5 MIN READ

By KURT ZEUS DIZON
www.nordis.net

The politics of urban space in Baguio City has long been framed through the language of modernization, progress, decongestion, and development. Yet beneath these seemingly enticing terms lies a deeper political question: who benefits from these transformations, and who bears the burden of sacrifice?

Contemporary proposals and projects in the city — from market modernization, the construction of the bypass road in Quirino Hill-Pinget, the redevelopment of Burnham Park, and even the construction of an access road within Baguio City Cemetery — reveal an enduring pattern in urban planning: the prioritization of infrastructural efficiency and commercial modernization over the social, historical, and cultural meanings embedded in public spaces.

This is not merely an issue of urban planning. It is fundamentally a politics of space.

The French philosopher Henri Lefebvre argued that space is never neutral. Space is socially produced. Roads, markets, parks, cemeteries, communities, and public centers are not simply physical locations waiting to be reorganized for “development.” They are lived spaces — repositories of memory, livelihood, identity, history, and social relations. Lefebvre’s concept of the “right to the city” reminds us that urban spaces must not only serve the interests of capital, state power, or technical planning; they must also belong to the people who inhabit and experience them daily.

Yet what becomes evident in many development initiatives is the gradual dominance of technocratic logic over human meaning. Market modernization, for instance, is presented as an unquestionable necessity. The language of sanitation, modernization, tourism competitiveness, aesthetics, and economic productivity becomes the primary justification. However, modernization discourse frequently obscures the displacement of vendors, the erosion of long-standing social networks, and the growing vulnerability of low- and middle-income traders and consumers whose economic survival depends on accessible and community-oriented public markets. The public market is not merely a structure in need of renovation; it is an institution of everyday urban life.

The same issue emerges in proposed access roads and urban expansion projects. Roads are framed as solutions to traffic congestion and urban mobility, yet they also restructure communities and redefine spatial relations. The proposed bypass road connecting Quirino Hill and Pinget within the Buyog Watershed raises questions not only about transportation efficiency but also about whose spaces are being penetrated, altered, or rendered vulnerable in the name of accessibility. More importantly, the project raises serious environmental and social concerns about the long-term consequences of expanding infrastructure in ecologically sensitive areas.

The proposed access road affecting portions of the Baguio City Cemetery further reflects how urban development increasingly treats historically and culturally significant spaces as expendable in the name of modernization. Reports that around 300 tombs may be disturbed or relocated raise not only logistical concerns, but deeper ethical, cultural, and psychological issues involving memory, dignity, and the sanctity of the dead. The cemetery has long been a sacred historical space where generations of families have buried loved ones and preserved traditions of remembrance and mourning. Transforming portions of this area into a major access road demonstrates how development projects often redefine land primarily in terms of functionality and mobility, while overlooking its social and cultural meaning. Cemeteries are not idle spaces but institutions of collective memory and emotional attachment that connect communities to their history and identity.

Burnham Park itself — historically one of Baguio’s most symbolic public spaces — increasingly faces pressures of commercialization and redevelopment under the rhetoric of beautification and modernization. Yet despite ongoing redevelopment efforts, much of the infrastructure in the park remains unfinished, reflecting a pattern of constant modification that fails to fully resolve underlying urban concerns. Increasingly, concrete structures are replacing green spaces, gradually altering the character of one of the city’s most important public and environmental landmarks. While Burnham Park carries significant historical and heritage value as part of Baguio’s urban identity, the city continues to introduce changes and redevelopment projects that often overlook the importance of preserving its original spatial and cultural essence.

What emerges is a state attitude deeply rooted in developmentalism: the assumption that any resistance to infrastructure expansion is resistance to progress itself.

Here, the power of eminent domain becomes especially significant as the state’s justification. Constitutionally justified under the principle of public use and general welfare, eminent domain grants the state the authority to acquire private property for developmental purposes. In theory, this power exists to advance collective benefit. In practice, however, it becomes an instrument through which political and economic elites disproportionately benefit from urban transformation, while vulnerable and historically “silent spaces” that may appear politically weak or economically unproductive yet possess deep social, cultural, environmental, or historical meaning, become vulnerable to exploitation and displacement in the name of development.

Ironically, this pattern becomes even more significant in the context of Baguio City — the very place historically associated with the Carino Doctrine. Emerging from the legal victory of Ibloy Chieftain Mateo Cariño against the American colonial government’s claim over his ancestral land, the doctrine became a landmark recognition of indigenous native title in the Philippines. It symbolized the principle that lands occupied and possessed by indigenous communities since time immemorial cannot simply be taken by the state. Yet despite this historical legacy rooted in the protection of ancestral spaces, contemporary development patterns continue to reproduce forms of displacement and spatial intrusion that echo the very struggles the Carino Doctrine once challenged. 

What began as a landmark assertion of indigenous rights in Baguio now stands in tension with modern urban and developmental projects occurring not only in the city but across the Philippines, particularly in indigenous and upland communities where development aggression continues under the banner of national progress.

The construction of the Chico River Dam Project during the Marcos era became one of the most iconic examples of state-led development aggression against indigenous peoples. Backed by the World Bank, the proposed dam threatened to displace thousands of Kalinga and Bontoc indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands. Resistance against the project ultimately led to militarization, human rights abuses, and the assassination of Macli-ing Dulag, who became a symbol of indigenous resistance against state-imposed development.

Similarly, the construction of the Ambuklao Dam and later the Binga Dam displaced indigenous Ibaloy communities and submerged ancestral lands, burial grounds, and cultural spaces beneath hydroelectric infrastructure. While these projects contributed to national energy production, the affected communities carried the social and cultural costs for generations.

These examples reveal a recurring historical pattern wherein modernization frequently demands sacrifice, but the sacrifices are rarely shared equally.

Modernization theory itself has long influenced state planning in developing societies. Its central assumption is that societies progress by becoming more industrialized, urbanized, technologically advanced, and economically integrated. To a certain extent, modernization is necessary. Cities require infrastructure, mobility systems, economic competitiveness, and urban renewal. No serious critique of development argues that societies should remain stagnant.

However, the problem emerges when modernization becomes reductionist — when development is measured solely by physical infrastructure, commercial expansion, and economic indicators, while ignoring historical memory, cultural identity, environmental sustainability, and social justice. In this framework, communities become obstacles to planning, informal settlers become obstructions to beautification, ancestral lands become “underutilized spaces,” and public institutions become commodities awaiting redevelopment.

The city then ceases to become a lived community and instead becomes an engineered economic project.

Urban planners warn that cities experiencing aggressive spatial commodification risk entering forms of urban decay not simply through physical deterioration, but through the erosion of civic identity and collective belonging. A city may possess wider roads, modernized buildings, and redeveloped parks while simultaneously losing the very social essence that once gave those spaces meaning.

This is why the preservation of important spaces must be understood not as resistance to development, but as resistance to dehumanized development. Markets, parks, cemeteries, indigenous communities, and historical districts are not empty lands awaiting optimization. They are institutions of social life. They embody memory, identity, livelihood, and collective history.

If cities are truly committed to sustainable urban development, then development must move beyond the narrow language of efficiency and modernization alone. It must recognize that spaces possess social value beyond their economic utility. Otherwise, urban transformation risks reproducing the same historical pattern that has marked many development projects in the Philippines: progress for some, displacement for others, and the gradual disappearance of spaces that once gave communities their identity and meaning.# nordis.net