ILOILORiver

Renewing the Public Realm – this is the theme of this website. In other words, this website is not just about Iloilo River but about Iloilo, its environment – both physical and social – and how they can be conserved and restored. The reference to Iloilo River is anchored on the fact that this great body of water is one big public realm for the city residents.

Social critic and book author James Howard Kunstler defines the public realm as “that portion of the everyday environment that belongs to everyone and to which everyone ought to have equitable access.” Former Toronto Mayor David Crombie, for his part, described the public realm as “the glue holding a city together and the bedrock upon which it builds prosperity, communities and social peace.”

The Iloilo River is a public realm. It belongs to everyone and everyone must have equitable access to it. In this regard, it must be conserved and restored for everyone to enjoy. It is not a giant receptacle of wastes from industries, businesses and homes. It is a body of water that gave life to what is now Iloilo City.

And since it is the womb that gave birth to this metropolis, its protection should be a primordial concern.

This public realm is the mother of all public realms in Iloilo City. How we take care of the Iloilo River also reflects how we take care of the other public realms – the streets, the plazas, the beaches, the airspace, and the public buildings, among others. We see in them the grim reality of neglect and abuse – the same cruel phenomena that brought the Iloilo River to its gloomy condition today.

Moreover, the public realm is not just places that we share but this also include abstract concepts, like public service and good governance. In many Philippine cities and municipalities, public service is poor because those who were elected to govern us and most of those who work in government are more concerned of their private realm rather than the public realm. Papers that can be processed in hours remain at an official’s desk for days because there is no consideration for good governance.

In which case, the public realm now includes the common good. It is what’s beyond our private realm. It is what we do to make life easy not just for ourselves but also for others. It is the virtue of social responsibility – where we can be proactive toward a problem rather than reactive to it. It means eliminating corrupt, irresponsible or unethical behavior that might bring harm to the community, its people, or the environment before the behavior happens.

This website, therefore, is a campaign – a campaign to preserve and restore not just the Iloilo River but to renew the public realm of Iloilo City so we and the next generation can enjoy what the rivers, the streets, the plazas and other public structures as well as public service and good governance can truly offer.

IloiloRiver.com is a contribution to the renewal of the public realm by Nereo C. Lujan, 2004 WASH Media Awardee. The WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Awards is conferred by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Mr. Lujan acknowledges the support of the Environmental Policy and Information Center (EPIC) and the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) in the development of this website. Mr. Lujan may be reached at nclujan [at] yahoo [dot] com.