Educational hub for Greater Baguio cluster proposed

Tuba or any of the other four municipalities of Benguet will be included in the cluster that will comprise the proposed Greater Baguio.

The new grouping was discussed during a public consultation on Senate Bill No. 1692 or the Baguio City, La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba and Tublay Development Authority in Baguio last week.

The bill seeks to reconfigure Baguio, which has become overcrowded and polluted, and to restore its old glory as the country’s Summer Capital.

Sen. Richard Gordon said academic institutions such as the University of the Philippines (UP), the University of the Cordilleras (UC) and the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), could be relocated in Tuba and turn it into the Silicon Valley of the Philippines.

“The academe, the population of universities in Baguio, is approximately one-third of the population of the city. The academic population is contributing to the congestion of Baguio. If we can ask UP, UC and other universities to expand outside Baguio, you can just imagine how great the reduction to Baguio’s population would be. We can develop Tuba as the Silicon Valley of the Philippines,” he said.

The bill aims to create a Greater Baguio Metropolitan Authority that would draw up a master plan for redeveloping Baguio and spreading development and opportunities in the five other municipalities.

Statistics show that 115,000 of Baguio’s 330,000 population are students.

Dr. Achilles Costales, of UP Baguio, said they have 2,600 to 3,000 students while UC’s Dr. Leonardia Aguinalde said the school only has eight buildings for its 18,000 students.

The two said they are requesting to be transferred to Tuba since they could no longer expand in Baguio.

“We can establish a campus outside Baguio. Coming from the Chancellor, we are willing to do that to accommodate more students. We are in the process of requesting land grants. We are thinking of Itogon or Tuba,” Costales said.

“The government should also look into the concern of the private universities like UC. If the government is going to give lands to us, we would like to get a land in Tuba because we already have a land there. That would help us. We have 18,000 students right now and only eight buildings,” Aguinalde said.

Gordon said with the available lands in Tuba or any of the four other municipalities in the cluster, the colleges and universities could put up dormitories to accommodate more students.

“In this climate, education will really thrive. Put dorms because maraming mag-aaral dyan (there are many students there). Sa Manila ang hirap mag-aral, sa traffic lang patay na. We can put up an education community with dorms in Tuba. With the good weather, it will be more conducive for learning and studying,” he said. (In Manila, it is difficult to study, what more with the chaotic traffic.)