Getting Lost in the lanes around Beijing's Back Lakes: No other city in the world has anything quite like the hutong, narrow lanes once "as numberless as the hairs on an ox." Now rapidly vanishing, the best-preserved hutong are found around a pair of man-made lakes in the city center. This area is almost the last repository of Old Beijing's gritty, lowrise charm, dotted with tiny temples, hole-in-the-wall noodle shops, and quiet courtyard houses whose older residents still wear Mao suits.
By Romy Teruel One environmental and tourism issue that will keep on cropping up unless decisive actions are done is the issue of easement along beaches as prescribed by the Water Code of the Philippines. This has cropped up before and now it is here again. The conference that Gov. Erico B. Aumentado held with the hotel and resort owners of Panglao and Dauis last Friday is an example of laws wanting in implementation. While the laws are clear and guidelines are prescribed, willing compliance has remained a problem. The Water Code of the Philippines prescribes a 20-meter easement from the high water mark on the beach towards inland where no permanent structure can be constructed whatsoever. We need not send experts however to know that compliance is more in the breach than observance. This prompts observers to ask "What happened to Bohol's thrust on eco-tourism and environmental conservation and protection?" And this is usually followed by "They are killing...
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