Ahhh, Session Road

Many years ago, on one of my numerous trips to Baguio as a visitor, I went for a walk to and around Burnham Park, and, awed by the beauty of the fog descending on the city right before sunset, just as the Burnham photographers were hoping for a memory or two more to capture before calling it a day, just as the students were rushing to the park for a half hour of boating or biking with friends before going home, I looked for a perfect spot to keep still and better appreciate the wonderful scene. I found that spot somewhere at the Rose Garden, afternoon sun through the trees on a slope covered by green grass, and with a book in my pocket, I sat down and tried to read. But the beauty of it all - the trees, the fog, the cool Baguio air, the people, was keeping me from enjoying what I was reading, a welcome distraction, so I closed the book and instead watched Baguio end another day. That was a beautiful afternoon. 

Another afternoon several years ago, this time I was already living here, we hopped on to a friend's pick-up truck and made our way to Marlboro Country (which some would say is better experienced on horseback) for a picnic. We had our children with us who were crazy about Harry Potter (they have just seen the HP and the Sorcerer's Stone) and while us, the parents, sitting on cold, wet grass, enjoying the cool mountain air talking about where the Baguio arts scene seems to be headed, the children were all over the hills running around on their broomsticks and magic wands running away from and fighting off imaginary monsters. Every detail of that afternoon plays out in slow motion in my head now. The moment was priceless.

Once we were shooting a music video for a band, and the story revolved around images of life in Baguio then and now. There was a scene wherein two boys were floating a paper boat on a brook, running down a hill trying to get a kite in the air, and walking along a narrow path in a pine forest. The video ended with the band, then already making a name for themselves in Manila, performing in front of a local crowd, just like the old days. I look back and remember filming those scenes more than I remember the music video itself. 

See, Baguio has so many faces, it leaves an impression on people in so many different ways. It's the fog, it's the pine trees, it's the sunflowers, it's Mines View Park, it's the market, it's the strawberries, and lately to some, sadly, it's the mall. 

In the more than ten years since I decided to make Baguio my home, there are two things that most significantly help define the life that I have made for myself here: Theater and Session Road. 

Theater is the medium I have chosen to tell my stories. And Session Road is where I sit still and listen to stories. It's where Baguio people's lives meet, interconnect, intertwine. Session Road is where it's all at, for me, what it's all about. Almost everyone in Baguio can put Session Road as their address in their calling card, this is where you find almost everybody - waiting for a ride home, having coffee, or a beer, having breakfast, lunch or dinner. Buying a notebook, or a pen. Depositing money in or getting money from the bank. Watching a parade, or making a scene. Avoiding or bumping into someone. Getting medicine for a nagging headache, or hunting for that rare movie on pirated dvd.

Session Road is where you feel the pulse of the city, its aspirations, its frustrations. 

Though it's true that Session Road is almost unrecognizable these days, its real face hidden behind all those commercial billboards and smog, but that unique Session Road feel remains - the Benguet brew served in glasses and not in mugs, the amulets and herbal medicine in one corner, and the religious figurines in another, the hand-painted t-shirts and native crafts on one sidewalk, the newspapers and secondhand books on another. 

Puso Ng Baguio, one building along the road is named. It may very well be the name of the road itself. Theater and Session Road - come to think of it, the short stretch of road may very well be the arena in which the main plot of the city's story is played out.

Ahhh, Session Road. 

So simple. Or so it seemed.

While some of our local politicians were at the posh CAP Convention Center ensuring the future of their respective political careers by pledging allegiance to the party in power, we were out in the streets shooting video footages for our performance last night at the Atrium of SM City Baguio, Sa Saliw Ng Mga Gangsa, a musical revue that celebrates life in the Cordilleras, in line with the region’s celebration of Cordillera Day.

While we went out with the intention of putting together video collages that depicts the beauty of life in these mountains, it’s not that easy to find beauty these days particularly when you’re on Session Road. Last week I wrote about the chaos that is Calderon Street. Now add piles of uncollected garbage on practically every street corner, and what we’ll have in the coming days is a stinking anarchy.

GMA was here, I wonder if those helicopters hovering all over the city saw what the city is like these days. But I doubt it, they’re too far up there to notice the gory details.

