Baguio Insider

There’s a recent addition to this post below:

I posted a comment at Padma’s blog about the people of Baguio not being really poor, Nashman asked me if we lived in the same universe, so I had to rethink my definition of ‘poor.’

First, the benefits of living in Baguio:

1. Cheap, excellent primary and secondary public education for your kids

2. A lot of places of walking distance (okay, walking distance to me is 2km max if the jeepneys do not blow black smoke in my face), cheap public transportation, no need to own a car.

3. Free homesteading opportunities (yes, you may squat here and the politicians will love you). The land in Baguio comes free for all the ‘poor’ people. Those who are not poor have to buy the land or rent.

4. Lots of rain for water for washing and bathing, or you can just go to the side road at Botanical Garden to get some free spring water.

5. Sayote growing everywhere, plus a backyard with fertile soil to grow vegetables in (or you can ask the vendors for the ones they can no longer sell — I did that at Wright Park and the lady gave me carrots), or sometimes my boys and I get sayote and talbos ng sayote, cook it with one small can of spicy Argentina corned beef (P25.00) and consider it a feast for four.

6. No one to impress, so you don’t need new clothes every time, plus you can cover yourself with the same old jacket everyday. If you need clothes, Php10 at the Kayang Ukay-ukay. Php33 in Bayanihan for blouses Php33 in La Trinidad for pants.

7. Free children’s playground at Burnham Park

8. Free twigs, pine needles and scrap wood to build a fire for cooking

9. Free airconditioning, so even if 10 of your relatives share the same tiny house, it’s still pleasantly cool.

10. No restrictions on raising goats, chickens and pigs in your backyard, unless you live in a subdivision. Heck, there’s even a guy who can afford to maintain a 6-kilo of food per day Saint Bernard by having people pose for photos with Do(u)glas for Php20.00.

11. Free river eels to catch in Sablan.

12. Free swimming at Bued or Nangalisan rivers.

13. Rent-free peddling at Burnham Park or Session Road (my Binatog suki tells me their family earns 500/day, same with taho vendor).

14. Free college education for working students with transportation allowance at UC, student helpers at UB (and you if you get assigned to one of the owner-families, you even get free board and lodging).

15. Free board and lodging for masseurs, including the blind plus commissions per customer. Hey, it’s the same terms for GROs, too!

16. Income opportunities for anyone with a sickle. Just cut grass and sell it for P30/bag to the pony boys. Each horse consumes about 3 bags a day.

17. A surplus of taxis needing drivers, to earn about Php700/day

18. On street-parking with ‘watch your car boys’ at P20/vehicle. This is capital-free. No need to own the parking slot. At just 10 cars/day, that’s Php200 easily.

19. Caretakers who earn P5,000/month plus light and water, plus underground income of renting out the rooms without remitting the sales, serving taxi and jeepney drivers food within the property rent-free, cutting the bamboo and selling it, or using the property as a mahjongg den when the owners are not around.

So far, we’ve covered lodging, education and meals, and a few business opportunities. So who in Baguio is poor? Those with 8 kids to feed, those who spend at least P15/day (P450/month) texting nonsense on their cell phones, those who play basketball all day instead of looking for a job, those who drink gin all day, those who work as barkers for jeepneys, those who work as security guards, those who treat their whole salaries as income and not as capital to beget more income, those who work in a carinderia for Php2,000/month, those who say this phrase “Wala kasing libangan.”

Poverty is man-induced and artificial. Because, actually God gave us everything for free. The concept of property, again, is ‘man-made’ and the source of all this misery, plus it causes man to be greedy. Of course, for Filipinos nowadays, we’re poor because the political and economic systems are designed to keep us that way. If we could only rely on our social security system contributions not to be mismanaged and depleted, we should be provided for when we retire. If our health insurance funds were invested and released properly, we should not worry about medical bills.

Sometimes, it’s also a person’s foolishness or attitude that keeps him that way (how can my pony boy have 8 kids and just the income from one hungry horse and ever expect to get rich?). Of course, Butch Dalisay (I love quoting this line of his) has attributed this sorry state we are in to the ’systematic, state-sponsored, shameless moronization of the Filipino.’

