Baguio Insider

Folks who know me will say I am quick to get over my anger, quick to forget. That makes me very Filipino, I suppose. That’s why it surprises me that I can be this angry for this long. But more than mere anger, there is great depression, uncertainty, even despair.

Folks who know me also know that I am a very open book, that I speak my mind, that although I used to be probably the shallowest person who walked the august halls of U.P. Diliman in the early 1980s, all that changed when Lean Alejandro was slain in 1987. And when one of my favorite persons, Cochise Bernabe, disappeared forever in 1990, life somehow lost a lot of its flavor.

Baguio was my safe haven, where I could be in peace, where I could walk without fear of harm even at 2:30 a.m. in an unlit part of Legarda Road to buy cigarettes at Concorde Hotel at Europa. Where traffic jams were only encountered on Holy Week on the way to the old Camp John Hay Main Gate, where folks were cordial and nicely dressed.

I moved to Baguio to breathe.

I refuse to live in a city of chaos. To be met with rudeness and folks who know only how to do business by dropping their prices to be competitive, instead of risking offering unique products and providing great service. To walk with swarms of people going round and round and getting nowhere. To be terrorized by little criminal kids who are a reflection of Baguio parenting principles and practices.

Like a lot of Manila folk who braved hours of travel to get here this week to get away from it all, who wanted to have both a productive time during their conferences in a relaxed and relaxing environment, and arrived here to find Baguio unkempt. There were two very significant seminars and influential groups who were here: ABS-CBN and Judges of the Lower Courts of the Philippines. Feedback from their delegates: “Ang pangit na ng Baguio!” “Dito lang sa John Hay ang maganda, pangit ang Session Road!” “Ano yun — flyover, kailangan ba?!”

They, too, chose to come to Baguio to breathe, but were in for a big disappointment, especially when going to the Central Business District!

Building an Army.

Instead of just moping about the current state of affairs, I actually “went to town” and met up with civic groups, business organizations and businessmen. Mixed reactions, and a lot of them were like me in 1981, shallow and clueless, seeing only the results, not realizing the effects. When I ranted in person, enumerating a series of ill-conceived plans, revealing selfish motives, and opening their eyes to possible consequences, some where aghast “I didn’t know that!,” some were resigned, “Ganyan talaga,” some were opportunistic, “So what kind of school should we set up ?, some were in denial, “Hindi taga-Baguio ang gumagawa niyan!”

All the local officials are taga-Baguio. Sila ang gumagawa niyan!

But all-in-all the beginnings of my “crusade” did open businessmen’s eyes to the irregularities that are being perpetrated here:

• the questionable number of taxis operating in the city (and the consequent traffic) are man-made
• the lousy implementation (or non-collection of garbage) of the segregation policy, deliberate in its timing to coincide with the shift of focus away from tourism (most folks see this as a separate move — it is not!)
• the implications of the “educational center of the north drama” on business and the environment
• the lunacy of the plans for an unnecessary market at Burnham Park and the destructive Botanical Garden ‘development’
• our new “welcome arch,” Domogan’s flyover, which he insists on finishing by year-end (lest we tear it down or blow it up) by a rumored re-allocation of the Benguet budget for farm-to-market projects to the tune of 60M
• and policies that serve only to promote their personal wealth at the expense of the whole populace
  

It is greed devoid of finesse!

Catherine Arvisu-de la Rosa was kind when she said months ago about the politicians, “They just don’t know any better,” to which I countered, “Then they shouldn’t have run for office!”

Heck, they even legislated the City Hall Christmas Party 2007 in an ordinance!

Kim Jong Hei

Running a B&B seldom allows me to have breakfast out much. So when a chance for a breakfast meet-up with cousin Carlo Legarda came, I grabbed it quite happily. I was asked to select the venue, as he was not too hot about eating another one at the Manor. He was in a seminar there for a few days and wanted to try another place.