Because the dumpsite in Irisan has been closed, things are once again going to get ugly in the city, just like last year when the implementation of the garbage segregation scheme was met with confusion and indifference by a lot of residents. But that’s a actually a new issue that I hope would not bury another that I believe requires much attention: what happens to the segregated garbage after they’re collected from the streets? Is it true they all get dumped together at the dumpsite anyway? So all the effort demanded from the residents to do their share to realize that dream of a “Malinis na Baguio” was for nothing?

More questions: wasn’t the garbage segregation scheme a part of the city’s supposed ten-year comprehensive waste management program? A comprehensive ten-year program and merely a year later the city’s caught by surprise by the closure of Irisan? That doesn’t sound so comprehensive to me. That doesn’t sound like much of a program to me.

Where are we going? In just a couple of hours of shooting those footage, we had a mini-dv tape full of images of a decaying city: People jaywalking right where the “No Jaywalking” signs are. Jeeps loading and unloading passengers right where the “No Loading/Unloading” signs are. It makes you wonder how those Trancoville and Aurora Hill Jeeps get away with it behind the post office in full view of the dreaded Traffic Management Group and policemen patrolling the area. Garbage dumped right below “Bawal Magtapon ng Basura” signs. Cars parked right where the “No Parking” signs are.

It seemed as if everybody just stopped caring. It seemed as if nobody respects the law anymore. It seemed as if nobody’s in charge.

What are these signs for? What are these a sign of?

The laws are there, all we need to do is implement them. So simple. Or so it seemed.

(Tales From a Hill Station, Cordillera Today, July 20 issue)

Sigh

The sight of a group of policemen standing by the road, knee-high boots, Ray-ban sunglasses, holstered gun at the waist, the nobody-messes-with-the-guy-with-a-badge swagger, motorcycles leaning at the curb, never fails to startle me. Immediately I would feel for my wallet where my license is for fear that I have left it at home, try to remember if I have registered the car, look around for any traffic signs that I may have missed. As I get nearer, my heart beats faster, and will only slow down if they don’t flag me down as I go past them.

And then, after passing them uneventfully, I’ll realize that I didn’t have my seatbelt on. Which almost always makes me wonder, whatever happened to the seatbelt law? I remember when it was newly introduced – taxi drivers would refuse to move if you refused put on your seatbelt, jeepneys and buses installed seatbelts in their front seats, and the government made a killing apprehending violators. I remember the complaints of drivers of public utility vehicles, how cumbersome that darn seatbelt is, how they went out of their way to loop that seatbelt over their shoulders at the sight of a traffic cop to avoid being given a ticket, but never lock it in place, which would have taken them two seconds to do. Once I sat in the front seat of a jeepney and automatically reached for the seatbelt. As I looked for the clasp to lock the seatbelt in place, the driver, without even looking at me, said, “ipatong mo lang sa dibdib mo, ok na ‘yan, hindi na tayo huhulihin.” I wanted to tell him that I also wanted to be safe while riding his jeep, but I thought better than to argue with the man on the wheel while sitting in front without a seatbelt on.

The seatbelt brouhaha lasted a few months, a year perhaps at best. And now it’s forgotten. And it’s practically the same thing about most of the seemingly small things that are supposed to make our city, nay, our country, maybe the world, even, a better place. I wish I were exaggerating.

Take those signs that dot the barrier along the length of Magsaysay Road – “No Jaywalking, Violators Will Be Apprehended.” I wonder how many jaywalkers, those who are too lazy to climb the steps of the pedestrian overpasses, those who put their own and other people’s lives at risk by playing patintero with the swerving jeepneys and over speeding taxis and arrogant drivers in giant SUVs to cross the street, are apprehended. There must be a lot, since I it never fails to amaze me to see jaywalkers doing their thing right in front of policeman on stand by mode. In the same way they just do nothing about the motorists along Session Road, especially taxis, who play tag with pedestrians that actually use the pedestrian lanes to cross the road: you get tagged, you’re dead. Seldom do we see a car slow down as they approach those stripes on the road, a lot of times they actually go even faster.

I know that this community fought hard to uphold the law that says the streets are beyond the commerce of man, driving out an arrogant pay parking corporation slash milking cow in the process, but it breaks my heart every time I see old women carrying bilaos of vegetables being chased by operatives of the city government for illegal vending, while an ambulant cigarette vendor lights up a cigarette for a policeman as they brazenly go about their trade right in front of police substations.

