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Bicol Master Plan for green urban development



I used to love the rain when I was a child, and I was fascinated with the freshness of rainwater when it poured strong but gently on my face and body. One time, floods came in 1966; I would play with my siblings and mga kalaro as I mounted myself on a makeshift boat raft made of banana trunks, happily “navigating” the flooded streets while our parents were away. It was sheer liberating fun from home and school.


But as time flies, and after experiencing many disastrous rains and floodings, each time the rain comes, it has come to mean disaster is coming; get ready to evacuate! I am traumatized since the first floor of our home near Panaganiban Drive submerged deep in floodwaters. After the severe tropical storm Kristine last October, life has never been the same again. The rains began to mean destruction, with high-rise waters ready to destroy your home and property again. With climate change now a real threat to humanity, the call is to adapt and change, go back to basics. Or suffer the wrath of a storm and perish.


I believe it is time for Bicol, the country’s disaster-prone region, to redesign, reinvent, reimagine, and make a radical paradigm shift towards a change of mindsets in development planning, away from the old conventional plans that have failed for generations and never change anything for the better. Our generation should be ready to adapt to new ideas and best practices around the globe; who does not want change? It is time to realize a big strategic master plan for comprehensive urban and urban development to address flooding and prevent further destruction.


In Bicol, it should start with Camarines Sur and Naga City, the region’s premier urban city and the most devastated at the height of Kristine last October. Elections coming, and this can be the main agenda; without it, any development cannot proceed well. We have finite land resources, a rapid population rise, and more people going to the cities. There should be decongestion rather than congestion. Planning should be comprehensive and integrated where human activities are 24-hour activity centers  - work, dine, shop, learn with health care and wellness, an urban life more liveable, bikeable, workable, safe, and better lighted: clean waterways, adequate drainage system, no flooding.  


I just had an interesting and rather lengthy conversation with top urban development planner and architect Jun Palafox, Harvard educated, who innovates more and gained fame when he led an international team that turned Dubai from a vast desert into 1977 a garden city and a first world-class city in 10 years! How would you address Bicol’s perennial flooding and solve disaster woes? He said a big master plan should include a comprehensive development plan, including land-use zoning, transportation infrastructure disaster preparedness, and infrastructure that consists of roads, drainage, flood control, technology, and other infrastructure needed to stop the source of flooding. Jun, who has led a vigorous campaign to update the Philippines’ urban landscapes for the future, said he had gone to Naga City twice upon invitation for unexplained reasons; talks fizzled out. The times call for radical change in Bicol.


It had been a long time, before the pandemic, since we last met. My late Kuya Dante, the anti-crime and anti-corruption street parliamentarian, introduced me to him, and we reconnected last night. He is not only a proponent of progressive and green development, designing out of the conventional architectural box for a better connected, safe, healthy, and responsive urban architectural design. Jun is also very vocal about combining green development with good governance. He said there are three kinds of infra: progressive, referring to airports and seaports; heart infra, referring to roads and seaways; and soft infra, referring to the ease of doing business.  The last is a bit problematic with a lack of budget, or if there is a budget, planning is not aligned with the vision of the clients, or problems of bureaucratic red tape and corruption are significant obstacles to good development planning.


Jun advocates green architecture, buildings, housing, jobs, and transportation for sustainable development. No to superficial planning. This century is the RE century, he said in one of his talks: Re to reimagine, redesign, re-engineer, renew, redesign, reduce, reuse, and recycle for urban renaissance. He has shown we can do it. He did it in Dubai, where the Royal Family hired him as an architect and urban planner with an international team of experts who dredged the silted and transformed it into a top, world-class, state-of-the-art country. He cited Brazil with a city council made up of Engineers, planners, and architects in government who developed cities into one of the most sustainable urban cities. He mentioned Golgotha in Colombia, Barcelona in Spain, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands with more walkable spaces, vertical housing and buildings, no floods, clean waterways,  and the remarkable transformation in China and others now developing and reinventing themselves into vertical and open cities—and sponge cities in flood-prone areas. We stop copying erroneously from the West, where the mode of conveyance is more designed for automobiles, not for walking and enjoying the open spaces for a more healthy and liveable life, business, and wellness. Climate change adaptation is the best urban development practice.


The key is green development: comprehensive land use and zoning, mobility, tourism planning, and disaster preparedness to become a smart city for the future. Sustainable development should involve inclusionary zoning. Effective drainage planning. Green development means more open spaces, not more roads. Open spaces are the lungs of the city. Use of renewable energy like solar power. There should be more elevated walkways, housing, good public transportation planning with “People first” as a policy before vehicles, widening roads for more walkable areas, more vertical housing and buildings, with edible gardens, interconnected, friendly to PWD, women, and seniors.


I promised Jun that we would continue with the conversations and plan to involve more stakeholders in inclusive development planning and actions especially for Bicol. The government is a primary mover, alongside the people and I pray a master plan and action are soon to come.

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