Dumaguete: Urbanization through reclamation?

Local government executives who are exerting extra efforts to generate their own revenue by establishing income generating activities must be commended. At least, they are doing what the local government code mandated them to do, “to establish public economic enterprises to generate local resources aside from traditional sources of funds – the Internal Revenue Allotment.”

Markedly, we see some LGUs owning and running bus terminals, abattoirs, fish ports, etc.  So prevalent, in the rural towns and small cities, these kinds of income generating activities do not only benefit the LGUs per se but the residents as well. While some metropolises (or highly urbanized cities) are also running these kinds of undertakings, they are also into multibillion projects with the private sectors via joint venture agreements. The most popular of which are reclamation projects.

Indeed, reclamation projects are done not just today where the world already has almost 8 billion inhabitants but even in the 1600s when it was home to just 554 million. Completed in 1612, one of the biggest reclamation projects was the Beemster Polder in the Netherlands. It reclaimed 7,000 hectares of land at that time. As the name suggests, it was a polder to protect them from seawater intrusion as about 65% of the country would be under water at high tide.  Not because of urbanization.

Also, Hong Kong, during the colonial era in 1890, had its 24-hectare Prava Reclamation Scheme. As years went by, several countries adopted it too. Singapore was one of them.   Obviously, asSingapore, just like Hong Kong, is too tiny an island that it needed more space for its growing population and urbanization.

Today, in the country, there are completed reclamation projects and there are several hundreds more in the pipeline. While some are done in highly urbanized areas, surprisingly, other smaller towns and cities do plan to have them too.

Yes, Cebu City has its North Reclamation Area and South Road Properties. Mandaue City has its own too. Soon, the town of Cordova and Lapulapu City will have theirs too.  Knowing fully well that Metro Cebu has become a melting pot, the completed projects may justify it a bit and the future ones might reinforce the direction we take.

Maybe, because of these projects supposed “successes”, other growing cities in the neighboring provinces are going for it too.

Dumaguete City, for one, is planning to undertake a P23 billion, 174-hectare project coastal reclamation project. Supposedly, if completed, it would pave the way for a “Smart City.”  As such, it shall be complete with “5G technology, high-rise buildings, malls, waste water treatment facilities and other businesses aimed at generating jobs and pump-priming the local economy.”

Well, that’s good, if realized. But why have this so called “Smart City” in a reclaimed area, we may ask. Remember, that apart from Netherlands’ reason, all successful reclamation projects (because many have failed) were undertaken because of the lack of urban space and new urban land for real estate development. So that, we may ask, is Dumaguete really urban, in the first place. If it is, are their no more spaces available for such development?  If there is none, what about in the nearby cities or town. Why not let it spillover to these LGUs.

If Dumaguete’s LGU executives wish to understand reclamation projects, they should take the Cebu experience. Cebu City’s North Reclamation Area, for one, was developed in the 1960s and completed in the 1970s. In the 1980s nothing stood in the area except for a few warehouses, container yards, and an assemblage of informal settlers. It was only in the early 1990s, when SM City Cebu was built, that there were movements in the area. Despite its presence, however, there still remains vast swatches of vacant lots. Well, owned by speculators not locators.

Same is true with Mandaue’s reclamation project and the Cebu City’s South Reclamation Project. Until today, these are not filled up the way project proponents envisioned them to be.

On the other hand, the Province of Cebu through then Gov. Lito Osmeña had a successful joint venture with the Ayalas of Cebu’s lot in establishing the now revered Cebu Asiatown IT Park. Obviously, not a reclaimed area. Put his decision to sell the then Club Filipino golf course (now, the bustling Cebu Business Park) to the Ayalas in the mix, then, that will all wrap up the argument. Notably, these developments were made years later than the reclaimed areas.

If they insist to go ahead because they believe that having a reclamation project is an urban “status symbol”, then, they must consider what the country’s most revered urban planner Architect Felino A. Palafox, Jr. said, “One cannot resort to reclamation just because it is the most convenient solution toward a lack of urban space and new urban land for real estate development when there are still potential areas that can be developed elsewhere in the metropolis. Reclamation should only be considered as the last resort.”