Trancoville and Aurora Hill jeeps idling right in front of “No Loading and Unloading” signs behind the post office (again, right in the face of policemen). “Parking attendants” directing motorists to park in front of “No Parking” signs (again, right in the face of policemen). Cops on big bikes and delivery men on scooters going through a red light, and making u-turns where they’re not supposed to. All seemingly trivial, negligible, inconsequential infractions, perhaps. But how can we expect the community to respect our laws when they know these are not really being enforced? How can we expect the community to obey more abstracts concepts like saving the environment through garbage segregation when we can’t even enforce simple rules on crossing the road?

The law enforcers don’t care, the public stopped caring, and the policemen standing by the road, knee-high boots, Ray-ban sunglasses, holstered gun at the waist, the nobody-messes-with-the-guy-with-a-badge swagger, motorcycles leaning at the curb, didn’t care when I passed them with my seatbelt unfastened. I heaved a sigh of relief, then after a brief afterthought and images of illegal vendors on the road, garbage on the streets, smog in the air, I heaved another sigh, one of a different kind.

(A repost of my column, Tales From A Hill Station, in Cordillera Today March 23, 2008 issue)

Keeping it simple: back then

In ’97 we were there, a small bunch of artists, a couple of benches, a box-full of tapuy and an ice chest-full of sodas, a basket full of tuna and chicken sandwiches, and several hand drums. We positioned ourselves somewhere near the post office steps – next to us were other artists with their hand-painted shirts and prints and paper beads – we don’t remember having to pay tens of thousands of pesos to sit around all day banging our drums and sharing sandwiches and good tapuy with both familiar faces and friendly strangers.

Then, no, we didn’t have to wake up before sunrise to set up our sandwich stand, which was actually just an excuse to have a place where kindred souls can gather and celebrate life in Baguio, there was no hurry nor jostling for prime spots along Session Road: anywhere on the road was a prime spot. And when we found our spot taken over by another group the next day, we only had to move a few meters down from where we were the day before: a small price to pay for enjoying the tapuy a bit too much the day before and waking up late the next morning.

Then, those who participated in Panagbenga’s “Session Road in Bloom” seemed a lot, but still leaving enough space for people to walk up or down the road without having to squeeze themselves in between other people and merchants and merchandise. There was enough space for Session Road to breathe, and people cared enough not to abuse the plants on the island in the middle of the road.

Then, it seemed to be truly in bloom.

Then, we didn’t earn that much money. In fact, we didn’t earn any. That’s ok, we danced and laughed a lot for a few days, and that’s priceless. And after having too much fun and much too little money by the third day, we decided that the rest of the tuna and chicken sandwiches would be the food at our tables at home for the rest of the week. Fry the tuna spread and it’s a mean tortang orilles. But we didn’t stop going to Session Road the rest of the week – there was always some space somewhere where we can lay our mats and play our drums.

And today, so what if one makes millions cramming as many commercial stalls as if there’s no tomorrow along Session Road, when you have as many people hating the experience? Why sacrifice the integrity of what was supposed to be a beautiful and sincere community effort by allowing the pretty costumes to be blighted with corporate logos and slogans just for a little extra money? Who wouldn’t hate hearing commercial jingles during a parade instead of the music that come from the hearts of the people of Baguio?

Back then, I guess the organizers didn’t make as much money from the flower festival, but it was those first few festivals, the ones free from crass commercialism, the ones free from too much politics and misplaced egos, the ones that had the spirit of Baguio painted on every smiling face: those were the ones that made the Baguio Flower Festival live in the hearts of people from all over the country and the rest of the world.

Surrendering and being slaves to crass commercialism: millions of pesos, and one’s left with nothing but an empty experience.

Keeping it simple yet meaningful: priceless.

I don't heart Panagbenga

It's been a crazy month, February - and to make matters worse: it's Panagbenga season.

I don't wanna seem like a flowerfest scrooge, but I hate Panagbenga: pardon me but it's hard to get me excited about a 4 hour parade that features school kids dancing the papaya song played by a drum and lyre band. I'm not a big fan of Isuzu Elf trucks covered in moss with some girl I don't know with a sash riding in the back throwing candies and waving at me. I like the occasional corn cob but to see thousands of corn vendors lining up the length of Session Road just isn't right: in between hotdog stands and cellphone accessories and Marikina shoes stalls. And it's as if Session Road isn't filthy enough on regular days, as if teh city isn't in the middle of a garbage crisis, it breaks one's heart to see the piles and piles of garbage left by the tourists and the merchants every single night for a whole week.