I chose House of Waffles at Camp John Hay, forgetting that it was now a more a Korean restaurant. Our common cousin, Jeannine McCann-Chan mentioned a day earlier that Koreans are not allowed to play golf at the Baguio Country Club. And I joked, “Well, they did ‘buy’ into Camp John Hay big time!”

House of Waffles has a mildly interesting short history — It was a Country Waffles franchise that was abandoned by Bert Nievera when he up and left the Philippines. The Baguio staff, led by its manager continued running it ‘ownerless’, after which it was taken over by a Baguio businessman, who in turn sold it to a Korean this year.

They were out of caramel for my Caramel Pecan Pancakes and substituted it with Chocolate instead. I start thinking, ah, can’t you make your own caramel? That’s just sugar boiled in water — or sometimes sugar, water and cream! Then I realized this is one time change in ownership really matters. Caramel does not appear much in a Korean’s repertoire. It’s easier to buy a bottle of Hershey’s syrup.

Carlo must’ve wondered why I took him to breakfast within Camp John Hay. I told him I did not want him to see downtown. I was bewailing to Carlo the fact that I am hesitant to even book rooms for my B&B until Bautista starts fixing the garbage (and consequent vermin) problems that he has inflicted upon the Baguio populace. Carlo opined that it may help Baguio’s cause to have the ‘outside world’ see what’s going on and maybe there will be national pressure for Baguio to shape up.

While I agree that that would be a possibility that could work in Baguio’s favor, I think that greater damage may be done by having them see Baguio so ugly and dirty, so full of garbage, graffiti and talipapas and make instant judgments.

Only Camp John Hay, Leonard Wood, Gibraltar, South Drive, Upper Session - from the Supreme Court Compound to the old Camp John Hay Main Gate unless you look to your left at the Plaza-Apugan jeepneys et. al. surrounding the Caltex Station, using the streets as a depot - and Loakan look like the old Baguio nowadays …

I actually had a walk-in guest who said, upon checking in, that she was happy to have found a quiet place away from the madding crowd (read: traffic) that greeted her upon arrival in Baguio. Last time she was here was in the 1980s and finds Baguio not worth visiting anymore. And this is a judgment she made within one hour of arrival in Baguio.

I would probably think the same thing in her place if I were welcomed by Domogan’s useless flyover upon arrival and all of Mondiguing’s taxis. Instead of going out for dinner to sample our restaurants, she chose to have pizza delivered instead!

One good development was meeting up with Voltaire Acosta last Wednesday of the “Love Baguio or Leave Baguio” movement who explained that the anti-Korean stand that I wrote about was merely a slant made by Philippine Daily Inquirer reporter Vincent Cabreza (he shouldn’t have done that), that their group was formed as a government watchdog, accredited by the Office of the Ombudsman, and that here was an organized bunch that is ready to take an active role in Baguio affairs as citizens and taxpayers.

I will join the evangelists (hey, it’s the same God!) in their quest, we will watch the local officials and thwart their evil plans, march on streets if we have to! And I will apprise everyone, through this site of what we can all do to help, what we can together achieve to bring back magic to Baguio City.

What’s Next?

Well, I did promise to submit all my unsolicited, and to my mind very valid, suggestions for a better Baguio that were previously published in this site (the one with ‘more trees, less taxes’ was well received). I will host a multisectoral meeting of concerned organizations and citizens in a week’s time — date and place unannounced (but available to all Baguio Insider ‘partners’ — those of you who wish for a better life in Baguio and wish to take charge of the fate of our hometown, and who send me a private email so I can send you a personal invitation).

Any future posts will strive to be informative yet dispassionate, a mere journal of the current events (and afflictions of the city). I don’t know if I can really do this, to mask my agitation.

