“Decay” imminent if overcrowding continues

August 15, 2020 Metro BLISTT

Baguio City’s “decay” is imminent queuing from population growth vis-a-vis what remains of its natural resources, the Baguio City Planning and Development Office (CPDO) has admitted.
Arch. Donna Tabangin, coordinator of the city’s PDO acknowledged before a meeting of city managers presided over by Mayor Benjamin Magalong, ‘Baguio has long breached its carrying capacity, that is, the number of people that the City can support without environmental degradation.’
As of 2010, the city’s open spaces, watersheds and green covers have already been exhausted, Tabangin said. To emphasize where the city is at now she said, “We used to have water almost every day.”
“Now, we are lucky if we get water twice or thrice a week,” Tabangin declared. “Is this the legacy we want the next generations to inherit from us?” The CPDO also noted decreasing spaces for comfortable living, which include housing areas and easements due to the constant increase in the city’s population.
A hundred and twenty five years hence, she warned, there may not be enough space for people to live in comfortably. Baguio City was built by the Americans for 25,000 people only in 1908.
Population to this bustling city has grown to almost 300,000 more than a hundred years later. Overpopulation is being blamed by Tabangin as causing the city’s difficulty in solving traffic woes, water pollution and waste disposal problems.
The CPDO’s observations are based on data gathered from United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), and the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR).
On an optimistic note however, Baguio can adapt to the changing times, Tabangin said, urging, “We have to be creative and innovative.”
Ace Alegre