In With The New

They tore down the old public market building several weeks ago. Local town officials have said that the old building was already too dilapidated and had become structurally unsafe. Not only was it an eyesore already, it had become a public hazard and a veritable firetrap. In truth, it had been all of that for years and it is only now that the town government had finally the means and the will to tear what used to be one of Lianga's iconic landmarks.

In its place will soon rise a modern, multimillion peso, two story concrete building complex that will house not only the new public market and a bus and jeepney terminal but also spaces for commercial and business establishments. Funded by a local government loan, it will be the first major public building project this municipality will have undertaken in almost a decade.

The old public market was constructed in the 1960's. Wood which was plentiful and cheap during the heyday of the local logging industry was chiefly used for most of the structure. The architecture was simple, intuitive and nondescript as was common in the public buildings and even the private homes of that time. More like wooden boxes with corrugated metal sheets for roofing stacked and stringed together in a single line. This was, after all, before ergonomics and modern practical building design had became the norm.

The long, rectangular building with the market in the middle and two adjacent wings on each side used to house a helter-skelter collection of sea food restaurants, general merchandise stores and shops selling fishing and agricultural supplies. It had already, even during its early days, a weathered and ancient look, as if the relentless tropical sun and the constant lashing of the salty sea breezes had scraped and stripped off quickly the original protective paint layers and had prematurely aged then darkened and wrinkled its exposed, delicate wooden skin.

Where Credit Is Due

I was more than a bit bemused by the lively exchange of comments this blog got from readers to the blog post titled "Tangible Progress" wherein I described the positive impact the on-going road modernization program being implemented by the national government in the Lianga area is having on the daily lives of the residents of that town.

What struck me as significant is that much of the discussion (or contention, if you will) in the comments section has focused not on the real or "tangible" effects the massive road infrastructure program will have on the communities that will benefit from it but on the question of who should get the credit for getting the program funded and started in the first place. One should be thinking that if the person (or persons) who are indeed responsible for convincing the national government to bankroll and implement this much needed and anticipated project really deserves recognition for his (or their) efforts, then he (or they) would have no need to crow about it or advertise the fact. The facts (and such facts are always difficult to hide nowadays) would always speak for themselves.

Does Congressman Philip Pichay deserve all the credit for the concrete roads and bridges that will soon connect many of the municipalities of Surigao del Sur, Lianga most of all, whose infamous dirt roads and rickety, wooden bridges used to bedevil and haunt would be travelers in the Caraga region until recently? It happened, after all, during his watch, didn't it?

By the way, the rehabilitation and concreting of the roads particularly around Lianga is part of a larger package of road and highway modernization projects covering much of what is referred to as the Surigao-Davao coastal road system. As such, it would have been impossible not to include Lianga in the program since the national highway does go through the town and, thus, to exclude Lianga for any reason would have essentially emasculated a vital transportation artery that services the entire province of Surigao del Sur and the Caraga region.

Lianga's Port To Nowhere

Some four kilometers southwest of Lianga and right smack in the middle of a long stretch of desolate yet scenic coastline lies a wide expanse of flat and compacted dirt totally enclosed by a perimeter concrete fence. From what was once a rocky seashore, a long, massive, L-shaped concrete pier reaches into deep water like a beckoning finger at the far horizon.

The whole thing, more than P30 million pesos worth of construction (if my figures are right), is what is supposed to be the much anticipated port of Lianga and one of the major infrastructure projects on which the town is hoping to anchor its bid to become one of the more economically progressive municipalities in eastern Mindanao. That is, if someone can figure out what to do with it now that its has been supposedly completed and ready for use.

Until almost the last quarter of the last century, Lianga had always been a major transportation and trading hub in this part of the country. It was a coastal town with excellent harbor facilities for the small, wooden ships of that time and in the absence of an existing road network (which only came into existence in the 1960's), the brisk trade in copra, abacca fiber and rice was done by sea. The intrepid ships and boats of that bygone era carried people and cargo all over eastern Mindanao to as far as the Visayas.

Despite the boom in the local logging industry during the 1950's and 60's, the inter-island shipping industry shifted their attention to the emerging seaport of Nasipit in Agusan del Norte, and the more modern harbors of the cities of Cagayan de Oro in the west, Surigao in the north and Panabo and Davao City in the south. The ships finally stopped coming to Lianga and its small port languished then fell apart from disrepair. By the time I was a small boy in the 1970's, the old pier on the north of the town where the ships used to dock was already a ghostly ruin, a mass of broken and rotting timber noted only for the good fishing that can be had there.

The SmarTalk Scam

It is a basic axiom in consumerism and in the field of consumer rights protection that if a consumer product or service is being offered to the public under terms "too good to be true" then it most probably is.

When I first heard, over a month ago, of the new unlimited calling service (for both pre-paid and post-paid subscriptions) being offered to its customers by Smart Communications Inc., the first thing that came to my mind was that Smart company executives have finally succumbed to a sudden collective fit of conscience after years of fleecing millions of Filipinos who like me who are virtual slaves to their cellphones and have decided to atone for their greed . At last, here was the chance to do away with onerous texting or SMS and finally get used to the luxury of just picking up your mobile phone and talk the hours away with your contacts (wherever they may be in the country) while avoiding penury and destitution at the same time.

