“Dumaguete has changed!” That was a common comment among alumni, visitors and guests who came from around the world to attend the 116th Founders Week of Silliman University.
Many of them had beautiful things to say about Dumaguete. It’s easy for the laid back pace of life and the easy and gentle demeanor of the people to disarm you. “You’re lucky you live here!” is an oft-heard visitor comment to locals.
There were not-so-beautiful things that visitors saw during their visit and we don’t quite comment on them, hoping that these problems will take care of themselves sooner or later. One is the garbage problem. Garbage collection has been slow and irregular of late. Blame this on the lack of garbage trucks to make the rounds. We do hope that the two totally brand new garbage trucks that were inaugurated by the City last week will be put to good use very soon.
We still have problems with our open dumpsite. The Department of Environment wants it closed and much as we want it closed to avoid the stench of garbage in barangay Candau-ay and its environs, we are still stuck with finding an alternative.
There’s the problem of traffic law enforcement, as well. Vehicles park on no-parking zones or motorcycles and cars park on each other’s designated parking spaces. On this note, we hope there would be more traffic law enforcers that would take care of the many driving irritants off the road.
We may not immediately recognize this as a problem but noise pollution is starting to become very common. We have noisy motorcycles, chain saws, and yes, even the unregulated “Sing-along” places which operate without soundproofing. There is already a law to prevent this but there’s no one around to enforce it.
But by, and large, we find ways of adapting to the situation. That’s probably why instead of complaining about the lack of parking spaces, we see a lot of illegally parked vehicles because motorists simply park anywhere they want to. And that’s also probably where there are a lot of “home-made” no-parking signs that are sprouting on our streets. Some put rocks or chairs on choice parking spaces, just to make a point.
So, we survive manage by making do and making the best of what we can.
In many ways, living in Dumaguete, or Negros Oriental, for that matter, can be like living a dream. Others go places just to climb mountains. Others travel to go scuba diving. Others go somewhere to play golf. Others go somewhere to go to the beach. We, on the other hand, don’t have to go anywhere to do that, because we have them all right here! As the new slogan of the provincial tourism office puts it, “this is how you want to live!”