http://glenlorn2.multiply.com/photos/album/2
http://glenlorn2.multiply.com/photos/album/3
(or just click on the active title to get to the plans)
Unconsciously, this perhaps was what guided Lorna, David and myself to somehow pursue this type of lifestyle in Imus, Cavite. Living in the town of Imus is like having a fresh start in life. It has not been easy but the amount of time, work and patience we’ve invested in this place, looking back after twelve years, is worth the try. New acquaintances with farmers and other professionals and craftsmen allow us to experience the cross-section of the Filipino society. People from all walks of life would knock at our door to either offer “taho” (soy bean flan), fish balls on a stick, “pan de sal” (bread for breakfast), accompanied by a home-made noisy trumpet, common plastic wares and Tupperware, cult or religion. Vendors carrying heavy objects as beds, four season mirrors, house wares and even services that they can perform right at your doorstep like umbrella repair, tools sharpening, shoe-shine, and many others. Folks here seem to have all the time in the world. Just say. . hi! . . to a farmer who is on his way to his farm and he will stop to even spend the rest of his day with you much more if you offer him something to intoxicate him with. I offer coffee instead, most of the time and something of Lorna’s baking experimentation for the day. Twelve years have passed hardly noticing it, just as my son David is about to reach the same for he was a baby when we got here. David enjoys both worlds for we also find time on weekends to visit our other place in BF Homes where people behave differently
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I just finished taking digital photos of sketches that were drawn by an architect-friend Edgar Saban, bringing into plan my basic concept of an ideal community. Of course, this is tentative for my purpose is merely to elicit response from those who are willing to pitch in their ideas in helping us come up with a better concept-plan that would help bring positive changes in the community. The following photos are followed with a more formal concept-article that had started but have been revised by some professional friends like ABM Rod Morales (PAGCOR), Arch. Edgar Saban, Art Critic Cid Reyes and Mon Recto (President of LTFP). My special thanks to them for, at least, believing that my concept may perhaps work if given the chance and given attention to, by people who think less of themselves and who are in a position to help make it happen. We’ve somehow agreed that the article’s title, should carry the word ideal for the simple reason that we all must really start from the ideal and not end achieving the ideal. In short, there really shouldn’t be compromises to achieve the ideal goal. At the same time, it also carries the word Filipino, thinking more of the present plight of the striving Filipinos. My short experience, after trying to make this concept-plan get started, tells me that this is really not an easy thing to do. This effort requires the cooperation of real-state developers, the government, the private sectors and most especially, the landowners.
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Development has its price. But, if communities are planned and realized idealistically, can lead to better yield. People still need to see and feel some amount of freshness in life. Clean air and green surroundings. We can still do this with the rest of uncultivated large mass of land (I had seen from a Hewey chopper). The Grid Plan plan can help decongest our city centers. We can live harmoniously with the rest of the Filipino people and the world. The government’s problems with the rebels will automatically cease once the welfare of the families’ needs of the rebels are met. They are only fighting for the future of their children, for corruption and non-direction in government policies to stop. Joy and peace will never be felt in our native land until we have given direction and purpose for the smallest Filipino. I may have become a successful businessman and have everything I wanted in this world, but sees my neighbors miserable and hungry…. . would I be happy?
This concept takes into consideration the poor, the middle-class and the rich. All sectors of society will eventually benefit from the plan. If implemented successfully, there will no longer be a “poor” sector in the community. I have prepared a “fifty to a hundred hectare grid plan”, a good size for a pilot project, showing the locations where condensed versions of the virgin forest or marshlands, educational, agricultural, residential and commercial areas should be. Agricultural areas need not be a well-irrigated location because of recent breakthroughs in the agricultural approaches such as in “hydroponics’”, introduced and presently practiced in Israel and some parts of Europe. Well irrigated areas may not have any need of this but the use of modern techniques hastens quality and harvest ,although, both may be applied to their maximum advantage. The Grid Plan, as I call it, assumes that every spot in the Philippines will eventually be developed for its inhabitants, like what happened to a country like Germany and many other European and Western countries.
Realizing their mistakes, they have difficulties reinventing the system for they seem to have started a machine that they themselves cannot stop. In this post cold war era, unlike these technological countries, the Philippines still has the option to shift gears and do things ideally from the start, instead of following their footsteps. The Grid Plan allows rural and urban planners to strike a balance despite future progress in nationwide business, infrastructure and real-state development, for each module is a balanced plan that is part of the more complete and bigger plan. The Grid Plan will work because it is after the fulfillment of every individual and his chosen vocation as much as it is there to enhance the goals of present business communities. If this meaningful level is achieved in a small scale, and is eventually magnified to a global scale, humans can now dream further and start thinking about inhabiting the next possible planet instead of destroying our own. Availing of the Grid Plan, the individual need not step on one stone to get to the other but directly hones his chosen craft or vocation, for the system directly helps and guides him to fulfill his vocation. The Grid plan is a total concept that is not really alien to most Filipinos. There may be slight adjustments from their present practices, both in their culture and traditions. But with the proper guidance from the government, church-related institutions and the private sector, we can set a definite direction to strike a balance both in man’s own system and that of nature and man’s environment.
As the plan shows, the workers who would build such communities will temporarily live in dormitories. They will work on weekdays but will be with their families on weekends. Eventually, the plan will allow them to become part of the community. These self-sufficient communities will not only help ease the traffic in the city centers but will compliment the needs of the present business centers. These communities will further help speed up production.
By now, man has realized the mistakes he has done in the past. The “Fast Countries can help the “Slow Countries” put a stop to the mistakes they have committed in the past and redirect the “Slow Countries” to a better goal for the good of all. (to be continued)
