A scheduled gathering of campaign boosters last Saturday took all of the day and prevented our submitting what would have been Sunday's column. Our apologies.

We left off last week with an initial description of the Baguio we (re)discovered during the hustings, a Baguio that gladdened and saddened us in turn, in the main because while we found a thriving city, we also realized the city's growth is not governed by real rhyme and reason. For all the self-promotion that City Hall engages in, Baguio's urban sprawl has just been that, creeps and surges in building activity that have totally disregarded building codes. The result, jumbles of structures of all types and purposes, all strung out along the spaghetti-like roads and alleyways.

The mess is not likely to be rectified anytime soon or later. Thanks to the expertise in concrete building that Baguio folk have quickly acquired. Building permit or no, all manner of cement and steel structures can rise overnight. The proof is all over.

Nowhere is that most obvious than in the center of town where just about all the quaint, low-slung establishments have given way, or are doing so, to high-rises that flaunt violations of the local building code. The few remaining green spots and business district streets are even so threatened, if they have not already been bargained away to some business outfit or other. That aisle bisecting the Center Mall, which used to be a city street, is the best example of the anomaly. If not that, it's a street here, a road there that is being choked shut by enterprises of all kinds. One has to wonder about who else aside from the itinerant vendor or hawker or food stall owner profits from the wholesale lease of all that public domain. There has to be grudging admiration for all the economic activity. On the other hand, one has to worry about the lack of regulation that poses clear peril to public safety, health of general welfare.

Most worrisome, however - - and unfortunately - is the real perception that the unregulated sprawl has fed on itself and encouraged the regard that no spot at all is exempt from every individual initiative to make a buck no matter what. If there can be a more distressing aspect, it is that the official center of Baguio is at the vanguard of all the so-called development. The reality is that the city's administration apparently knows of little else about raising finances than to lease or sell every square meter to whoever or whatever. That mindset, moreover, will persist with the retention of the same official majority in the city's power center.

The trouble does not end there. Fact also is that basic services have not kept up with the increase in demand. We should not wonder, then, that the cell phone has become ubiquitous throughout. But that irritating cell tone is just an intrusion compared to the lack of water in whole districts of the city. Phones and electricity one can do without, but not water which is the stuff of life. On that score, one has to admit with a headshake the grit and resilience of the hundreds of households that have to daily place their orders for and make do with a few drums of delivered water. Only a few complain about that although it is a common and instructive call that someone can deliver on all the promises made in the past. The answer is a no brainer of course. The water problem will get worst long before it gets any better, especially with all the big commercial and real estate development projects sure to get preferential treatment ahead of individual households. The poor squatter family is even lower down the ladder of accommodation. And yet no one among those responsible has come forward to make a true accounting. And then again, what should be expected when any attempt to do so would only betray a betrayal.

In the face of that, we have to truly admire the spunk of the folk who know the score, even as they themselves are totally aware of their share of the fault. Therein, perhaps, lies the essence of the city. It is one that cuts two ways. One that admits a self-inflicted inconvenience and nevertheless places hope, no matter how dim, that a full decade has passed without real remedial action.

Hope, they say, springs eternal. It is also the convenient emotion manipulated by an expert few. (More on Friday).