A storm is coming!

It is on its way. I woke up this morning with that inevitable feeling of summer ending. Considering that it has been raining continuously since the end of the Panagbenga - Baguio Flower Festival 2009 in February - this year’s summer season for Baguio and much of the Northern Philippines is an epic fail. The coming storm is just adding salt to the injury.

A major percentage of Baguio’s business income is derived during the tourist months from November to May. The absence of a real summer has shortened that period to November-February, that’s a full 3 months off the tourist season. The hotels and restaurant owners here must feel really squeamish right now. Business on the regular rainy season from June to October isn’t all that good, so this “absence of summer” will surely take its toll on profitability.

It’s hard enough to get your laundry to dry the past few months, and this weird weather patterns are sure to impact much of the tourism industry in the Northern Philippines. I just hope the coming storm wouldn’t make too much material damage and make something bad even worse.

I just have this strange feeling we’ll have “summer” weather this coming July and August in the Philippines.

The day after Earth Day: some thoughts

It’s the day after Earth Day here in Baguio, and the whole city is back to where it was, unmindful of the changing environment around it. For the past 4 years or so, the city’s main thoroughfare - Session Road - has been closed to traffic every Earth Day to make way for children to make pretty chalk drawings on the road. The road closure was also intended to make the air around the Central Business District a little bit cleaner than usual - I find this rather unrealizeic since the adjacent roads and streets are clogged with traffic for the whole day, maybe it’s more “Eco-friendly” not to close Session Road?

Some people would probably dismiss the road closure as another publicity stunt by the City Hall, but I do believe their intentions were clean, if not a bit misguided. Perhaps a scientific measurement of pollutants in the entire business district (not just Session Road) is warranted to compare regular days with Earth Day? The results could be quite interesting.

By now the frequent afternoon downpours have washed away the colorful chalk illustrations in Session Road and the ethnic-inspired concerts are mere echoes in the honking of the jeepneys. Earth Day 2009 has come and gone without teaching much of a real lesson to Baguio’s denizens.

Baguio Centennial Carplates: Where are the numbers?

I recently made a post about the Baguio Centennial Commission improperly using and illegally modifying the Philippine Centennial logo for their own needs. One of the Centennial Memorabilia that has the modified Philippine Centennial logo ribbon are the carplates that are now being used by dozens of vehicles around the country.

The design of the carplates should be considered a crime against humanity, with its gaudy yellow background and less than elegant markings. One major thing missing from these carplates are consecutive numbers: you know, just like real LTO-issued carplates so you can track down where and to who these plates were issued to?

The Baguio Centennial carplates don’t have any numbers. Where are the numbers?

While we can just blame this on an “honest” mistake by the so-called-designer, having no numbers on the plates does mean that there is no real way of accounting for these things that are being sold for a couple thousand pesos. No numbers also mean no real way to know who owns a particular plate, useful for accidents and unforseen problems that may involve the vehicle. Heck! I’d even surmise some wanna-be-bank-robbers could just slap on a pair of Baguio Centennial carplates and get away with the crime!

Not including individual unique numbers to the carplates is a huge oversight. Was this an intentional “mistake”?

Why is the Baguio Centennial Commission using the Philippine Centennial Logo?

Perhaps not content with bastardizing the Butterfly logo for the Baguio Centennial (and then inevitably returning the original logo), it appears that the Baguio Centennial Commission is also using a modified version of the Philippine Centennial Logo in the new Baguio City Business Permits and Centennial Carplates that are being sold. The Philippine Centennial logo features a ribbon in the colors of the Philippine flag, red and blue, the modified version being used by the Centennial Commission in the car plates has the same “100″ ribbon in orange and green and without the sun or other elements of the original Philippine Centennial logo. In the version found in the City Business Permit plates, the “100″ ribbon is in blue and red and with the sun, the stars and other markings for the Philippine Centennial logo has been removed.

I really don’t know what is wrong with the Baguio Centennial Commission for them to act so casually to breaking every copyright and intelletual property rights law. They already made an unauthorized revision to the Butterfly logo of the Baguio Centennial without my permission (eventually returning it after I made a ruckus online and threatening legal action) changing the sunflower into a daisy with a decomposing flower in the center. And now they’re using a logo that was intended for a event in 1998, changing it, and using it for a purpose that it wasn’t intended for? Don’t they have any lawyers (the real competent ones, please) in the Commission that can monitor this illegal activity? I highly doubt if they were given permission to change the Philippine Centennial logo and remove several elements from it.

The behaviour of the Baguio Centennial Commission shows a common Filipino (if not Asian) trait of just taking someone else’s work, changing it for their purpose, make something beautiful ugly, then pretend like nothing happened. Being in a privileged position, and considering that most of the Commission members are senior city citizens, the CenteCom should have known better than to ape such a high-profile logo like that of the Philippine Centennial. People will notice, we are not dumb.

This is another good reason why they shouldn’t get anyone over the age of 50 for the Baguio Bicentennial, for in cases like these, the young people do know better. Shame, shame, shame.

BTW: The narrow-minded individual who banned “Schindler’s List” in the Philippines years ago is a member of the Baguio Centennial Commission. Good grief!