Baguio Day and Baguio Stone

Today is Baguio Day.

Below are two images of Baguio stone in the same city but in different locations.

This is Baguio stone.

Below, is Baguio stone after city government beautification of the public market.

To be fair, they painted over this Baguio stone pillar because it was charred black after the market fire of March 2009. Still, I can't help but wonder, couldn't there have been some other way to treat it so that it's natural beauty could shine through again? So that people could look directly at a part of our heritage, these being the original pillars of the old stone market that rose and thrived here one year before Baguio became a chartered city? Couldn't the city and market officials have done some research on treating the Baguio stone, instead of simply painting over the problem?

Certainly, we who live in Baguio have much to be grateful for; there is still plenty to love about life in this city. But I give you this Baguio stone as a metaphor for the way our elected officials seem to think and operate, for the way they choose to "transform" our city. If we don't speak up and make ourselves very clear about what we love about Baguio, they are going to "modernize", cement, "beautify", world-class-my-ass and whitewash our heritage beyond recognition.

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