THE OTHER day, I drove my daughter, a pharmacist, to the Bren Z. Guiao Convention Center for her vaccination. It was partly a fulfilled wish as I wanted to see how the sports facility looks today. In particular, I wanted to revisit the famed and defamed rubberized oval that the late governor took pride in his time as world-class.
Under his watch, Guiao had his own build, build project, long before Duterte invented his, part of a vision to transform Pampanga into a premier province, a growth center, a fantastic world, a place in the countryside like no other. His build–vision turned out to be an expensive one, as visions usually are. He built a sports complex that hosted the Palarong Pambansa in 1990. It featured an Olympic-size swimming pool and, yes, the famous rubberized oval, with emphasis on the pricey adjective.
He also established the glorious-inspired Paskuhan Village, only the third in the world, he would say with pride, next to that in Germany and the United States. The Paskuhan, earlier parodied by the late governor Kitong Nepomuceno as ‘pastulan’, also had a duty free shop that offered wide brands of imported chocolates. Soon, break–time for workers at the provincial capitol and beyond became Paskuhan time.
The Ninoy Aquino By-Way that stretched from Mexico, Pampanga to his hometown, Magalang and linked with Concepcion town, Ninoy’s hometown, was also his idea. It’s avision with an undercurrent of lasting tribute to the modern herofrom whom all his political and other blessings flowed thereafter, courtesy of the hero’s widow,Cory.
In time, Guiao had earned a bragging right for Pampanga: number in industrial growth rate, surpassing erstwhile pacesetter, Cebu. Paskuhan Village eventually pushed the province further as the Christmas capital of the Philippines. It also made rich and famous a little known local architect who was rumored later to have built a house for a former president. But that’s another interesting story when politics is linked with the sudden fortunes of the powers- that- be and their cohorts.
Guiao’s momentum was abruptly, rudely interrupted by a volcanic action, first, and then eventually, finally by an action star’s popularity. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 not only slackened the development in the province; it also threatened to fracture, if not demolish, Guiao’s infrastructure achievements. One of them was the sports complex, particularly the rubberized oval that cost millions of pesos.
The oval was the favorite jogging destination of the late Art Sampang, Guiao’s provincial administrator, probably the best vice governor Pampanga has never had and the best mayor Mexico has never had. Sampang used to challenge people younger than he was to do several laps around the oval to prove his fitness and stamina after some people doubted his physical energy to manage the Mt. Pinatubo Commission. At one time, he even dared me to run witthat was enough for the day. I did a little more, thanks to my younger legs.
The rigors of his job at the MPC proved much more exacting than his regular jogging exercises at the rubberized oval were. It was fun and bliss to run on a path with a cushion-like effect under your feet. It was needless torture upstairs topreside over a controversy-laden bureaucracy like the MPC and deal with local politicians’ unrelenting pressures day-in-day-out. One day, I accidentally picked up the call of one Pampanga congressman who wanted, pronto, a road project worth nearly P1 million funded by MPC. The congressman, after knowing it wasn’t Art on the line, sheepishly told me he was just doing favor for a local media friend who was in dire financial strait..
Two years later, Sampang succumbed to cardiac arrest which was preceded by a mild stroke a couple of weeks after he became MPC executive director. Hazards of the job.
So, my latest visit to the BZG sports complex, after a long, long while, had a mixed of sentimentalism, politics and health value to it. I wanted to resume my jogging at the oval where I used to meet important people in government and the private sector. Some of them are gone now, even if they did numerous laps around the oval while mixing perspiration with politics and their latest adventures or misses, better halves and not.
To my chagrin, the oval was no longer there. In its place was a mixed paddy of rice crop and luxuriant grass on the edge. There were traces of the old oval, brownish debris scattered along the margin of the paddy. The smaller grandstand near the oval ground was intact, except for the faded paint. The Olympic-size pool northward looked very much abandoned.
Two construction workers at the site chimed in the reason for the oval’s lost: continuous floods after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. The concrete base around the huge grandstand had to be raised several notches more to fend off the perennial floods. It’s now the joggers’ haven in lieu of the old rubber. Another revelation: I had to go to the john and, lo and behold, the CRs beneath the grandstand are a class by themselves, a lot better than the ones I saw during BZG’s time.
Maybe they can bring back the rubberized oval, too, for old time sake? The windfall from sand quarrying that has reached more than a billion pesos reportedly can restore the legacy of old. Just thinking, Mr. Art or is it someone new?