But somehow, in all my 42 years, I have also seen many of my family business’s employees rise. A janitor who is now chief accountant, a dishwasher who is now vice-president, a housemaid who has been able to build 4 houses for all her kids in her province, a company driver who’s kids are architects and accountants, waiters who earn Php20k/month MINIMUM (salary, service charge, tips), an inventory clerk with his own taxi line, a ‘taga-pastol ng kalabaw sa Bulacan’ who became a corporate lawyer.

My paternal grandfather raised all of us to offer profit-sharing, to build business for the creation of jobs first and the earning of income second, to offer stock options to our employees and make them partners. Believe me, his formula, which Chinese businessmen would scoff at, actually makes for long-lasting businesses with small yet steady profits.

But in Baguio, I have had employees who have been with me for more than a decade. They have had similar benefits, and the same opportunities, plus a lower cost of living. But they remain poor, as in almost hand to mouth. For instead of saving his 13th month pay, my waiter will treat his wife and 4 daughters (including the 7-year old) to ‘the works’ in a beauty parlor, haircut, plus hair color. My ex-restaurant manager who has a 600 square meter house and lot in scout barrio plus a 1991 1.6 corolla that I lent her money for, with all kids having graduated from college in UB, considers herself poor (maybe because all 4 adult children, their wives, her grandchildren, plus the her kids’ inlaws are all living off her), a cook with only 2 children and a double income family whose wife squanders the money away and will not tell him how or why, so they will fight and she will run to the barangay hall for her problems.

My mom, who went through the horrors of WWII in her youth, has been upper middle class for the last 40 years, still considers herself poor (but she traveled abroad 4x times this year). In the months of June, July and September I consider myself relatively poor as I never make enough for rent, utilities, salaries.

Maybe I will instead define who is not poor — someone who has a roof over his head, who owns a cellphone no matter how out-dated, who does not have hunger in his belly, whose kids are in school, who has laughter in his soul, who trusts that God will provide, who knows that this life is short and temporary, who can see beauty in everything (except mayor Bautista’s garbage), who is surrounded by all of Baguio’s natural beauty, who sees threats as opportunities, who knows that weakness can be converted to strength (fine, there is income opportunity in all this garbage if one is willing to get dirty).

My maternal grandma fed 13 children on just her husband’s low salary as a post-war justice of the peace (when honor and delicadeza were more important than food). My mom had one school uniform that she wore, washed and ironed everyday. When I moved to Baguio, I did not have a car and all I could afford was a rundown, rusty L-300 van that I bought on terms (and spent more money on repairs). I was living in a one-bedroom dump which flooded when my landlady defrosted her ref. 100% of my income was going to the amortization of a condo that I thought I could afford. But somehow I knew that ‘poor’ was temporary, a state of mind, remediable. When my father moved to Baguio in the late 70s or early 80s, he was in the same sorry state of finances I was in. But what we all had in common was a clean name, a sunny outlook, resilience, imagination, honesty, industry. And we know instinctively that riches do not happen overnight, and that hard-earned money is harder to spend. So maybe, if we can find a vehicle to teach others about this, instead of having my countrymen wanting to strike it rich in one fell swoop, we can change our little corner of the world and make it heaven. To teach folks that having all the ‘needs’ covered is enough, that the ‘wants’ are artificial.

Somehow, I do not think that those who live in Baguio are poor. They’re just miserable. And content with staying this way and just complaining about it. Otherwise, they would move to Manila and see the definition of poor AND miserable.

How can anyone live in beautiful Baguio and consider himself poor? I’m sure you who live here have been met with the word “Wow!” when you tell folks you live in Baguio If just for the free air conditioning alone, we’re better off than everybody else in the Philippines! Having Burnham Park is better than living in any posh subdivision in Manila! Maybe the folks here just can’t see the forest for the trees.

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Added on 22 October 2007 at 1:00 a.m.

I understand my thought processes a bit better now — bear with me as this is not mere rambling, I’m trying to make a point here that I hope you will agree with.

The reason I don’t see “poor” people as poor is because I see them as Filipinos in need of a break. Thus labeling them as such is anathema to me. I cannot say, “You are poor, I am not.” I will not say, “I am a man for you — the others.”

