The fight this year to save Mehan Gardens from Mayor Lito Atienza’s plan to build a city college has a greater degree of success for conservationists and tree huggers than previous battles.
Last year, the Mayor assured organizations such as the Heritage Conservation Society of being consulted on the fate of the Jai Alai Building which he had scheduled to tear down and, in its place, erect a new Justice Building. The Jai Alai Building was one of the finest Art Deco style buildings found in Southeast Asia. Atienza declared himself a fellow conservationist and promised to look into alternatives. Instead, he had the building promptly demolished without any consultation.
Those events transpired during the Estrada Administration and efforts on the part of the Society to appeal to the Supreme Court and directly to then President Estrada received no response.
What a difference a year makes. The conservationists are wiser this year and are not falling for any double talk. The Mayor constantly repeats the absurd claim that the planned city college in Mehan Gardens would "enhance" the place when, in fact, his proposed construction will destroy and bury cultural treasures under the site.
Since the 1960s, the National Museum has dug up numerous pre-Spanish and Parian period artifacts in Mehan Gardens and has declared it an archaeological site. Parian is the name of the Chinese community that settled outside the eastern walls of Intramuros. It was a large community in the 17th century, with the Spaniards bombarding and destroying it when the Chinese revolted or when they feared the population had grown unwieldy.
In April of this year, the Directors of the National Museum, the National Historical Institute (nhi) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (ncca) petitioned Mayor Atienza to stop the construction of the planned college because of the site’s historical importance.
The National Museum asserted further that City Hall cannot engage in any earth-moving activities on the site until an archaeological assessment was done by the museum. A Philippine Environmental Policy or Presidential Decree No. 1151 specifically covers this assessment. Since the National Museum has found numerous artifacts in past diggings, and is expected to find more in other sections of Mehan Gardens, it is unlikely that City Hall will ever be given clearance for construction in the area.
The proposed city college construction is occurring when there is still the unfinished business of the proposed Justice Building to be built on the site of the demolished Jai Alai Building. In the last six months, the Mayor has lost both his principal patron, deposed President Estrada, and his moneybags, former Presidential Flagship Projects adviser Robert Aventajado. Aventajado had provided the seed money to Atienza for the demolition of the Jai Alai Building and was expected to cough up the construction money for the Justice Building. Now, all that is left on Taft Avenue is a gaping hole and the loss of a beautiful art deco building.
Mayor Atienza has pitched the standard Estrada "Poor Versus Rich" line by stating that this college will help the poor students of Manila while the "rich" preservationists are intent on depriving poor students of a decent education. It has been pointed out to the Mayor that the former GSIS and Veteran’s Buildings, two immense, unused and beautiful International Style structures several hundred meters away from Mehan Gardens, would be quite suitable to students just as either one would have been suitable for his Justice Building. It would certainly cost a lot less to renovate rather than build a new building and the savings could be used to buy all the necessary school equipment.
This habit of demolishing in order to build, or build on an archaeological site flouting Presidential decrees, raises undue public suspicion of possible connivance with developers and contractors for questionable construction deals. If the Mayor really had the poor at heart, re-using and recycling perfectly good buildings would cost much less and the savings could be piled back into more urgent poverty alleviation programs which the city desperately needs.
Above all the politics and talk of graft and corruption is the more fundamental matter of aesthetics. Manila’s Mayor is sorely lacking in this regard. Large "Thank You For Re-electing Me" streamers hang in front of Manila Bay blocking its fabled sunset. Grecian urns on columns in his much vaunted Plaza Miranda renovation is tacky and completely out of place. His campaign posters continue to uglify the city weeks after his proclamation. There’s a hole in the ground where once people marveled at an Art Deco masterpiece. And now, he wants to wipe out a history-laden park. A Mayor with the least sense of aesthetics wouldn’t mar his already blighted city but instead, enhance its cultural and tourist potentials.
Last year’s demolition of the Jai Alai Building emboldened many more citizens to resolve never to allow their public officials to destroy heritage buildings and endangered landmarks. The Heritage Conservation Society’s lawsuit against Intramuros Administrator Dominador Ferrer for allowing the destruction of Intramuros walls resulted in his indictment. The recent Earth Day public gathering of environmental, conservation and arts organizations in Arroceros Park to petition Mayor Atienza to stop the city college construction was remarkable for its extensive and wide array of supporters. The significant publicity Mehan Gardens has garnered in the past weeks and the visible and open support of key Congresspersons and Senators geared to raise the issue in the coming Congress is a dramatic and positive turn of events. Conservation activists have vowed to bring the Mehan Gardens issue all the way to the Supreme Court and Malacañang, both more sympathetic to the issue than the previous institutions. A little garden is what people are demanding and it is Mehan Gardens they vow to get and preserve.
The author is a Consultant to the National Museum.