For all that, one has to concede that a great part of the mess can be traced to a city charter that is near to a hundred years old, an outdated relic from the American colonial period. How that charter has remained unchanged all the years since 1909 is a wonder in itself. To be fair, however, we understand that as late, or early, as more than 30 years ago, attempts were made to rewrite the document. Nothing came out of that of course. Other feeble initiatives were made since then, all to no result.

The result of those failures is the current and tangled land problem. Military, civilian, mining and watershed reservations designated by the Americans early last century have all been squatted on, rendering whole sections of the city into illegal settlements. Another offshoot has been to transfer all the reservations into anything but what they were set aside for. How all that come to past is a tangled story all its own. There is enough blame by irreversible events. Through all that, the bigger part of the solution has been staring Baguio's official-dome in the face all these years.

It is a wonder indeed that in the last decade of the last century, the tenure of the soon to be "change court" administration, no initiative at all has been taken to overhaul the obsolete charter. The kind view, if one were to hazard an explanation, would be to say there were other pressing matters to attend to. Unfortunately, that flies in the face of the parallel fact that a whole lot of the city's disorders stem from precisely that anachronistic charter.

The harsher view would be to ponder over how politically convenient it has been to keep entire sections of the city in limbo about their landed status and then manipulate the residents of these sections into pawns at each electoral turn. That, plus the opportunity for every fixer, whether of the official kind or otherwise, to make a quick buck from each slow step leading to the selective granting of property titles.

Whatever position one takes, the sad fact remains that the very political ticket that has come forward with a real draft of a new city charter was apparently rejected by an, also apparently, uncomprehending electorate.

If that was a surprise, another has sprung late into the campaign period. That came in the astonishing announcement that another party had in its agenda to change the charter. That was a lame attempt to put on the appearance of statesmanship, made all the more obvious for its absence of substance or concrete manifestation.

So, there is where things stand for the nonce. With a year gone into the century, Baguio stumbles on with a basic code that is out of touch with reality.

If there is some comfort to be derived from the latest political exercise, it is that the matter of changing that charter has finally been given some serious attention. A working draft has been put forward and made ready for scrutiny and, hopefully, eventual approval in its refined and ironed out form. That can, and should, happen. Or it may not. Much will depend on the people of Baguio themselves. It is for them, for us, to take up the proverbial challenge and push for the long overdue change.

To be sure, it will be a tedious and long-drawn affair. That makes it even more imperative that the process be opened now. This is no time to dither and delay.

The party that has put the matter squarely on the table, this writer included, will be active proponents of that process. For now, however, it is up to City Hall to press the matter into the arena of public attention and, it is prayed, the soonest possible resolution. Perhaps then, we will see a new city, one that will at long last start putting itself in order.