I propose that we do away with these labels — rich, poor, Baguio-born, taga-ili, dayuhan — so that no one person in this country of ours will be discriminated against or have some sense of entitlement.

I do not believe in social justice — that those who have less in life should have more in the law. For this thinking, though well-intentioned rhetoric, again reinforces that sense of entitlement.

I believe that should someone commit something bad in itself (’mala in se’ like heinous crimes) he should be punished, and if merely something that illegal merely because it is prohibited (”mala prohibita” like jaywalking, smuggling), he should just pay a fine as far as remedying the situation is concerned, but a fine so large he will think long and hard before committing it again. Thus, all things being unequal, I believe that social justice should not behave as an equalizer. Rich or poor, jailed and fined — equally, for no one can be forced to commit a crime if he really doesn’t want to. Despite instances of coercion, there’s always honor involved. Of course it’s a different story when one is unjustly accused and cannot afford a good defense. Well, as I mentioned in a previously this life on earth is short and temporary and we all must just trust that justice will be done in the heavens.

I have always believed that:

• fortunes are easily reversed, and,
• call me Polyanna, but everyone can be equally rich,
• that poverty is not how much you have but how you cannot appreciate all that you have,
• no matter how financially wealthy you are you will still be ‘poor’ compared to someone who has more.

Thus a man who has begotten seven starving children should thank the Lord for the seven, and all he is required to do is exert his best efforts to feed them and trust that God will take care of the daily bread. Against all odds, the seven will grow up and be able to seek their own fortunes and better their lot — IF THEY HAVE THE RIGHT ATTITUDES. So parents should stop sending their children to formal schooling if they cannot raise them to be good upright citizens. Let’s stop labeling the poor as such then and stop exempting them from this responsibility.

Honesty, industry and creativity are inherent God-given gifts that must be nurtured. What’s the point of spending Php50,000 a year on tuition in a Baguio University that will grant your child a degree if that child is not given the maximum benefits of growth as far as all other non-academic aspects are concerned? What’s he point of book-learning if he is not taught to learn about life? What is the point of making the kids memorize if they are not taught how to research to find the information they need?

I may not be poor, but I have no children. Thus I can be called poor. I can make all the money in the world and not have anyone to leave it to. I will not buy a house in Baguio because no one will inherit it anyway. But then again, since I do believe that we are put in this world for a purpose, I know my money will be worthless if I keep it for myself.

So I refuse to insult any countryman of mine and label him ‘poor.’ Maybe he just needs mentoring, or be lent capital without interest, or be taught how to fish. The problem with calling someone poor, is that someone with 500 pieces of fish will think he’s doing the former a favor by just throwing him a tailfin.

When I was 18, a wise 21-year old friend of mine told me, “Do not give a beggar loose change, give him capital and a way to make it grow.” So you see folks, this is where I am coming from.

Through the years, I have abided by this. You see, you throw a beggar child a few centavos, he will spend the afternoon on cara-cruz hoping to double the money, and double it again and yet he is left with just a few more centavos. Give him P100, he will maybe think, “What items can I buy to sell at a profit?”

Of course, we don’t have to stop there. You can actually ask him, “If I give you P100, what will you do with it?” Chances are he will tearfully, in a whiny voice say, “I will buy food for the family.” to which you can say, “What if you buy some flannel rags and sell them for a profit? Then you will have Php200, won’t you? You can use Php100 for the food, and buy again some more flannel rags to sell tomorrow, can’t you?”

And in a city like Baguio with a wealth of natural resources and economic opportunites, it’s a shame for anyone to feel poor, or insist that he is, and believe he is entitled to steal or put one over his neighbor, or that the government owes him. So stop crying “Make Poverty History!” Take a Filipino by the hand, pay him well, teach him a trade, show him how he can be more prudent about earning and spending, give him a break — do not throw him the tailfin!

If we have to assign labels, let’s group people into two classes: the selfish and the generous. And believe me, generosity does not have to be about money — it can be time, patience, knowledge, skills, exemplary behavior, respect for others or even just a smile.