City Mouse Country Mouse

During Holy Week, many people take the opportunity to return to their families in the provinces on the long weekend. It gets really nice and quiet in the city as a result.

When trying to come up with something to write, I made the terrible mistake of browsing Facebook for ideas. There was a minor fuss about some Facebook posts by city slickers sarcastically quipping about how the "main characters" have all gone home to the provinces. Honestly, I didn't and still don't know what this meant exactly. I could only guess that people in the city don't like people from the province? If that's the case, I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

Sometimes I think that most of my negative opinions and beliefs about the Filipino character come from the fact that I live in a city. To live in the city is to be surrounded by strangers. That's when you really learn what "low-trust society" means. You can't trust anyone around here. But could things be different in some stereotypical "barrio" in the hills where everyone knows everyone? 

I can't help but notice this tendency, which I am also guilty of, to inflate the goings on in the city with the general condition of the rest of the province. It's even worse for a metropolis like Manila where happenings there are taken as the concern of the whole country. 

I can think of two reasons why cities are prioritized by the government and by the media. The first reason is that democracy is essentially a numbers game. Naturally, the place with more people gets more attention. The issues of the city seem more important since the voice of the people is just louder. 

The second reason is that cities are more developed in terms of infrastructure. It's easier for the government and mass media to operate in a place with transportation and communication networks. The provinces and far-flung places meanwhile, are notoriously neglected. Are they neglected because they are undeveloped or undeveloped because they are neglected? Regardless, the government can easily operate in the city and since politicians don't like to work too hard, they concentrate their efforts here. This also relates neatly to the first reason, that is, that there's more voters in the city.

Is the enmity between city folk and provincial folk real? I think it exists to some degree - the term "imperial Manila" didn't arise from nowhere. It's not as serious as outright hatred, though. It's more about the fact that you need to go to the city to avail of services or to find a high paying job. In my opinion, city folk have no right to complain about provincial folk coming in to inconvenience them with their presence. I'm willing to bet money that, if given the choice, people would rather not go to some hellhole like Manila to process their papers or whatever if the same could be done in their hometown. It's just another consequence of poor development and government neglect. The people have no choice. 

The "city versus province" paradigm is just another fact of life. 

Underwater

Let me tell a funny story.

The Koreans had a problem. They had a whole load of highly toxic coal ash and nowhere to put it. The province of Cebu agreed to let them dump it here. What's a little toxic waste going to hurt anybody anyway? So the province purchased several hectares of land from the estate of Balili.

Here's the problem. Environmental groups were paying real close attention to this deal and after some scrutiny, they discovered that almost all of the lands purchased were submerged. What this means is that somehow the province just did not know. Somehow this deal passed through the provincial board and all other prerequisite committees without anyone actually having seen the lots with a small environmentalist group doing their job for them. No surveys, no nothing apparently. It looks like everyone was asleep on the job. Everyone. Sometimes I wonder how our officials manage to breathe.

What this looks like is that someone was trying to make a fast buck hoping nobody would notice. The cost of the lots were quite high at about 98.9 million pesos compared to about 25 million peso down payment the Koreans gave us. Not only does it look like someone was out to make money on overpriced lots but also that the toxic coal ash dump deal wasn't worth it.

Naturally our dear, sweet, do-no-wrong Governor is in a lot of hot swamp water for this scandal. She apologized but whatever. What's done is done. See, the submerged lots were titled. Before, the issue was brought up that the titles for underwater land should be reviewed by court for being, I don't know, stupid? Nobody raised the issue. Now, there's not much the province can do. For all intents and purposes, there was nothing wrong with the deal. If they go to court, good luck trying to prove fraud by the estate. Either way, the province would look extremely negligent and even stupider than they do now.

Naturally, the Governor's archenemy the Mayor has been hammering away at this issue non stop. Finally he has real ammo against the Governor. He's very happy. Usually, he's only this happy when criminals get shot on their way out of prison.