Living In Cagayan de Oro And Loving It

It took a while before I began loving living in this city. I mean, except for several years living some place else, I have lived most of my life here but I’ve never really given much thought to just what I love about living here.
Unlike Manila or Davao City, Cagayan de Oro has no rock solid claim to fame. A city is too often defined by, say, the number of museums it houses or perhaps by the quality of its restaurants. Cagayan, while not lacking, has very few of those. In fact, if you are one of those who, as the song goes, like the night life, I do not think this is the place for you.
Of late Cagayan de Oro has been called “the adventure capital of Mindanao” for its white water rafting tours and outdoor adventure parks. The sight of tourist-laden jeepneys with white water rafts lashed on their roofs has become an all too familiar sight. But besides its promise of weekend fun, there isn’t much going on.
But I think this is precisely why I love living here. Life is simpler here as they say. There is less clutter---there’s home, there’s work, and there’s what you plan for the weekend.
Here you do not have to gulp your coffee in the morning, risking scalding your tongue in a desperate effort to get to the office on time. You can sit back and brew your coffee; sip and savor the aroma and wait for the caffeine to kick in and prime your nerves. Here there is time enough for that second cup of coffee, if you need it. Provided, of course, you wake up way before needing to rush which is not too early here.
I love, too, the fact that everywhere seem to be nearer here. Nearer especially during summer when all the people who swell the population of the city during school time have gone home. Yes traffic occasionally goes bad here. But doesn’t it go bad on occasion almost everywhere else save perhaps in the boondocks?
Cagayan de Oro ,too, has the perfect or near perfect terrain for bicyclists—a little bit of rolling terrain here and there but generally as flat as flat iron. I live in a subdivision in Gusa in what used to be the outskirts of Cagayan. Yet if I have to cycle to, say, buy some bread in DV Soria in the heart of the city, the trip would take only about 20 minutes tops.
I love that mountains ring the city. I have been an avid mountain biker for the past ten years and I have found that the perfect MTB trail is just a mere ten minutes away. Where else can you ride your bike three times a week and ride a different trail each time?
But perhaps I love living here because this is my home: home in the sense that almost everything of note that has happened to me happened to me here. Grew up here, got married here, had my two children here. Will probably die here.
I guess I got lucky. Cagayan de Oro, after all, has the perfect mix of opportunities for making a living and living a life.

Biting The Bullet

Why is DTI Regional Director Ma. Eliza Pabillore complaining about the results of the Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project (PCCRP), the flagship research undertaking of the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center’s City Competitiveness Program?
The AIM policy center came out last July 4, 2008 with the results of its 2007 study which ranked Cagayan de Oro 11th in terms of business competitiveness compared to 25 other medium-sized cities.
Cagayan de Oro shared the spot with Leyte’s Tacloban City.
Ms Pabillore said she “treat(s) the survey with a grain of salt” adding “the ranking does not reflect the realities on the ground.”
Ms Pabillore said, quoting from news reports, she could not understand why the city fared poorly when figures available with DTI and the local government showed that the city is enjoying a booming economy, has a good business environment, and local officials are responsive to business needs.
“Basically, we failed on perception-based surveys but fared well on indicators that are supported with hard data,” Ms Pabillore added.
As a citizen of this city I share Ms Pabillore’s dismay with the way the study turned out for us. We like to think of ourselves as a lucky to be living here, long considered as one of the top cities of Mindanao.
But I think we ought to take study as it is--- plain. No seasonings, no salt.
On its own, the data from the DTI Regional Office may show us doing well in the same areas covered by the PCCRP. The local economy is so robust that Ayala Land is at present investing in Cagayan de Oro, according to Ms Pabillore.
But this misses the point. The study, as I understand it, was made precisely to measure how well we are doing in relation to other cities. The study ranks the overall competitiveness of Philippine urban centers based on the following drivers of competitiveness: costs of doing business, dynamism of the local economy, human resources and training, infrastructure, responsiveness of the local government to business sector’s needs, and quality of life.
The study, to quote from the Policy Center’s primer, merely “constructs a benchmarking method that will aid individual cities in measuring their level of competitiveness in relation to other cities.”
So what is there to fret about? After all, we do need to know who we are competing against and how we are standing up to the competition. We can not afford to be complacent, secure in our mistaken belief that we are a cut above the rest.
And it is not as if we are finding ourselves suddenly at the bottom of the dung heap. In 2003, Cagayan de Oro was ranked 3rd among 13 medium-sized cities surveyed for business competitiveness. In 2005 we found ourselves in the 8th position among 15 medium-sized cities.
So besides stating the obvious, what the heck?
Instead of sulking in the corner, we should grab this golden opportunity to finally get our act together. Instead of saying “well if they had only done this, if only they had done that” we should be thinking of ways to finally arrest our slide to the abyss; we should be thinking of ways to beat the competition.
To illustrate just how badly we are misunderstanding this, let us take the example of Iloilo City. Iloilo City was among the top awardees of 2005 but was kept out of the top seven performers last year.
Iloilo City was ranked 8th (eight by golly and they feel bad about it).
But instead of trying to question the results, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Trenas is immediately calling for a round table discussion to analyze and learn from the PCCRP survey in preparation for next year.
This on top of the city’s efforts to rebuild after the devastation caused by Typhoon Frank.
So now what do we do?
Now we ought to bite the bullet, do as they are doing in typhoon-ravaged Iloilo City, and begin thinking like winners.