Those who know me know, too, that I am fearless. Well, that’s what happens after your survive 16 armalites pointed at you in the late 80s. When you have protested the open abduction of a pedestrian from a jeepney stop at 16 years young and had the dreaded Metrocom-kings threaten your person. It’s also easy to be fearless when you’re childless, or when your personal income is not dependent on Baguio. It is also time to be fearless, to break away from the Marcos legacy of a silent middle class, who exchanged their voices for promised economic prosperity.

I have always said that apathy gives the government more power, that deference to the politicians gives them more power. They have to be made to realize that they spent all that money campaigning so that they can be elected public servants (operative word: SERVANTS). Who will be made to stop behaving as if they were elected kings!

Blogging History

Sometime I wonder how dictators like Marcos would fare in a world full of bloggers — would we be like China blocking certain sites from appearing in our country’s browsers? Would he have closed doors to the internet in the first place? Would he have threatened us with subversion and tracked us through our IP addresses? I love that blogging is a journal of the world as it happens, to be left as a legacy for our children.

I will continue the Quotes for Posterity Series, just so we can chronicle the utterances and shenanigans of the politicians, and hopefully, blog sites will play a more influential role in the coming elections in 2010 for the Philippines. In the meantime, the struggle of life goes on.

A poster hanging in my bathroom in Manila is a quote that says “There are no sunsets, only the constant struggle of day against night, and our total dedication to the light”

Of course this poster was made by political detainees during Martial Law and referred to tyranny so vile that whole towns were decimated on a madman’s whims. But know that while tyranny is a visible enemy, apathy is just as destructive, merely cloaked in feigned ignorance as if it serves as an armor against the evil designs of a state and a system that keeps its citizens barefoot and hungry as the perceived necessary means for political survival, a system so wrong that politicians are expected to steal, a citizenry so benumbed that they actually see logic in a winning candidate’s desire for a “return on investment,” like a local city councilor has been known to have said to all and sundry.

Stay and Fight.

In 1983, my best friend in school was Lorraine del Prado of Baguio City. Those were the dark days of Marcos and we vowed never to leave the Philippines and fight. Of course there were not too many jobs for graduates in 1985, and she found herself in the U.S., taking further studies, until she eventually fell in love and married there.

A lot of my friends in Manila and in Baguio are gone. Diane McCann-Narcelles was also my cousin and best friend, who helped us manage Halfway House in the beginning. But now she, too, is in America.

The dark days of 1997 was another opportunity for me to flee the country, but that was when I felt I should stay and help rebuild, and cushion the effects of the Asian Economic Crisis and the Camp John Hay turnover to Fil-Estate (and its temporary closure).

I find myself, these days, living the life I want in a beautiful home, meeting lovely people, on and offline. Go Baguio! is today again No.2 on Google when you search ‘baguio,’ I have beautiful dogs and beautiful cars all in an ‘island’ in Baguio City. So why am I so unhappy?

Because Baguio, my love, is sick. And is being harmed further by her incompetent ‘doctors.’ Because my neighbors are being made to feel poor, called poor, made to feel a sense of entitlement (to steal, to cheat, to trash, to feel sorry for themselves and merely wait for manna to fall from heaven, to have as role models a bunch of thieving politicians and unscrupulous businessmen) because they are kept ‘poor.’

Because I cannot breathe. My town mates are being suffocated just as much, and these resilient people just don’t know it yet.

Remember how in Harry Potter, only Luna Lovegood and Harry could see the ‘thestles’ pulling their coaches, who were otherwise invisible to those who have not yet seen d(e)ath?

When at the risk of being called “loony,” I do see the otherwise invisible threats to Baguio because I can recognize them, more than my unsuspecting, accepting town mates can. In fact we can even, in Potter-speak, call our politicians ‘dementors’ because they want to suck all the happiness out of Baguio life.

And when this blog turns silent, know that I will have left because I have failed in helping heal her, leaving behind only a short chronicle of life in Baguio as a blogger. May that day never come.

So, to take your mayor’s words: with your kind indulgence, allow me to declare .. ‘war on Baguio’s dementors!’