IN HIS speech buttering up the Filipino World War II veterans during the Araw ng Kagitingan rites last Saturday on Mt. Samat in Bataan, President Benigno Aquino III said that to show the nation’s gratitude to the veterans, the Philippine Veterans’ Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City “had upgraded its operations with additional equipment and improvements” and that “more hospitals across the country will serve the health needs of veterans and their families.” Very nice to hear, but in the light of what almost happened recently to the hospital, the President’s words do not give the veterans and the people in general much confidence.
If you will recall, the VMMC was almost sold to greedy land developers, along with the nearby Ninoy Aquino Wildlife Park and the Manila Seedling Bank, to be turned into a mixed-use business and residential enclave with tall business buildings and condominiums and more shopping malls in spite of the fact that SM North Edsa and The Block and Ayala’s Trinoma are already there. Were it not for the huge public uproar and the vehement opposition of some political leaders, the hospital would have fallen, during the GMA Administration, into the hands of selfish land developers who see the peso sign in every square meter of vacant land.
The wide open spaces of the VMMC compound, with the golf course surrounding it, and the Wildlife Park and the Seedling Bank, as well as the neighboring vacant portions of the campus of the University of the Philippines, have long been coveted by squatting syndicates and by big land developers. Claimants with fake titles and squatting syndicates did try to take over that part of the campus along Commonwealth Avenue (they already built shanties on it) but were foiled by the UP administration with the help of the police.
The National Housing Authority, which claims ownership of the area, tried to take over the Seedling Bank, which has a valid lease on the property, but was foiled by the court. Meanwhile, professional squatters have successfully overrun the land on the opposite side of Quezon Avenue, at the former site of Father Aguilar’s Zoo and surrounding areas. Also, vast areas of UP’s Diliman campus.
These few open spaces are the only lungs left to Quezon City but they are constantly threatened by greedy squatters, land-grabbers and land developers. A city as big as Quezon City needs a big park and many smaller parks. The area bounded by Timog, North, East and West Avenues was supposed to be QC’s Central Park but President Ferdinand Marcos distributed parcels to various government agencies and to the Philamlife housing project. The only park left is the Quezon Memorial Circle but the present QC Park administrator is fast turning it into a vast parking lot, a permanent carnival enclave, a restaurant row, a flea market with many sari-sari stores, each of which pays fees to those running the park. Just drive around the park and you will see that it is fast filling up with constructions of various sorts. A park should have plenty of trees, grass, plants and flowers, a pond and animals, but the Quezon Circle is fast becoming a park of concrete.
Maybe the VMMC is safe now with Aquino at the helm, but what about when he is no longer President? What is to prevent future presidents from succumbing to the temptations offered by land developers?
We should have a law that will preserve the hospital and its environs for the people. Without such a law, the threat to the open spaces will continue.
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What’s happening at the West Tower Condominium in Bangkal, Makati, after the oil leak in its basement that drove away its residents? The First Philippine Industrial Corp. (FPIC), operator of the pipeline that leaked, has already stopped the leaks and has started to rehabilitate the area. But what is this, the residents themselves are hampering the cleanup efforts of FPIC.
From the looks of it, some West Tower homeowners themselves seem to be sabotaging FPIC’s rehabilitation efforts.
For example, at a recent press conference called by the West Tower homeowners association, the residents allowed the reporters to take a look at the basement which was flooded with wastewater. They then blamed the whole mess on the FPIC. But they did not tell the reporters that they earlier refused FPIC’s offer to rehabilitate the building.
FPIC made the offer after another firm, which West Tower itself contracted to haul away the wastewater, was stopped by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for failing to meet DENR’s effluent standards. With the West Tower contractor out of action, there was nobody to take away the wastewater from the basement.
But West Tower did not immediately accept FPIC’s offer to take over the task. They first allowed the wastewater to accumulate. Then, with a touch of drama, they called the press conference.
The West Tower dramatics seem to be a maneuver to portray FPIC in a bad light, but it was not an isolated case. There was one report that FPIC and its contractors need to study the building plans to be able to draw up a rehabilitation plan. For some mysterious reason, the report said, the residents refused to show the building plans. Why?
Media attention on West Tower dramatics overshadows FPIC’s rehabilitation efforts. FPIC personnel and its contractors are in fact now busy cleaning up the affected area.
FPIC also announced that it would install in the next three weeks an “onsite” treatment facility that will satisfy the DENR effluent and water quality standards.
FPIC has also tapped an internationally recognized environmental remediation company, US-based CH2M Hill, which is now also working round-the-clock to provide a more permanent solution for the cleanup in Bangkal.