ON July 1, 2024, we, at Palafox, celebrated a remarkable milestone: our 35th anniversary.

Over the past 3-and-a-half decades of practicing architecture, urban and environmental planning, master planning, interior and urban design, engineering and development consultancy as a firm in 40 countries, we have been immensely grateful for opportunities to plan and design healthier, more livable, sustainable, and resilient buildings, communities, cities and regions here and abroad. Above all, everything we do is pro Deo, patria, et terra (for God, country and planet earth).

I have also been thankful to share that I have marked 52 years as an architect and 50 years as an urban planner this year. Back in 1989, when I started the firm with just a team of four, I never imagined the breadth and scope of what we could contribute as a firm. At that time, all I knew was that I was committed to creating memorable yet inclusive spaces, focusing on environmental stewardship and resilience.

With that as a guiding purpose, I have had the privilege to meet and work with partners, colleagues, clients in the public and private sectors, and friends in the profession, who shared the same dedication and mindset. It is an honor to have worked alongside such like-minded people to complete more than 1,900 projects, covering more than 54 billion square meters (sqm) of land, and the architecture and design of more than 30 million sqm of building floor area.

Most importantly, these buildings, spaces and communities have become vibrant spaces, where people lived, learned, played, rested, worshipped and thrived. With every line that we have drawn, we have thought about the end users and beneficiaries of the place.

At Palafox, our main purpose has been to provide a better quality of life and plan a sustainable future for all and create value in every place, building and community we designed. Planning has occurred at different levels: neighborhoods, communities, towns, cities, and at the rural, urban, metropolitan-wide and regional scale.

It has been an incredibly rewarding profession as our interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams have closely collaborated with a diverse range of participative stakeholders across the country, including local government units, national government agencies, business owners, the academe, members of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (legislative body of the city), farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people and civic organizations, among others.

To strengthen this, there needed to be visionary leadership with strong political will; great appreciation of great planning such as urban planning and socioeconomic planning; great decisions such as great governance, great architecture and great engineering; and responsible citizenship.

Through stakeholder engagement activities, we have assisted them not only in envisioning their aspirations for their own communities, cities and provinces but also in equipping and empowering them to carry out their plans to establish progressive and inclusive development with the ultimate goal of enhancing their quality of life.

Through our profession, our main responsibility has been to promote and apply design and planning best practices to each community and city with which we work. By doing so, we hoped that this would make a significant impact toward inclusive national development, where current and future generations of Filipinos thrived.

Such engagements have helped us complete and work on projects such as Batangas State University's Knowledge, Innovation and Science Technology (KIST) park, the Philippines' first KIST park; the Leyte Ecological Industrial Zone, the Philippines' first ecological industrial zone; Ilagan City's Comprehensive Land Use Plan and Comprehensive Development Plan; Metro Davao Urban Master Plan; Davao City Tourism Plan; Cabugao Comprehensive Urban Development Plan, the Lanao Del Norte Agro-Industrial Strategic Development Plan; Ilocos Norte Transport Hub; San Miguel Corp.'s Aerocity; the Master Plan of Proclamation 311 in Real, Quezon; and Business Park Pulilan in Bulacan, among many others.

As we marked our 35th anniversary, our commitment to nation-building has never been more resolute, which was why I am excited to, once again, share our planning and design advocacy: "Philippines 2050: A first-world country, a first-world economy."

Through the years, I have been invited to local and international speaking engagements, and I have been vocal about HSBC and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s projection that the Philippines can be the 16th top economy by 2050. In relation to this, I have always said that the Philippines has had a very high development and investment potential. We have been a nation rich in potential. Our abundant natural and human capital resources, to name a few, have positioned us to become a first-world country by 2050.

The Philippines has been 400 times the size of Singapore, 350 times larger than Hong Kong, eight times bigger than Taiwan and three times the size of South Korea. Our country has excelled in various areas. We have ranked No. 1 in marine biodiversity, voice call centers, sailors and seafarers; No. 2 in geothermal energy; No. 3 in gold; No. 4 in shipbuilding and copper; No. 5 in nickel and other mineral resources as well as having the fifth longest coastline globally; and No. 9 in human capital development with a demographic sweet spot, boasting an average age of 26 while the rest of the world is aging.

However, there have been several challenges needed to be resolved first before we would become a first-world country and economy. According to the World Bank, by 2050, more than 100 million Filipinos would live in urban areas or cities. By then, our country would need 100 new sustainable, smart, resilient and livable cities to support and sustain its rapidly increasing population.

Otherwise, existing cities would experience housing unaffordability, congestion, sprawl and poor accessibility, and it would be as bad or worse than Metro Manila. By 2050, assuming there are five people per household, the Philippines would need 40 million homes to address the backlog and future different household formations.

Moreover, we would need active civic engagement and strong partnerships between the government and private sector to attain the following goals, leading to 2050: 1) achieve most of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Goals by 2030 and 2) join the list of the first-world countries by 2040.

We would not be able to achieve the above without good governance and addressing criminality through effective measures in attaining peace and order; climate change through the protection and enhancement of the environment, reduction of carbon footprints, mitigation of sea level rise, and redevelopment of communities to become sustainable and disaster-resilient; inequality through fair distribution of wealth; and unsustainable infrastructure through seamless connectivity and disaster-proof design.

Philippines 2050 underscored the vital role of architecture, urban planning, environmental planning, master planning, and interior and urban design in fostering inclusivity and cultivating healthier communities, towns, cities, provinces and regions.

We have had more blessings than challenges, but it has been important to address the challenges now to achieve our 2050 vision for our country. This vision was also an invitation to inspire current and future generations of architects, planners and designers as well as national and local government leaders, developers and fellow Filipinos to start shaping our sustainable and resilient future communities and cities today.

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