Urban forest or vaccine facility: Why can’t we have both?
ARECENT contention about a planned mega-vaccine facility at Nayong Pilipino has sparked public outrage from both concerned parties and supporters. Environmentalists, activists and conservation experts are clashing with the government and the billionaire businessman Enrique Razon Jr. over a mega-vaccine facility to be built on the proposed site, which is part of a long-term plan for an urban forest on reclaimed land in Metro Manila. Currently, amid a precarious and endangered stage in the pandemic, where vaccination is key to reopening the economy and ultimately achieving herd immunity from a crisis as bad as post-World-War 2 — a moral and legal dilemma has surfaced on who should take ownership of the land and what should ultimately be built there.
Such a case is familiar to the ethical and psychological trolley cart dilemma. What portion of the land should be owned by who? Should we hinder the development of one of the few proposed urban forests in Metro Manila to give way to the welfare and health of the people? Is that even a question to begin with given that we are comparing the value of a person’s life of a person with potential green spaces? Would you sacrifice the future quality of life for the present quality of life? These questions may seemingly be as simple and naïve as they looks but it is definitely more complicated than it is. Many articles, photos and stories have been published that may have skewed our positions on the matter — painting both parties as either villains or heroes, yet a far nuanced and more important matter to consider is why we even had to end up with such a convoluted decision in the first place. Why can’t we just have both, and what can be done with such a fraught discussion.
What can be observed is that urban planning is a failed and nonexistent concept considering the current situation in Metro Manila. A populous and dense city with roughly only 0.03 percent of its land area dedicated to public spaces and parks, compared to other major cities such as Singapore with 47 percent green spaces and Rio de Janeiro with 29 percent green spaces, according to the veteran environmental planner and architect Nathaniel “Dinky” von Einsiedel. These green spaces are mainly comprised of the La Mesa Ecopark, inaccessible golf courses such as the Wack-Wack Golf and Country Club, and the Manila Polo Club.
According to a report in 2019 by the Department of Natural ResourcesNational Capital Region, Manila suffers one of the biggest deficits in green spaces, with only 140.4 hectares of green space in a total area of over 3,800 hectares that is continually shrinking, around the metropolis today. Such scarcity of green urban spaces is where this public demand is coming from, given the benefits that the proposed plan for Nayong Pilipino provides, such as protection from heat, a place for leisure and recreation, biodiversity protection, and even as a form of openair ventilation for some diseases to stop spreading. Another thing to consider is the failed and neglected health care system that our nation has to endlessly deal with. Public hospitals and health infrastructures are inadequate to handle such temperature-sensitive and fragile vaccines, and medical frontliners are severely overworked and underpaid. Coming from both environmental and public health perspectives, what can ultimately be pinned down is that both issues arise from the negligence of the current and previous administrations that lacked the foresight to plan ahead and communicate, giving rise to this conflict between Nayong Pilipino and Enrique Razon Jr. to contest the ownership of the land. Why isn’t accountability on the failures of our governments part of this discussion?
Infrastructure for public good
Many citizens have now stated their concerns on the future of Nayong Pilipino’s site, and instead recommend building the vaccine facility on a land that Razon already owns, instead of opening up potential concerns for unwelcome developments on the site after the pandemic — a point to consider given how public trust in oligarchs and billionaires continue to dwindle after the reports and criticisms about how billionaires are hoarding wealth and exploiting low-income laborers such as the case with the Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. This lack of trust from the public because of systemic issues intertwined with environmental ordeal is valid despite the intentions and “goodwill” of these oligarchs’ philanthropy. In the case of urgency and accessibility for the development site of the vaccine facility, professional architects and engineers such as Paolo Alcazaren suggest how it would be much more practical to build it on an already paved land and space at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, which is accessible to public transportation. Though Razon argues that the site is accessible to the Skyway and that Nayong Pilipino can do whatever it wants with the site after the mass vaccination is done as the economy can open and people can go to public parks.
The country gravely needs to speed up its vaccination rollout as the government has been utterly slow, with the possibility of vaccines expiring by June — the public does demand more transparency. Possibly an assurance that people in power with the resources can support the green space movement further in Metro Manila alongside Nayong Pilipino and other agencies and organizations. Maybe even possibly invest in developing new urban parks, forests and health care facilities beyond the pandemic? Maybe even convert the hectares of inaccessible lands owned by these billion-peso industries that can cater for the public good in the future? The mega-vaccine facility is a start, and thus compromises are being done. But why does it seem that trust and cooperation is never considered an option, that a public outcry must come first?
In times of such a fraught dilemma amid a pandemic, the threat of the trolley shouldn’t even exist — if and only if all sectors of society have cooperated, communicated and worked together that we should have never been in this situation to begin with.