I didn't dare take a photo, I was that afraid.
A friend wanted to have coffee at last Sunday, so I picked her up from her workplace at the bottom of Session Road and made our way up to Luisa's Cafe. Baguio's most famous road was "pedestrianized" and closed to vehicles that day. Stalls have been set up at intervals of a few meters selling local goods - from food products to woven fabrics to plants, etc. It was a great idea - give Baguio folks a feeling of normalcy, a chance to heave a sigh, a breathe of fresh air. After all, we've been doing our best to adhere to one of one of the strictest quarantine protocols in the country, both in terms of policies and implementation, we haven't really had the chance at any real leisure activity since March, so given the opportunity to take a leisurely walk along Session Road - yeah, we'll take it.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I've heard that before. Soon after crossing Malcolm Square, any good feeling I hoped to get from that short walk was immediately dashed by the sight of law enforcement officers who looked more like military personnel than members of a civilian police force in their camouflage, some carrying long firearms, others with pistols in holsters and many clutching a baton, or batuta, made of yantok.
I understand that they're there to keep everyone safe, primarily by ensuring that everyone was wearing a mask and practicing proper physical distancing, but I just couldn't see the need for M16s (I'm guessing here, I'm not an expert on firearms at all) and yantoks to be brandished the way the were last Sunday. It reminded me of one senior citizen friend's lament at the height of the Enhanced Community Quarantine in the early days of this pandemic - "what are the machine guns for?" he said, "what are they going to do if I forget to wear a mask and they see me outside my house? Shoot and kill me?"
As with its sidewalks on regular days, each side of the road was one way either going up or down and as we approached the Mabini intersection, with Luisa's Cafe on the left (or the going down side), we crossed the road and saw a sign manned by a "baton-ed" personnel that said "No Entry" or "One Way", I don't exactly remember. But I thought, Luisa's was right next to that sign surely it's ok. I actually knew it was ok, but the yantok made me doubt myself. And true enough, as we approached the Luisa's (and that sign with the yantok-wielding officer, his eyes turned towards us and proceeded to point at us with his yantok and gestured for us not to proceed. I explained to him that we were going to Luisa's Cafe, the entrance to which was merely a couple of meters beyond the signage. He let us pass, though grudgingly, but he did let us pass.
But it wasn't just the presence of those various arms that induced fear and anxiety, but also the demeanor of their bearers. Their scowls and piercing stares certainly did not make me feel safe, it made me feel like we were enemies, on opposite sides. They made me feel bad, they made me feel angry, they made me feel wrong, they made me feel sad, but no, they did not make me feel safe.
I was in a hurry get inside, have a seat and that coffee to get away from the Armageddon-esque visuals of Session Road. We climbed the stairs to the second floor of Luisa's and were greeted by about 6 or 7 police officers, camouflaged, armed with either an M16, a pistol or a yantok (some of them had both the pistol and yantok), having coffee. There was no escaping them!
We heaved a sigh, not a happy sigh that the pedestrianization of Session Road hoped to achieve, but one of surrender, and perhaps partly to breathe out some of the anxiety that such an antagonistic sight induced.
We hoped to have a nice talk, catch up after months of not seeing each other, talk about our advocacy, ways to contribute to make Baguio a better place, but we just couldn't, especially when it started to rain and more camouflaged personnel came in for shelter, more M16s, more pistols, more yantoks.
At that point, we decided to cut short our coffee time and stood up to leave. "It's still raining very hard and we don't have umbrellas," I said, to which she replied. "That's ok, I've asked someone to bring us umbrellas."
What was not said was that she'd rather get drenched in the rain than stay a minute longer in the presence of M16s, pistols and yantoks.
There was no respite, no fresh air on Session Road that Sunday afternoon but only fear and anxiety amplified by a tempestuous downpour.
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