Rizal park in Manila. PHOTO BY RICHARD A. REYES
Touted as the “land of heroes,” Manila’s Rizal Park now shimmers with an extra glow on evenings.
To mark the country’s 114th Independence Day, the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the National Parks Development Committee (NPDC) on Monday night carried out a ceremonial lighting of the Rizal Monument to launch the park’s switch from traditional lighting to LED (light-emitting diode).
The use of a LED bulb is growing in popularity due to its low energy consumption, the quality of its light and its long life—even if it costs as much as 10 times a conventional bulb.
An ordinary incandescent Edison-style bulb consumes 60 to 100 watts over 1,200 hours. LED, producing the same amount of light, consumes only six to eight 15 watts in 50,000 hours.
LED is also considered to be among the “green” products, mostly free of lead and mercury.
While trumpeting the environmental benefits of solar-powered and LED lights, officials also said the 58-hectare Rizal Park deserved to be well-lit because it was hallowed ground where Filipinos died fighting for Philippine independence.
“We are not lighting up Rizal Park because ghosts abound here and because we are scared of the dark. We are doing this because this piece of land is sacred. It was here where many noble Filipinos gave up their lives,” Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. said in a speech.
790 lampposts
“It will be made brighter precisely because we want the entire nation to give it the reverence it deserves,” he said.
NPDC Executive Director Juliet Villegas said the shift from the traditional lighting system to LED would also ease the impact of skyrocketing electric bills on the park’s meager coffers.
Villegas said the park had been paying an average of P1 million in power bills every month with the old “sodium/metal halide” lighting system. LED would slash electric consumption by 50 to 70 percent, she said.
Over 790 lampposts are installed throughout the park, popularly known as Luneta. Under the new P100-million lighting project, 285 lampposts, mostly at the monument site and the central lagoon area, have converted to LED.
The lampposts lighted during Monday’s ceremony were among the 1,000 LED lights targeted to be placed around Rizal Park. About 100 flood lights and 100 stand-alone solar lights are also in the pipeline, Villegas said.
Free Internet access
The lighting project is to be completed next month. By October, park-goers will enjoy another upgrade: a WiMax coverage (similar but wider in coverage than WiFi) would allow them to access the Internet for free. CCTV cameras will also be installed in the park.
At least seven “green restrooms,” whose interiors are made of bamboo, have been constructed in the park.
Villegas said the changes were conceptualized to make Rizal Park a “benchmarking tool” in promoting cleanliness and environmentalism.
“Secretary Jimenez wants Rizal Park to be a model for all tourism destinations in the country, not only in terms of having uniform and user-friendly but also environment-friendly facilities,” she said.
Aside from boosting security around the park, “the lighting project would also help in reducing carbon print,” Villegas said.
No obstruction
Tourism and park officials also assured the public that Rizal Park would remain free of any obstruction.
“If some people are planning to do something that will destroy the sight line of Rizal Park, we will obviously review that very carefully,” Jimenez told reporters. With a report from Inquirer Archives