- Details
- Category: Properties
- 08 Apr 2014
- Written by Amor Maclang
MUCH has been said about the lack of decent urban planning in Metro Manila that has led to a string of major problems during the recent years. In fact, a few urban planners have described Metro Manila as a poster boy of what a badly planned city is. Sad but it would be hard to disprove this blatant fact.
Experts have repeatedly fired a warning about the huge number of decades-old buildings scattered around the metropolis that have yet to be refitted to withstand any possible earthquake that can strike without warning. Idle lands, too, that could have been used to improve road networks or create green spaces where urban individuals can relax and breathe, have instead been inhabited by informal settlers. Flooding also continues to wreak havoc in the entire Metro Manila, too, and is often attributed to improper waste disposal and management, clogged waterways, or the lack of support facilities and infrastructures.
All of these have painted an unfortunate reality that often goes unnoticed—a sad truth that we Filipinos have come to accept as a normal part of everyday life. However, the question that still hangs over our heads is this: Is there still something we can do to reverse the situation?
The problem with urban planning
There’s no need to spend millions of pesos on research just to find out what we already know. One only has to look out to see that buses are belching smoke, squatting isn’t addressed, and that crime is everywhere.
This was the insight shared by my good friend, renowned Filipino architect and BluPrint Magazine Editor in Chief Paulo Alcazaren, when he graced the recently concluded Manila Fame 2014 spearheaded by the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (Citem), the export marketing arm of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
In his talk, Alcazaren described the condition of Metro Manila as a “total mayhem,” and emphasized the critical need to have an overarching authority that will regulate physical development in Metro Manila and other future “megacities.”
“We need to acknowledge the extent of the degradation of our urban and rural environments. Next, we need to institute the change in paradigms of governance. Metro Manila should be governed as a province, rather than individual kingdoms with 17 different kings and queens who never talk to each other.”
“Green ordinances end at its city’s boundaries, but criminals will not. Air pollution affects everyone. It doesn’t matter how many millions of pesos you spend on a condominium at Bonifacio Global City, for example, because when you step out, you breathe the same air. We really need a total paradigm shift. We have to acknowledge that we’re in a total mess,” added Alcazaren.
The goal of proper physical planning, Alcazaren noted in another post, is to “create appropriate and sustainable settings for human activity based on promoting the ideal balance between built environment [structures and infrastructure] and natural environment [green, open spaces].”
Design: Its role and impact
Design plays a crucial role in helping raise the standards of local urban developments, particularly in Metro Manila, where the need for an efficient urban master plan has become increasingly alarming over the last few years.
“The government, through Citem, should expand the coverage of design beyond just furniture, décor and crafts. We need to include architecture and its allied fields. Singapore has done this before, and now Singapore architects are all over the world,” Alcazaren shared. “We could’ve gone ahead of them if we did this back in the 1970s. Now, they’re ahead because their government has been supporting and pushing its architects forward.”
Another thing I learned from him was the glaring need to support Filipino architecture to help elevate its concepts and ideas to the consciousness of the general public. This can be done through consistent partnerships with Filipino architects who have, as he said, greater understanding of the local perspective of urban developments.
“How can you design for Filipinos if you don’t understand Filipino culture? If you’re not married to one? If you don’t eat Filipino food? If you haven’t lived in Manila for at least 10 years? We have to do this ourselves. As Kenneth Cobonpue and his lot have proven, with the help of Citem and the DTI, we can do it, and we must push it beyond furniture and furnishings,” he said.
All of these insights only seek to encourage local real-estate developers to do their part in helping promote home-grown concepts and ideas to address continuously growing problems in the local real-estate development scene. The idea of intelligent design is not only to provide architectures and developments with sound aesthetics but, more important, to lead us toward a more sustainable future.
“Good design is good business. Bad design is when you try to apply a template from overseas here, and you’re left with something unsustainable in terms of public space, in terms of cultural compatibility, and even aesthetics. Good design is good business, and good business is good design,” concluded Alcazaren.
THE may have lost the last presidential elections and wallowed through the dirt of politics, but former senator, incumbent president of the Nacionalista Party and entrepreneur Manuel “Manny” Bamba Villar Jr. never for a moment regretted any of it.
Villar earned himself the title “Mr. Sipag at Tiyaga” (Hard Work and Perseverance), which has also served as his slogan and guiding principle in life. He has adopted the advocacies of poverty alleviation and putting roofs over the heads of the homeless, which have been an inspiration to a lot of Filipinos. As a private citizen and businessman, Villar continues to contribute to the real-estate industry wherein he has inspired developers, entrepreneurs, as well as public servants.
IN this age when strong typhoons such as Ondoy and Yolanda are the new normal, the country will have to produce more emergency architects who will also be involved in providing quality infrastructure design against earthquakes, tsunamis among others.
ConEx is the only exhibition that was organized by the group of accredited architects showcasing the best from the country’s well-esteemed architects such as Raul Locsin, Meloy Casas, William Coscolluela, Ed Calma and Budji Layug. 
How safe is Metro Manila for today’s real-estate buyers?