Baguio Insider

One of the opinion columns that I seek out every week is Baguio Ko, Mahal Ko written by Virginia Oteyza de Guia, a fiesty little old lady who commands so much admiration and respect in Baguio City.

I first met Mrs. de Guia in 1999 when we held a series of negotiations for my possibly leasing a 300 square meter area on the 4th floor of their family-owned La Azotea building on Session Road for a business I wanted to put up. The business was eventually erected on Legarda Road, but what I remember from that time was that I so badly wanted to be their lessee because I fell in love with Mrs. de Guia herself.

Our first conversation ever was one embarassing moment for me. Hoping to break the ice with small talk:

Lisa: “How would you be related to Scout de Guia, one of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines, who was in the plane crash en route to the 11th Jamboree at Marathon, Greece after whom a street in my neighborhood in Quezon City is named?”

Gene de Guia (eyes mostening): “Oh, he was my son… he was 15… he promised me he was going to take his golfing more seriously when he got back.”

Lisa (foot-in-mouth-yet-again): “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

Of course her reputation as one of the (self-proclaimed) “Three Witches of Baguio” preceded her. Along with nonagenarians Cecile Afable and Leonor San Agustin, her tiny frame walks tall, her smiling face and soft voice command immediate attention. Everyone will defer to her. For love of Baguio is most evident in Gene de Guia’s life. Her weekly column that politely points out the current state of Baguio and make suggestions for a better future is our one last link to Baguio’s glorious past, when only nice folks like Mrs. De Guia resided and made this city beautiful.

Last Sunday’s Baguio Ko Mahal Ko (the December 30, 2007 column which, as of this writing, is not yet included in the Baguio Midland Courier website so I cannot link it up, and am actually reading a hard copy of the paper, typing word after word) is entitled “Old columnists, like old soldiers…” and I am quoting excerpts of it here:

“Like old soldiers, our weekly columns can also just fade away. Having turned 90 last year, my writing energy comes sporadically, People ask me if Gene de Guia has ended this column.

“My heart continues to joust passionately with daily issues affecting Baguio — especially with her centennial just around the corner … Hopefully this nonagenarian columnist can still comment on print until the 100th birthday of our beloved city.

“For a year ender, let me focus on Burnham Park. As a citizen of this barangay, I cross the green oasis daily on my way to Session Road. Last week’s front page quotes our mayor seeking GMA’s OK ‘to get back Burnham Park management.’* Didn’t the city already get jurisdiction over the park when it was turned over from the National Parks Development Authority to the Baguio City Parks and Development Board?

“As a member of the citizen’s advisory board that oversees the evolution of Burnham Park, we have kept track of the problems of the park…

“We objected to the plan to build an underground parking space** at the Ganza Restaurant area. Another concrete monster to displace more green areas in our cement jungle. Heto na naman. Don’t we recognize the same mindset that created the global warming nightmare that our planet faces?

” Every green square meter of Burnham Park must be defended. It is the lungs of Baguio.

“… Do our city officials have the political will to fight the ‘edifice complex?’ It is common knowledge that cementing often means concrete kickbacks. Look at that Olympic swimming pool, a white elephant breeding dengue mosquitoes for our city!

” The council should pass a law forbidding any new structure in our green park. Wasn’t there a mad proposal two years ago for a city bus terminal at the east end of Burnham Park, adjacent to the Baguio General Hospital overpass monster? Once upon a time, my fellow columnists, Cecile Afable, Leonie San Agustin, and I carried placards against the BGH overpass.

In the same column she bewails the facts that while Jadewell has been successfully booted out of Burnham PArk, taxis have ‘invaded.’

“The no parking sides (along the Athletic Bowl wall) are occupied daily for their siestas … It’s bad enough that taxis congest the city.”

Also:

“Next Item: Excursion buses parking in Burnham (under Baguio City National High School) are often rolling hotels, as their passengers sleep in them. They are the biggest litter producers. Out of the bus windows comes a shower of plastic bottles, chips wrappers, and balut shells.

She ends with:

“Calling mayor Peter Rey Bautista! Upon assumption of your office, didn’t you announce that Burnham Park was your priority project? Long after the “3 witches” stop writing their columns in this paper, we will continue to hound City Hall concerning Baguio Namin, Mahal Namin.”

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Mrs. de Guia,

It seems our mayor’s priority project was precisely to edify Burham Park with his proposed metal parking building (”Baguio needs more parking” Lisa: University of Baguio needs more parking), and with his silent acceptance of Pinky Rondez’s plans to build a market on Burnham Park.

And all other Midland columnists talk about everything else: Carrantes writes about a former governor playing poker as if that’s bad in itself (hey, the guy’s out of a job, he deserves some R&R!), Sanidad talks about national issues, everyone else tries to write with more humor than sense, as if afraid to offend their ‘erring’ subjects.

I cannot bear the thought of being deprived of the wisdom of all your years of loving and guiding Baguio. It would be nice if Baguio Midland Courier made a web archive of your columns over the past decades as its great contribution to our Baguio heritage.

It would be wonderful if we were to celebrate with you YOUR centennial.

Do not ever leave us, Gene De Guia, please. Baguio will be lost.

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Mrs. de Guia recently celebrated her 90th birthday last December 26, 2007. Read more about our beloved Gene de Guia, who, for a time, was a post WWII and sole female mayor of Baguio City, among other achievements, here.

Photo above courtesy of http://firstfilipina.blogspot.com/2005/12/virginia-oteyza-de-guia.html

Baguio Midland Courier link to Baguio Ko, Mahal Ko