Straight Jab
Learn from Taipei
By Job Tabada
Cebu Daily News
First Posted 15:26:00 11/17/2008
Filed Under: Travel & Commuting
Taipei City, Taiwan, Republic of China — Out of ordinary, this capital city brings about everything that Taiwan needs, turning the country into one that’s noticeable worldwide. It has earned for itself the trendy tag as the city that doesn’t stop growing. It makes sense in pursuing the tremendous developments that took place in Taiwan more than half a century ago following the Cultural Revolution in China.
Seeing the city, what immediately attracts a stranger are the high-rise buildings or condominiums that are visible to his naked eyes. These structures share a significant role in the government’s effort at addressing the basic needs of the people: shelter and an answer to their economic needs. It’s a blueprint of the government’s formula keeping the people in a manageable level and providing them jobs. This explains why there are no slum areas and beggars in the city. In a striking contrast, condos that are found flourishing in Manila and in other metropolitan areas like Cebu mean decent shelters only for the rich. One that was constructed in Cebu, supposedly to accommodate the homeless, lamentably became a center of political abhorrence.
Taipei, with a population of more than three million people, goes beyond this aspect of development to make a bigger statement. Among others, the place is also home to numerous giant business establishments, a free press, institutions of learning, disciplined people, major tourist attractions, mass transport system, and a government that practices democracy. It’s the city where semi-conductors and other high-tech products are designed, made and exported to 170 countries, greatly boosting its economy that was heavily dependent on agriculture three decades ago. Its latest major attraction is the world’s tallest sky-scrapper, Taipei 101, another symbol of new Taipei. The building provides a new challenge to the government’s tourism program in luring both domestic and foreign visitors.
I didn’t see a policeman carrying a firearm. What were visible were batota or clubs in their waists, coupled with their will to demonstrate courtesy to the citizens and visitors. With hardly-noticeable crime record, there’s even no need to hire policemen. People walking the streets are hardly seen during the day as they locked in their work places.
They frequent public places with purpose, usually in night market after their work. One of the city’s avowed policies is its total war against environmental degradation. It adds a feather to its name, becoming one of the cleanest cities in Asia, if not in the whole world. Like Manila, where the Pasig River is, the city used to have the most polluted river in the region. That had stopped with the implementation of a massive clean-up campaign, making the river now a place to appreciate. Greening the environment is another effort that makes sense. Every tree has a volunteer resident to take charge of its welfare. The government adopts a strict policy that allows no vacant lands planted with trees or vegetables, if not develop them into something that’s productive or a place where people can relax.
I was stunned to know that we were taking a lunch in a resto just beside a compound where the city’s collected garbage went through the incineration process, and turned the wastes into one of the city’s major sources of energy.
Talking of energy, there’s another source of electricity that keeps life in the economic zone moving. It’s the power plant that uses clean coal technology, a total turnaround from the old coal-powered system that became the center of worldwide protest in recent years due to emission of black smoke that carried toxic substances proven to be harmful to both humans and animals. One of the plants we visited was located in neighboring city of Taoyuan, about a thirty-minute drive by bus from Taipei. Visiting journalists would be surprised to learn that the plant stood in an area just a stone’s throw away from a shopping mall and Taiwan’s international airport. No records of pollution-related complaints have been registered so far.
A group called Global Business Power Corp. hopes to replicate Taiwan’s clean coal technology for Cebu to generate additional power for the growing province’s needs. As a start, the group launched the project several months ago and expects to begin the construction of the two proposed plants soon. I will write a separate article related to the project.
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