Pretending To Speak English

I do not know what it is they find in Cagayan de Oro so appealing or if they are just passing through, en route to somewhere scenic and exotic, wherever that may be. By “they” I am referring to Caucasian tourists who, to their credit, remain unfazed to the simple fact that Cagayan de Oro is in Mindanao(which is too often viewed abroad as a war zone which is of course farthest from the truth).
Ordinarily I would pay little attention to them, finding most of them polite and generally unassuming. Many would come to the shop, nod to the waitress good morning, order coffee and breakfast, and then generally keep to themselves. Some would offer compliments and a warm thank you just before leaving. And some would be back at about the same time the next morning and order the exact same thing they ate the day before.
But every so often, someone comes and rankles your nerves. It is understandable, there are bound to be some rotten characters among the many that come. Too often, you forget about the little unpleasantness and be thankful just the same for the business.
But sometimes the plain arrogance and crappy attitude get to you. Sometimes you meet someone who offends to high heavens with his bad manners; someone that makes you wish you took that lesson instead of thinking yourself too old for boxing.
Just about the other day, for instance, a middle-aged white male, obviously American, came to the shop at around 8 am asking, in a drawl, “what you got for ehy-tshee.” He was referring to the banner hung outside, advertising our breakfast meal (a choice of tapa, longanisa, corned beef, tocino, and bangus served with brewed coffee, garlic rice, and two fried eggs—this is a plug if you haven’t noticed—we are at the corner of velez and chavez sts. in DV Soria). But the hapless waitress, rattled perhaps by having to deal with a foreigner, could not make out what he was saying. And so she kept on repeating over and over something about the coffee being included in the meal. In obvious frustration for having to explain himself so early in the morning, the American suddenly said, ”Nevermind, I’m going someplace else where the waitress does not PRETEND to speak English.”
This rather arrogant behavior is sadly too common among English-speaking foreigners visiting the country. Perhaps because non-English speaking foreigners are forced, like ourselves, to adopt an alien tongue to communicate, they are more likely to make greater efforts to reach out and be understood. Which is as it should be.
Native English-speakers, on the other hand, generally are not burdened by that kind of mind-set. They think that since the Philippines prides itself, rather wrongly at that, with having been once part of the United States of Bush Jr., then they are entitled to expect to be spoken to in perfect, grammatically correct English.
This is bullshit, of course. We are, afterall, in our own country and whether we speak crooked English; whether we speak using our own dialect or whether we choose not to speak at all is our business. It is they who are here and hence… well, you get the picture.
Even the much trumpeted virtue---Filipino hospitality has to have its limits.