The mechanics of the new calling promo was simple enough. Have your prepaid subscription registered by texting TALK100 (P100 for 5 days of unlimited calls) or TALK500 (P500 for 30 days) to 6400. The SmarTalk packages can also be purchased as special pre-paid loads from Smart load retailers. Post-paid subscribers can also register for the service and get the call package costs added to their monthly bills or buy them like pre-paid subscribers also from load retailers.

To make calls under the service, all one had to do was dial *6400 then add the 11 digit mobile Smart or Talk and Text number. The promo was supposed to last until the end of September next month.

When I first availed of the service in early July, I was initially pleasantly surprised with the ease with which one can register for the service and how quickly my calls got connected. Voice quality and clarity were much better than I expected and I felt then that Smart had finally done something good for its customers for a change instead of being constantly accused of stealing pre-paid load credits or overcharging its subscribers.

But as the days passed by I began to notice certain problems with the SmarTalk service. It became increasingly hard for those itching to register their phones to access the 6400 number. Load retailers began reporting similar difficulties registering customers even for the Talk500 package. Then connecting with one's calls using the service became a nightmare as dialed numbers immediately become disconnected or rejected with the ubiquitous "network busy" notification.

For the many Smart subscribers like me in Lianga who have become essentially addicted to unlimited calls, placing calls especially in the evening became a marathon of continuous dialing for long periods of time in the hope of getting lucky and being able to place a call. I also know of Smart mobile phone users who tried getting up in the wee hours of the morning in order to better their chances of being able to register for the promo and wasted a good night's sleep with nothing to show for it.

For Smart Communications Inc. to say that the unexpected and overwhelming response to the SmarTalk promo was the primary reason for the overloading of their systems and the cause of the resulting connection problems is simply bullshit of the highest degree. They knew the promo was going to be popular and should have anticipated the deluge of subscribers eager to use the service. The company could not have conceived and implemented SmarTalk without preliminary market studies and projections with regards to the capability of their systems to accommodate the anticipated increase in caller traffic.

What is crystal clear here is a blatantly devious attempt to lure additional new subscribers to the Smart brand by offering an overwhelmingly attractive new product and service that the company, with evident foreknowledge, could not, in reality and in the long term, continue to provide and support to their customers' satisfaction. In plain and simple terms, we were screwed by Smart once again. Mama mia!

Several days ago, I called up the company's customer service hot line to make a formal complaint regarding my connection problems with the SmarTalk service. The service representative, all oil and consolation, profusely apologized for my predicament and blamed the "overwhelming response" to the promo (that phrase once again!) as the root of the flood of customer complaints like mine.

When I asked for advice on how to improve my chances of being able to connect with my calls while using SmarTalk, he did offer me one suggestion. "Try calling between 11 PM and 4 AM, " he said, "Your call should have more chances of getting through."

Talk about frustration and aggravation. If my blood pressure had not risen up by 10 points ( it still does every time I recall that specific conversation), I could have just simply thrown up my hands and laughed at the great absurdity of it all.

Lumad

News reports on the piteous situation of the more than 1000 displaced mountain villagers who have fled their homes in the hinterlands of the municipalities of Lianga and San Agustin in Surigao del Sur and who now call the Diocesan Pastoral Center in Tandag, the provincial capital, their temporary home continues to occupy space in the print media and in many Internet news sites. The "bakwits" (a derivation of the Bisayan word bakwit which literally means to evacuate or flee), as the evacuees like to call themselves, have accused government soldiers belonging to the 58th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army of forcibly occupying their villages and harassing local residents who the military suspects are supporters of the communist New People's Army.

I have written several posts already on this subject but the situation in Tandag does provide an opportunity to focus some much needed attention on the so called local "indigenous peoples" and their bitter history of being constantly caught in the crossfire of the decades old counterinsurgency war between the Philippine government and the revolutionary left.

The term "lumad" has been used to describe the Tandag evacuees. Other news reports cite them as belonging to the Manobo tribe which is a major ethnic minority in the Caraga region and Surigao del Sur area. Lumad, of course, is a Bisayan term which means "native" or "indigenous" and, as used in the local terminology, encompasses or includes most if not all of the non-Muslim and non-Christian ethnic peoples native to Mindanao and descended from Austronesian stock. The Manobos are, therefore, lumads of the first order.

Kansilad Bound

Once again, for those interested or planning to go to Lianga and the Kansilad Beach Resort for the coming weekend or a few days of sun, sea and surf, here's the way to get there from Butuan City which is actually the closest urban center with port and air carrier facilities.

Using your own private vehicle would be the ideal since Lianga is over 120 kilometers east of that city. But public transportation is available and, in most cases, thoroughly reliable. Buses leave the Butuan bus terminal on an almost hourly basis but, if one is a first timer, making sure one does get eventually to Lianga means knowing where to go and how to get there.

By bus, the direct, no fuss route to Lianga means taking the buses bound for Tandag (the provincial capital of Surigao del Sur province). The two to three hour journey takes you through the western edge of Agusan del Norte into Agusan del Sur where the major stop is San Francisco town which is at the crossroads of the main highway going separately to Lianga and Davao City (some almost 200 kilometers away).

Those unable to get on the Tandag bus in Butuan can take the Davao bound trips, get off at San Francisco and take the smaller buses and jeepneys there which service the Lianga and San Francisco area. Tandag bound buses from Davao are also available if your timing is lucky.