The Green City

Puerto Princesa City has been given numerous awards for its efforts to build a green city and an economy which focusses on Eco Tourism. Under Mayor Hagedorn, the city has become the first in the country to have an engineered sanitary landfill facility. Green garbage bins are a regular fixture and there are laws against both littering and smoking in public places that carry fines, and even time in jail upon a third offense. The city has gone out of their way to ban any mining (a big industry for Palawan) within the city limits, much of which is rural and mountainous.

The fleets of tricycles with their dirty emissions, have been regulated so that an operator may only work on certain days of the week depending on whether they are in group 1 or group 2, in order to reduce the competition and over-abundant pollution created. There is even talk of banning tricycles from the main roads and restricting them to rural areas only. This would be a defeat for the hundreds of people who rely on this method of earning an income, and not much of one at that, however, if the city is going to continue to clean itself, this will be a necessary evil in the long run.

For a western foreigner who is used to finished sidewalks and groomed yards, it is sometimes difficult to see the good of these initiatives for all of the dirty air and crumbling concrete. When visiting the fishing docks or some of the communities outside of the city center, you can't help but notice all of the trash in the water, the batteries and empty liquor bottles on the beach. Compared to our world, this reality of thatched huts and remodelled old vehicles seems like a step back in time, but for a country like the Philippines these green projects are the best steps in right direction. The people here are friendly, and although the infrastructure will take a long time to develop if it ever fully does, the abundance of natural landscape, and a government focussed on promoting an eco-tourism economy will make Puerto Princesa City stand apart for a long time to come. (see more photos)