Marilou Guieb
“Air and water know no boundaries.”
This was like a mantra for the late Arch. Joseph Alabanza who conceptualized a system of interlocal cooperation among adjoining towns in his quest for coordinated planning and growth. This concept had the acronym BLIST in the start which was later on expanded to BLISTT
BLISTT stands for Baguio, La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba, and Tublay.
For Alabanza, who served as Baguio’s first city architect in 1957, the geographical contiguity of these towns called for naturally linked and interdependent plans where conceptualizing and adopting together an urban BLISTT strategy would be more feasible than separate town approaches and initiatives.
In 1998 Alabanza formed the National Economic Development Authority – Cordillera where he forged the concept of an interregional cooperation plan.
The BLISTT concept is considered his biggest legacy as director of NEDA,
Shortly after NEDA-CAR was established, the 1990 earthquake happened, and rehabilitation was much needed. The woes of Baguio were also on the rise – such as traffic, garbage, environmental degradation, water shortage, and Alabanza as early as then predicted a scenario such as what the city is suffering now.
Making Baguio rise from the rubble was also a chance to advocate more strongly a BLISTT developmet strategy, emphasizing that whatever happens in Baguio has an impact on neighboring towns and that the city must also start anew in cooperation with its neighbors to solve some of the problems rapid urbanization brings.
“We cannot do it alone,” he said, referring to the rehabilitation of Baguio which must include long-term plans.
Thus an urban BLIST plan was drafted to serve as a handbook for addressing the development of the six towns. But more than this, while the leaders of the towns have formed a governing council for discussing plans, the initial hesitation or apprehension of being at the receiving end of disadvantages rather than benefits, persist, as manifested in the fact that three decades after the Urban BLIST plan was defined, none of its objectives have materialized.
The program though has been instrumental in the making of an inner circumferential road and in the ongoing outer ring road network. But beyond that, intertown cooperation on solid waste management (SWM), how to solve traffic congestion, and decongesting Baguio in general remain a blueprint.
Population is a key issue as this has an impact on every other aspect of quality of life such as sharing of resources, economy, housing requirements, traffic and transportation issues, environment, among others.
“Levels of population will affect the amount of urban pressure on the remaining open spaces and agricultural areas in BLISTT,” an action plan of the BLISTT governing council cited.
According to the EU study, in 1994, the Urban BLIST population (excluding Tublay) was estimated to be 312,000 compared to 242,957 in 1990. If rates of migration and natural increase remain high these numbers could increase to 400,000 people by the year 2000 and 800,000 by 2020. This 2020 figure is nearly twice the existing population of Benguet Province.
In the action plan of the BLISTT as drafted in 2016 by the BLISTT Governing Council, the BLISTT population stood in 2015 at 611, 316, which was then a third of the total population of the Cordillera or 35 percent of the 1, 722, 006 then. BLISTT land area of 142, 649 hectares is 50 percent of Benguet Province.
Baguio had the highest concentration at 345, 366 in 2015, not including transient students and workers, followed by La Trinidad.
With the rapid growth of the BLISTT as the center of economy and education, inmigration is a major concern. In Baguio, 33 percent are Ilocanos, followed by Tagalogs. Migrants from the Visayas rank number eight. (PSA 2015)
The BLISTT interlocal cooperation hopes to achieve a more even dispersion of population in years to come by developing economic and educational centers in the LISTT towns, making them as attractive as Baguio. Historically, universities and economic opportunities have been concentrated in Baguio, beckoning migrants from other CAR provinces and lowlanders to relocate here.
The need for more land for housing will also disperse populations into the adjoining towns as Baguio is bursting at its seams aside from the stricter policies against informal settlements in watersheds and steep cliffs. Encouraging housing development in Sablan, Itogon, Tuba and Tublay will ease pressure on land and water in Baguio and La Trinidad while advancing economic growth in these neighboring areas.
In the 1994 BLIST masterplan or structure plan, to control population congestion in Baguio and La Trinidad, some suggestions ranged from putting a ceiling on number of students in tertiary education to one or more colleges relocating to the ISTT areas.
But it also poses the question, would it be politically, socially, economically or morally acceptable to intervene or impose in such ways?
There has been a resistance in the BLIST masterplan right from its inception because of the perception of the concerned towns that it is merely a ploy by Baguio to move its problems to them – especially its water shortage situation and solid waste management.
These are critical areas for cooperation, but understandably, every town is protective of its resources.
When Alabanza said that air and water know no boundaries, it was in reference that watersheds serve beyond where it stands and rivers flow that no land claim can stop. But there are territorial rights to water sources, and this is where a dialogue for mutual benefits that the BLISTT action plan hopes to achieve.
When the 1994 BLIST was drafted, it identified the Budacao Spring and Waterfalls in Tuba, The Mohawk water sources at Baguio Gold Mines in Itogon, and the Irisan Spring in Sablan as possible answers to the city’s water woes.
Baguio’s terrain makes sourcing scarce and distribution expensive, and with an ever looming population increase, it could consider tapping water from its neighbors. But water wars are now more imminent and should the Baguio Water District exploit the water sources of its neighbors, the question again is, what’s in it for them.
On its serious garbage problem, Baguio has entered into an agreement with the Metro Global Holdings Corp. for a waste to energy project which has also been presented to the LISTT mayors. The plant is to stand on a six-hectare private lot in Sablan. Negotiations and clearances are still ongoing. While the project is a deal between the city and the Metro Global Holdings Corp, Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong is enrolling it in the BLISTT framework.
The 1994 masterplan and the BLISTT action agenda for 2017 to 2019 has also identified tourism as a key concern.
Alabanza, in his many talks on his BLISTT advocacy, said that this is one aspect where Baguio should spread out its tourism advantage to its neighbors by promoting the tourist destinations in these other areas too. He cited camping, farm tours, hiking, mountaineering as main activities that Baguio should promote among its visitors or help develop for its neighbors.
Easing tourism in Baguio becomes even more urgent given a study by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Watershed and Water Resources Research Development and Extension Center (WWRRDEC) which cited that while the city can still accommodate some 679,683 tourists on top of the 1.53 million that came in 2019, its resources are dwindling.
Traffic has also reached its maximum capacity especially on roads leading to tourist attractions, and thereby affecting the quality of life of residents.
“Baguio tourism facilities have breached the threshold by 1,444 structures, WWRRDEC head, Helen Madumba, also said.
The BLISTT Action Agenda has projects proposed covering transportation, water, traffic, tourism and agricultural concerns. There is the BLISTT Agro-Industrial Economic Zone which hopes to build an agricultural production center in Sablan; BLISTT Integrated Terminal Exchange as a staging area for jeepneys; BLISTT Integrated Solid Waste Management.
None of these proposals have been acted on, but that these are now on the table is a positive step that sometime, somewhere along the line, an agreement may be forged. This becomes the value of the BLISTT masterplan of 1994, a lasting legacy of Arch. Alabanza, as it serves as the guiding concept for cooperation among neighboring towns founded on the principles of Complimenting (supporting each other), Converging (towards a common purpose), Cooperating (sharing resources), Collaborating ( working together), and Committing (consistency on words and actions).
The BLISTT Metropolitan Development Authority is also now officially an agency and the search for an administrator is in the works. It is hoped that this will now be an incentive for pending proposals to roll and be acted on. – (This story was produced with support from FYT)