BAGUIO CITY, Philippines (PNA) — This mountain resort reeled from various tragedies this year but still managed to recover, riding on its flourishing tourism industry.

Baguio exceeded its target of one million visitors in 2010 based on the periodic raw monitoring data of the city tourism office.

City tourism officer Benedicto Alhambra confirmed that most visitors came during the "Panagbenga" (Flower Festival) last February, the summer months of March and April, and during this Yuletide Season.

The reinvigorated cleanliness program and peace and order improvement under the new administration of City Mayor Mauricio Domogan plus the pursuit of all calendared tourism activities in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) played key roles in the arrival of more than two million tourists regionwide.

As "father of Baguio's clean and green", Domogan immediately restored beauty and cleanliness in his first week of office.

Baguio spent more than P300 million in the past few years just to haul its solid wastes to the Tarlac engineered sanitary landfill.

Starting next year, however, the more than P128-million engineered sanitary system (ERS) of the city will properly handle its 166 tons of solid wastes daily, 66 tons of which will be turned into organic fertilizer.

The rest of the wastes will be handled by some 100 garbage segregators or scavengers whose livelihood will be enhanced with a rate of one peso for every kilo of segregated recyclables and residuals.

The parks have been spruced up not only for the holiday season but also during the arrival of more than 300 foreign amateur golfers who found Baguio to be the same cool city that they have known for years with an average temperature of 14 to 23 degrees celsius as well as peaceful, clean, beautiful and orderly.

The year 2010 also saw a great improvement in water production by the Baguio Water District (BWD) headed by its general manager Teresita de Guzman.

The rehabilitated deep wells and pumping stations, excluding the rain basin in Mount Santo Tomas, now have an aggregate output of 1.2 million cubic meters a month.

Unlike before, even during summer this year, there was a steady supply of potable water in this 49-square kilometer city whose population of almost half-a-million could swell into almost one million during important events.

Meanwhile, the district office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) had implemented 22 infrastructure rehabilitation projects this year.

The projects worth P121 million were mostly directed at those destroyed by typhoons "Pepeng" and "Juan".

Baguio and suburbs were not spared by natural and man-made tragedies in 2010.

The road mishaps here, immediate vicinity and the rest of Benguet Province claimed more than 70 lives and millions of pesos worth of properties.

It was in the early morning of August 18, 2010 when a mini-bus bound to La Union plunged into a ravine after hitting a roadside house. Forty two people were killed in the incident, 39 of them instantly.

The rest of the fatalities were victims of road accidents where all vehicles plunged into deep ravines in the province with rugged terrain. These happened in Benguet towns like Tuba, Itogon, Tublay, Atok and Buguias.

The year is also remembered as the period when only one typhoon directly hit the region but which had a strength of more than 220 kilometers per hour.

Super typhoon "Juan" left six persons dead in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), a far cry from the more than 300 during typhoon "Pepeng".

The minimal impact of the super typhoon on the lives of Cordillerans was attributed to both national and local government's response as well as their effective preemptive or anti-disaster measures like forced evacuations.

Kalinga was the worst hit by typhoon Juan. It affected 37,009 families, 321 of which totally lost their houses.

The year also registered for the region one of the worst drought periods in history. More than P300 million worth of agricultural crops and livestock were lost from February to May this year when the El Niño phenomenon was felt in this area.

Generally, however, the sustained development which spelled the growth of the various sectors like mining, agriculture, manufacturing and services outweighed the effects of the tragedies.

For the people of the Cordilleras, they can still restore the lost livelihood and homes because of their will to survive. Much more, they remain optimistic that with the new leadership of the country, 2011 shall offer them better days ahead.