Panagbenga is here again. It is hell again for ordinary Baguio residents like you and me. While business establishments catering to tourists will be laughing on the way to the bank, we ordinary people will be cursing every minute as we will be the ones to suffer the negative effects of the sudden influx of people way beyond the city’s capacity to comfortably absorb.
For it appears that we are not being included as a part of the equation. The assumption every time is we don’t have the capacity to complain effectively. That we will just meekly bear the suffering caused by lack of water, pollution, stand-still-traffic that will paralyze everybody in the conduct of their day to day affairs. And also the compromising of the delivery of basic services.
Officials will be parroting so called benefits that are never enjoyed by us. The same things they had been saying again and again. Yet the question remain unanswered. What do we get in return?
The grumbling would not really be much if there is an effort to equalize the situation where those who benefit, even if just for the Pnanagbenga month, they will be made to pay in terms of cash that will be used to alleviate problematic areas in the city’s daily existence. And there is a lot to mention, most especially high bills for water and electricity bills, the need for social welfare funds to be built up in preparation for calamitous periods like during the rainy season, programs for beggars and out of school youth who call the city’s streets home due to abject poverty, etc., etc. Some training should be provided them so they can be employable or otherwise stand on their own. . Otherwise, the vicious cycle will just keep going on. How about welfare funds for single mothers, particularly those who are still teenagers with no stable means of support?
For we are in a democracy. It actually means when merry making Is only limited to those-who-have, hose- who-have-not must be also be thought of and be considered in the city’s or community’s plans of action but most importantly in their implementation.**