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When
Manila Mayor Lito Atienza came up with a novel project
that sought to transform Roxas Boulevard into a tourist
destination, everyone thought it was just political
grandstanding. But with the city’s income tripling from
P2 billion to P6 billion, thanks in part to the urban
renewal project, every municipal or city mayor in the
Philippines is now trying to replicate the same
innovation that Mayor Atienza implemented in the city.
Dubbed
the Baywalk Project, the strip of land that used to be a
no-man’s land, is now teeming with neon lights and with
tourists wanting to savor food, listen to music or
otherwise watch the famed Manila Bay sunset.
Now, it
is not only every Sunday that Baywalk has attracted
hordes of tourists or employees wanting to just enjoy
the scenery, the night air and the food. Every night,
the Baywalk area attracts men and women from all walks
of life. There is a buzz of business activity ranging
from a side-open shuttle that disgorges tourists along
the stretch of
Roxas Boulevard
up to Kalaw Street and around the Cultural Center area
to the kiosks that offer different kinds of food. The
place is teeming with income-generating projects for the
city.
Mayor
Atienza succeeded in his urban renewal project that
brought with it a new focus and thrust in the tourism
potential of the city. It was a tourism play, after all,
and this could have come about because the mayor dared
to subject the Baywalk area from a different
perspective. Tourism, after all, earns for the city, an
unquantifiable sum as it generates goodwill and
additional business that arises from satisfied visitors
to Roxas Boulevard.
We
understand that even the pricing of the beer sold in the
area has a floor price as a marketing strategy for the
kind of clientele that the area wants to patronize the
food kiosks.
It is no
wonder then that the mayor wants to get back the city’s
properties that were taken by the national government
during the time of the late President Marcos.
In the
inaugural lecture of the Quijano de Manila (QDM)
Foundation at the Cherry Blossoms, the mayor bared the
city government’s plan to get back ownership of the
Rizal Memorial Coliseum, the Intramuros area and the
Metropolitan Theater. With the success of the Baywalk
project, we are sure that these three properties, when
placed under the urban renewal plan of the city
government, can have its own taste of success as a
tourism destination.
The
return of the properties could further expand the
tourism corridor that right now is limited to the
Baywalk area and parts of the Aristocrat environs. It
could mean that the city could tap into additional
revenues that are ringing in in the Roxas Boulevard
sunset strip. Imagine stretching the Baywalk tourism
project down to the Intramuros golf club and up to the
Rizal Memorial Coliseum area. That would mean more
tourism receipts for the city that could trickle down to
the city’s constituents in terms of further expanding
the urban renewal concept.
The
mayor unveiled the plan to retake the said properties
during the QDM Foundation symposium, a fitting inaugural
for a forum that aims to be different. A brainchild of
this paper’s founding light, Ambassador Antonio Cabangon
Chua, the forum seeks to have a monthly meeting, with a
mover or shaker in or out of the government expounding
on a chosen topic and from where a synthesis of ideas
can come about arising from a healthy exchange of
opinions from those invited to be part of the
discussion.
QDM
Foundation was organized to perpetuate the memory of the
country’s finest writer and one of its foremost
journalists, Nick Joaquin, who elevated, as per
columnist-writer Adrian Cristobal, “the journalistic
interview to new heights.”
Ambassador Chua is a long-time friend of Mr. Joaquin who
saw through the birthing pains of the revitalized
Philippine Graphic that featured literary works, one of
the conditions that Mr. Joaquin set forth for him to sit
as publisher and editor of the magazine.
Thus, as
part of its vision, the foundation will champion the
continuing development and enrichment of the Philippine
media and the creative arts, which Mr. Joaquin had
vigorously pushed in his lifetime, while coming up with
a forum from where issues could be dissected at length
to further enrich both sides.
Also,
the foundation shall establish Awards of Excellence to
individuals, firms and activities that have helped
foster the aims and goals of the foundation. In a way,
the legacy of Mr. Joaquin would be perpetuated with the
forum and other activities of the foundation, a fitting
tribute to a man of letters.
E-mail:hugagni@yahoo.com. |