And what do they call this ravaging of the city's main artery? "Session Road In Bloom!". No, my friend, in bloom Session Road is not these days, it's more like Session Road's doom.

You stay home and turn on the tv and there's our mayor, in his cute shorts having a tete-a-tete with a recently convicted (and alas, pardoned) plunderer. Someone who stole hundreds of millions from the people apparently deserve a seat at the VIP section: Welcome to Baguio. I wonder where he's staying while he's here? At the very controversial log house on millionaires row or the equally controversial residential log house inside Camp John Hay?

We needed to go online so with one hand holding Leon and Aeneas perched on my shoulders and RL and Garbiela trying to catch up behind us, we braved the traffic and walked up from Bunrham Park (filled with tourists, stalls and garbage) to Session Road (filled with more stalls, more tourists, more garbage). You cross the road from Prime Hotel towards Cid Educational Supplies and I believe you've seen the rest of "Session Road's Kabloom". Shoes from Marikina, corn and hotdog vendors, E-load/Autoload stalls, and the occassional stall selling plants. We were stalled (pun intended) in the middle of the road: a dragon dance in progress... followed by a group of unicyclers (one was having a hard time getting back on his unicycle on Session Road road's uneven surface) and a phalanx of clowns on stilts. Ok, THAT was kinda nice. I walked right up to the guys on stilts and had Aeneas high-five two or three of them, which embarassed him, and eased my way to the other side of the road.

It's been said countless times before, if you're from Baguio, you'll never to fail to bump into a friend while walking up or down Session Road. But that's another thing I hate about this whole thing: even with the hundreds of thousands of people that squeeze thesmelves in between the commercial stalls and corn and hotdog vendors on Session Road during Panagbenga, it's hard to come across a friend.

Baguio: in ruins and for sale

Take a walk

First, they applauded the it, until someone allegedly slipped on it and injured herself. So they distanced themselves from it, condemned it, threatened to destroy it, until it started getting good reactions from the community, so they started commending it again...

... until someone came up with a great idea: Replace those mosaics on the sidewalks of Session Road (brainchild and the work of concerned local artists who acted on their own since the city government wasn't doing anything for the longest time to patch up the holes on the sidewalks along Session Road) with our version of Hollywood's walk of fame and have hand-prints of famous showbiz personalities dot the sidewalks all over the Central Business District, beginning with, oh man - Mother Lily's. What does she have to do with Baguio except that some of her productions were shot and eventually, sadly inevitably, shown here? Educate me please.

Since apparently this idea is being endorsed by certain powers-that-be in the city (and we all know that when anything has the approval of the city's powers-that-be, no matter how stupid the idea is, be it a flyover at the BGH Rotunda or a concrete pine tree or a pay-parking ordinance it happens), here's another suggestion:

Why not also pay tribute to and include plaster casts of the faces of JDV; Raul Gonzalez; GMA; Dubya; certain current city officials whether appointed, career employees or elected; a lot of past city officials particularly those itching to make a come back to save face; Rogelio and Norma Tan... you get the drift.

(Oh, and don't forget to also include the faces of those who came up with this idea and are pushing for it).

This would surely make walking along Session Road a lot more interesting... but you better be a lot more careful when you do - you wouldn't wanna step on some shi*t.

Reclaiming Session Road

Dancers during last June's Independence Day Parade.

Loooonganisa

Oh My Gulay's chef, Marlon, got married yesterday at, where else, VOCAS. Officiated by Baguio Acting Mayor, Peter Rey Bautista, it was an intimate event, not too many people, just family and some close friends. Marlon asked me to take some pictures.

Got there 5 minutes before the 3pm scheduled start, and both the bride and groom weren't there yet. A couple of minutes later, Peter Rey walked in. I asked the waitress to offer coffee to him and his pal/aide/bodyguard. I was quite worried that he'd get bored waiting for the couple to be, afterall, he's still very young, and the young aren't exactly known for patience.

