinatown became a popular dining destination. But after a while the creek became polluted and the stink turned away dining patrons.

It’s unfortunate because the place had such potential to become a tourist destination. I have visited several areas in China where waterways are lined with traditional houses operating as restaurants, shops and other commercial establishments, with ancient pathways and bridges well preserved. A few of them are World Heritage Sites. Villages without such ancient sites build similar enclaves around waterways, showcasing local traditional architecture.

That creek in Manila’s Chinatown can still be revived, but only if all communities traversed by the waterway cooperate in a sustained cleanup. The place can also use landscaping.

Several major property developers at least understand the value of greenery and breathing space, whether for residential, commercial or industrial purposes. You see this in new developments in southern Metro Manila, from parts of Muntinlupa and Las Piñas to Laguna.

But it will be good if the city of Manila, the nation’s seat of government and home to numerous historical buildings, can undergo urban renewal.

And it will be great if the ongoing beautification will last beyond the APEC summit.

There’s nothing wrong with putting our best foot forward for guests, especially since we take pride in our hospitality. But it would be better if government beautification efforts could be sustained and aimed at making Metro Manila a better place for Filipinos and visitors alike.