Build a new capital city for Philippines

THIS is a reaction from a constant reader to Peter Wallace’s “Clark: a new capital in the making?” (11/22/18).

This is an alternative proposal I had sent to the consultative committee reviewing the 1987 Constitution headed by former chief justice Reynato S. Puno:

Restate where the capital city and where the national government center will be located.

May I suggest that the above be located and established in an appropriate location in the Sierra Madre, Quezon Province or Aurora Province where the buildings of the three branches of government will face the east or the rising sun while overlooking the blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. It will be a resplendent and glorious site and sight, like a “city on a hill.”

We can design and build this capital city and national government center like (but not exactly) Brasilia or Washington DC, the world’s “first custom-designed capital.”

But certainly not our present capital, which our 1935 Constitution designated as Quezon City. Yet Manila or Malacañang functions today as the seat of central power; and as it appears and functions now, our Senate is in Pasay City, while our House of Representatives is in Quezon City, and in the near future both the Senate and the Supreme Court will be in Bonifacio Global City—signifying or symbolizing what some critics describe as a dysfunctional government.

EDMUNDO H. ESCALANTE, Retired judge and former president, IBP Sorsogon