I walked up to him, and since I couldn't think of something to talk about that would be of interest to both of us, I asked him about something that at least he's knowledgeable about and has been bothering me since I got stranded on the wrong side of Session Road a few days ago: the longanisa brouhaha. Did it actually make it to the Guinnes Book of Records? "I don't know e, I think it might not make it kasi I think it had to be laid out in a straight line, and since it as done on Session Road, which was not long enough, the longest longanisa snaked up and down the road making it hard to make an accurate measurement," he said.

All that for nothing? Aw, come on. Holding up traffic and inconveniencing the public the whole morning must at least yield some substantial result - aside from having a longanisa sale that had this Ilocos pork sausage selling at half its normal price.

I was on my way to BHF Jewelry Shop that morning where I was supposed to return the LCD Projectpor we rented from Clint - one of his production assistants works there during the day. Right after passing Brent Road coming from Mines View, traffic has ground to a halt, and I had no idea why, until the driver said, "bwiset na longanisa pistibal, trapik tuloy." I got off and walked the last hundred meters or so to Session Road. The parade was in progress, and there it was in all its glory: the longest longanisa in the world held up by students parading down Session Road. And noone can cross the road, and BHF was on the other side of Session Road.

Stood there bored stiff (after staring at a few hundred meters of longanisa, it gets tends to get boring, not to mention unappetizing), I was getting impatient, until I saw what looked like the end of the parade. Waited it out a bit more until the last longanisa passed me by, followed by the main sponsor of the event, Mr. Alabanza of the famous Alabanza Meat Store, who I believe provided most of the butchered pigs, if not all, riding proud on an ATV. End of the parade, I asked the cope manning the cordon that prevented pedestrians from crossing if I could corss already, he said no. I asked why, when the parade was finished already. He just said, no, I can't cross yet. After walking the rest of the way to Session Road and hvaing waited more or less half an hour watching a pork sausage anaconda try to make its way to the Guinnes Book of Records, my patience was running low, and so, with then-arrest-me-if-you-have-to-but-I-really-have-to-get-to-the-other-side look in my eye, I ducked under the cordon and crossed the road, before the cop could approach me, abouit 30 other people followed me. So I made it to BHF, feeling so guilty at disrupting public order.

Mabel, Clint's produciton assistant, has been transfered to another branch. Damn it. I would have to talk all thew way back up to SM where Mabel has been reassigned.

And the Acting Mayor tells me yesterday that, nah, the feat might not make it to the Guinnes sBook of Records. All that hassle, all those pigs, for nothing? What a joke. A community, for lack of anything to be proud of, comes up with an idea so blah, mediocre - idiotic, even - spend so much time and energy and money for it, and then in the end, failure?

And that anaconda-longanisa feat was also supposed to be an event aimed at boosting tourism in the city. Duh. Does anyone actually think that having the longest longanisa in the world would make tourists troop back to Baguio? Tourists come to Baguio for the climate, the trees, the fresh air, the forests, the green covered mountains, the visitor-friendly atmosphere, the hospitable local community - all of which have been ignored, nay, ABUSED, by the city's powers that be for the longest time, and all they could think of to make for it to string up tons and tons of pork and parade it down Session Road and expose it to smog, dust and whatever else lurks in the heavily polluted downtown Baguio air?

I get to the SM branch of BHF Jewelry Shop. Mabel decided to take the day off a few minutes I got there.

What a lousy morning.

Death March

I didn't understand what was going on... One side of Session Road, hte on going down, was closed to traffic, usually done when there's a parade. It did feel like a holiday when I left the house. Then, peering through the policemen and the barricades, there it was, a parade. I turn right towards the cathedral and parked the car there instead, and decided to wait it out in some internet cafe.

Used the elevator going down Porta Vaga and out to Session Road to cross to Such & Such internet cafe, I met Martin with his kick-ass camera on his way up to his studio. Good morning.

Out on Session Road, there were some people lined up along Session Road, no animation today, the whole thing looked like a series of still photographs, minus the background music - even the people parading down Session Road couldn't manage to force a look of celebration on their faces. It was eerily quiet.

Like a death march.

I didn't catch the head of the parade, where I might have caught sight of the recently installed acting mayor of the city and the acting vice-mayor, and the acting top councilor, and the acting second top councilor... see, with the removal of the Honorable Braullio Yaranon, everybody moved a step up in a game of Charades, musical chairs, now eveyrbody's in an acting capacity.

It was a death march.