u/Alone_Vegetable_6425

Unahan ko na admin, Paulo Alcazaren is prominent Filipino landscape architect, urban designer, and environmental planner. Public figure siya hindi ordinary citizen.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) sound great on paper, but I’m highly

skeptical about whether they can actually work in the Philippines.

Look at the reality of our cities: we’ve spent decades paving over our natural drainage basins with rapid, unchecked urban sprawl. Strategies like restoring wetlands or opening up floodplains require massive amounts of open land. How is that supposed to happen when local governments are already trapped in endless legal battles over right-of-way, the sensitive issue of relocating informal settlers, and a long history of weak zoning enforcement?

On top of that, there's the sheer scale of our weather. Can green infrastructure really hold back the catastrophic deluges of a Super Typhoon without the heavy backing of traditional concrete engineering?

If we don't fix our fragmented local governance and short-sighted political cycles, these green solutions will just remain idealistic concepts instead of real, reliable defenses for the communities that need them most.What do you guys think? Is anyone seeing actual, successful examples of this locally, or are we just stuck with gray infrastructure (dikes/pumping stations) forever?

‘18-WITNESSES’ SA FLOOD CONTROL SCANDAL DAPAT PROTEKTAHAN AYON KAY BAGUIO CITY MAYOR BENJAMIN MAGALONG

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Ayon kay Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, hindi raw dapat ipagsawalang bahala ang naging testimonya ng aniya’y 18-witnesses sa Flood Control Project Scandal.

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Aniya dapat daw na bigyan ng proteksyon ang mga ito. Binigyan diin din niya na kinakailangan na magpakita ang pamahalaan ng interes sa nangyayaring imbestigasyon.

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‘Protektahan sila kasi whistleblowers sila eh, dapat bigyan natin sila ng protection.” ani, Magalong

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A chapter from John T. Sidel's book Capital, Coercion, and Crime Bossism in the Philippines published by Stanford University Press.

PDF version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14FiRFliMztotcd9Fad7DfnW76f1ink5A/view?usp=sharing

Sidenote: It was one of the sources I used when writing my post about Tulisan activities in Cavite way back. I'd like to share it to my kapwa Kabitenyos to raise awareness about our province's LGU political history dating back from Aguinaldo all the way to the rise of the Remullas.