It happens frequently that friends and friends of friends come to Dumaguete on holiday, or if on a working trip here, add on a day or two to visit. I can take them to my place in Valencia and to Forest Camp, go for a hike in the hills, or if it’s a Sunday, walk with them in the Valencia farmers’ market and among the ornamental plant sellers, or we can go to a beach resort outside the city.
It’s more difficult to know where to take them in Dumaguete itself. To restaurants, of course, but for people who like to see the town on foot, there isn’t really a pleasant and attractive area to walk in the City.
It’s the boulevard that should be the City’s major tourism asset, offering as it does the lovely view of the sea and the nearby islands.
However, the sad state of the vegetation along the seafront (not to mention the incessant traffic noise) seriously diminishes the pleasure.
At present in the northern half of the walk, there are four large empty patches where trees once stood, scraggly with weeds and grass, the small assortment of plants and trees is pathetic, and in the beds along the new expanded walkway towards the port, nondescript plants seem to have just been plunked in with no care for design or aesthetics.
Surely the City can do better, and make this an attractive walk.
There’s really bad news, too: It seems that the magnificent old acacias have been examined by experts, and found to be dying. The trees are old, of course, but the sins of past administrations are also taking their toll.
Grade changes were made that undermine the survival of the trees, namely, raising the level of soil or backfill around the original root system level (to make the ugly concrete seating around the tree.)
Also, for years, hundreds of large nails were driven into the tree trunks to attach lights or signs. At the time, concerned citizens loudly voiced their concern for the trees, all to no avail, and in the meantime, some trees have died. There was talk then of replacement planting, but nothing was done.
The good news is that Tourism Officer Jackie Antonio says that the new administration has plans to do something about the boulevard, and Quezon Park as well, towards making them altogether more attractive and structurally sounder.
Known landscape architects and town planners are being consulted. But the catch, as always, is the cost of such projects, and the long delays before resources are found.
As it may be a while until that happens, couldn’t even temporary improvements be made for the boulevard with attractive plants, small trees in tubs, and benches (Google: park benches), all of which wouldn’t entail significant cost?
The hotel and restaurant sector should be persuaded to support a small endeavor like that to enhance the City’s best asset, and to promote their own business interests.
Beyond the boulevard, everyone knows what makes walking in the City less than attractive, and in fact, downright unpleasant, and not just for tourists: garbage in the streets, sidewalks blocked by motorcycles or other vehicles, noise, the dirty look of the City with every electric pole or wall plastered with layers of advertising posters and handbills.
Here’s where barangay personnel (and others) should be mobilized: to scrub the City clean of all that visual pollution.
Do they even know that Noreco does not allow advertising material on their poles?
As to Quezon Park which could be a pleasant public garden, it’s hardly a park in the sense of trees, ornamental plants, flower beds, and pretty areas to sit, but a not particularly attractive open space for public and commercial activities.
It’s good to know that this administration has major improvement plans for the park, too.
And as the City continues on its course of rapid urbanization, perhaps a forward-looking new administration will see the value of acquiring land (soliciting a land donation?) to create a new public garden for the enjoyment and well-being of the tourists and retirees that there’s so much talk of attracting, but ultimately, for local residents, too.
Many Asian cities have such public gardens; Kuala Lumpur’s that I’ve mentioned in this space before is right in the middle of town. It is large, of course, with a botanical garden, ponds, orchid and hibiscus gardens, bird and butterfly areas.
But even the very small Washington Sycip garden in Makati is a pleasure to walk around in.
Why shouldn’t Dumaguete, serious about promoting tourism and mindful of its people’s well-being, work towards creating a garden?
I can see it now… a green haven with pathways among plants, flowers, and trees which shouldn’t be an impossible dream if public and private resources were to be mobilized .
Still, the more immediately doable and urgent project is the improvement of the walk along the boulevard.
It’s not worthy of Dumaguete to leave it in its present state.
_______________________________
Author’s email: h.cecilia7@gmail.com
