Granting the cityhood of Tabuk to build a city

“The city, as one finds it in history, is the point of maximum concentration for the power and culture of a community. It is the place where the diffused rays of many separate beams of life fall into focus, with gains in both social effectiveness and significance. The city is the form and symbol of an integrated social relationship: it is the seat of the temple, the market, the hall of justice, the academy of learning. Here in the city the goods of civilization are multiplied and manifolded; here is where human experience is transformed into viable signs, symbols, patterns of conduct, systems of order. Here is where the issues of civilization are focused: here too, ritual passes on occasion into the active drama of a fully differentiated and self-conscious society.” from the Introduction to The Culture of Cities, 1938.

Today people think of a city with overcrowded structures and towers, where business is everywhere and every human need is provided. But what really our needs? Building a city is like building a house for our family. We start to look for a location, We say what we want and let Architects do the floor plan and house design, we finance for the construction, and let engineers and carpenters do the construction. Now we want to build a green city and one of the perfect location is Tabuk .Look at Tabuk today, we have 60m wide streets, wide land area to be transformed, very small numbers of squatters to be relocated and the perfect place to build a city.

Tabuk should be granted cityhood inorder for its dream to achieve a perfect city in harmony with the people and nature. Urban Planning and zoning had already been started in Tabuk, where Commercial areas, Agricultural Lands, Schools and churches, roads and drainages, recreational etc. are concentrated into one ideal site. If we call it a floor plan in architecture, it is Urban Master Plan in a city to be built. Imagine building a house and sketch the floor plans afterwards. Imagine designing a perfect Urban Master Plan in a city that is overcrowded and over populated, where many structures exist. This is the symbol of stupidity of some of the league of cities in the Philippines, and yet they claimed that they are cities, where squatters are everywhere, a city that is a flood zone because they didn’t even plan for a drainage system, a city of crime and violence, a city of prostitutes, a city whose sidewalks are the bed of its citizen during the night, a city of garbage. They are the cities of demolition and creation, where they construct projects and demolished it afterwards. These are the modern scammers because they destroy and build. Some of these cities have even been granted fertilizers while in fact they don’t have any agricultural lands; they are giving mercy to the street people and attract some other more from provinces. In short and simple language “a city of immorality and the symbol of poverty”. These are the problems of some big cities in the Philippines and the only solution is to create more cities, to provide the people with more opportunities and not to overcrowd them and let them die in hunger. These are the problems Tabuk City is looking forward to avoid.

Tabuk had already started to build a city and yet this League of Cities are the torns and obstacles for the people of Tabuk to achieve a peaceful and successful life. We have already our Urban master plan, we have engineers, architects, contractors and workers, but we don’t have the budget to continue the implementation if we lost our cityhood. It is not too late for the Supreme Court to reverse its decision, we don’t want Tabuk grow bigger and bigger without such planning and financing. We don’t want Tabuk be granted cityhood when illegal settlers and businessman flocks the Municipality of Tabuk and establish their businesses wherever they want The income of Municipalities should not be a basis, but of course it was the law. However it is not a guarantee to the people that high income cities have the most prosperous and successful citizens. Where there are prostitutes, criminals, street children, squatters, the poorest of the poor, and the elite of the elites, that is the impression of other cities in the Philippines.

With a 6-5 votes from justices The Supreme Court (SC) declared unconstitutional the 16 Cityhood Laws that were enacted by Congress to convert 16 towns into cities. This is an indication that our laws are not clear. They are made to be opinionated and each justices has its own interpretation of the law.

"Since the law is clear, plain and unambiguous that any municipality desiring to convert into a city must meet the increased income requirement, there is no reason to go beyond the letter of the law in applying Section 450 of the Local Government Code, as amended by R.A. 9009," the SC pointed out.

When the law is clear it should have been a unanimous decision. They should stop using the Phrase “When the Law is clear” because there are no clear laws after all. Each individual has its own opinion and interpretation of the law.

Lets give Tabuk a chance, in the future we will be very proud, head up and shout “WE BUILD THIS CITY!!”