The Moth and the Firefly

“The moth and the firefly” is an award winning shortfilm in 2009 which follows the adventure of a little moth. Having lost its lamplight in a citywide blackout, the moth traveled into the dark city in search of new light. Soon it found a firefly and together they lit up the night until the blackout ended, and they lost track of each other in the bright city. HE film, when taken philosophically explores the issues of travel, urbanization, development, and migration (at least in my point of view). The moth may symbolize people who simply follow the flock, while the firefly may represent people with great ideas and innovations. Both, however, were lost in the great lights of the city.

The world is seeing a common phenomenon of massive urbanization and development of, and migration to big cities and growing industrial towns. In extreme cases such as in parts of Europe, or in Japan, such events resulted to ghost towns where younger people leave their hometowns for the energy of big cities. What happens out there is definitely happening in our place – students in Baguio City and La Trinidad from the different remote or rural towns would chose to work here, build their families here, and be added to the local population and economy. The lights are undeniably inviting.

T-o0oA co-worker from Benguet Tourism lamented the unfair attention of concerned tourism offices in the promotion of tourism sites: “Dagijay met promoted ti isu paylng iprompromote da...Baguio nga Kanaun nga kaya nan ilako bagi na (Those already promoted are the ones which are still being promoted...it is always Baguio who can already sell itself)”. He reacted to a tourism official’s statement that tourism sites which have few tourism arrivals are placed on the bottom of those to be prioritized in promotions and marketing. This means that those who have reached the millionth mark of annual visits will be featured more in the Department’s promo-