May pulis sa ilalim ng tulay and a photojournalist

Much have been said about the case of a photojournalist who had a run in with a taxi driver. According to media accounts, what was simply a fender-bender case got blown out of proportion when other cab drivers came to the rescue of the taxi driver whose cab was accidentally hit by the photojournalist as he tried to maneuver out of his parking spot. The photojournalist drew his gun, and some 80 hours of jail time later, the crap hit the fan. While media attention has been focused on the legality of the media person's incarceration, and the alleged conspiracy involving the arresting officers, let's not forget another major issue in this brouhaha: the mafia composed of two-way radio-toting cab drivers. At this point I'd like to narrate a quite similar incident that happened to us:

It was during the flower fest several years ago, it was nighttime and getting a cab was quite an ordeal. And not just because there were lots of passengers and not enough taxis to go around, but also because a lot of the taxi drivers wouldn't take in passengers if they didn't like the destination. While waiting for a cab, we bumped into a couple of friends who have also been waiting for a ride home for hours already. Finally, at the corner of Gov. Pack and Harrison, we were able to flag one down. We lived in Quezon Hill then, and our friends lived in Irisan, so we decided to just share the cab. When we told the driver our itinerary, he refused, saying that he won't take the short detour through 1st Road before going to Irisan. We offered to pay for the flag down to Quezon Hill, and then he can reset his meter for the trip to Irisan, and yet he still refused. I asked him then to drop us off instead at the Baguio City Police Office for two reasons: to subtly remind him that what he's doing is illegal and also I thought we had a better chance of flagging down another cab in front of a police station. After a threatening "A, ganon?!?," he pulled out his radio and called for back-up. Not knowing exactly what was happening, I told him to just let us out and we'll just try to hail another cab. He refused to let us out, he kept going. He finally stopped at the corner where Baguio Patriotic School is and in a matter of seconds, three other cabs surrounded us. We immediately got out of the cab but we were practically held hostage by the four cab drivers, hurling threats and provocations while preventing us from leaving. We had just finished shooting the Dial 117 infomercial at the time and luckily, we still had the mobile phone number of a policeman who helped coordinate the production. I called the number and when they heard that I was talking to the police, they rushed back to their cabs and drove away.

I recognize the pros of having cab drivers equipped with communication equipment - they can easily call for help during an emergency, they can update each other on road traffic situations, report criminal activity that they chance upon, etc. But, as in most of us who are given even just a hint of power, like those abusive police interns who think that their uniforms entitle them to lord it over private citizens, we abuse that power. That's what those two-way radios have become for taxi drivers: power, power that they abuse. That piece of communication equipment have turned local cab drivers, once known for being among the most courteous and honest in the country, into thugs, some kind of a mafia no one should dare go against. And it's not even a case of a few bad apples ruining the whole lot in the basket - on the road, they fill up the whole side of lower Abanao Street or Session Road, to wait for passengers, unmindful of the traffic mess they create in doing so. They drive like maniacs on busy roads endangering both themselves and pedestrians. Going to Loakan, or San Luis, or Tam-awan, or Tip-top at night? Good luck finding a cab that will take you there, and if they do, more often than not, they'll charge you double for "backload."

See, at the end of the day, remember that ditty, "May Pulis Sa Ilalim Ng Tulay?" In that song, beginning with seeing a policeman with a rotten bag of pancit under a bridge, depending on which version you know, it goes on to say that, "namatay ang aso na kumain sa patay na pusa na kumain sa patay na daga na kumain sa panis na pancit ng pulis sa ilalim ng tulay." While it is necessary to investigate the death of the dog, let's not forget to look into that rotten bag of pancit and what that cop was doing under the bridge in the first place. While we do need to look into the alleged violation of the journalist's basic rights in this case, and perhaps even the alleged conspiracy between the cab driver involved and the arresting officers to file trumped-up charges against the journalist, let's not forget to look into how it all began - cab drivers who illegally take up half of Session Road at night and abusing the power they get from those two-way radios.

Halfway

So, here you are.

Yup, here I am.

So, here is… where?

Here.

Here…?

(Blackout).

If I were to write a play on how I feel now that I have reached what may be my life's halfway mark (that would be nice, if that's the way this year turns out to be: the halfway mark), it would be a very short performance. Every week when I set myself in front of the computer to write my article for this column, I stare into space for a few moments listening to myself, trying to figure out what's affecting me the most at the moment and if that would be worth a couple of minutes of the reader's life. Well, today I know that the following is what's been eating me up lately, and it's worth all the world to me.

So I am here. Next to me, sleeping on the mattresses on the floor are a good woman and three wonderful children. Somewhere not too far from here are two equally wonderful children and in my mind all of them are together right here with me right now, as they always have been since they came into my life. Hundreds of stories and thousands of photographs and a million triumphs and regrets and 35 years later, they're all I have that truly matters to me. They will be right here tomorrow when I take that long drive home, they will be right here the next time I take a bow in front of an audience and the next time I curl up in a corner in shame. Nothing can take them away from me, as there is nothing that can take me away from them.

They say that a man's life is divided into 7-year phases – the first 7 years I was introduced to the world I live in; the next 7 I tried to fit in, 14-21 I looked for my own specific spot in this universe, all of the 4^th phase I questioned my choices as much as I believed them, and the last 7 years I tried to realize what the point of it all is.

Today I begin the 6^th phase knowing what truly matters to me and the rest of my life: that beautiful woman who has shared my life since I began believing and questioning my choices and all through out the years when I was trying to figure out what this is all about. And the 5 wonderful children who are at different 7-year phases themselves: two of them just woke up and game me a hug and a kiss and said, "Happy birthday, Papa," while the same message just came in on my mobile phone from the eldest of the five.

(Lights on)

Yes, right here.

But really, where's that?

(Freeze.)

Thirty five years seem to have passed all too quickly, and I know the rest of my life will be over in the blink of the universal eye. But that's ok, everything's gonna be alright. Because now I know that this is what it's all about: The people I love with all my heart and the people who have loved all of me with all of theirs. And nothing else. I will hold their hands and face the rest of our lives together, no matter what.

And adding to Baguio's current woes... Police Interns

We heard that there's a new guy on top of the Baguio City Police Office, I just hope he can do something about these clowns:

You can't miss these guys, they've been all over town lately which makes one think that Criminology is the new Nursing. Though I never had to deal with them directly, I have always wondered what kind of education or training these young men are getting, what sort of advice they get from those who've been on the force for a long time already. They swagger their way through the crowds on the sidewalks of  Session Road, though still without a real badge and firearms, you can feel their bloated egos through those crisp uniforms and shiny shoes... and if your eyes happen to meet theirs, you know it's not saying "we're here to serve and protect you,"  instead, you can almost hear them say, "I've got power, you don't, I can make your life miserable."

That they did on Baguio Day at the University of Baguio-Gym. 

We were called to help stage the morning program in celebration of Bagiuo's 99th Charter Day. The call came just a week before the event and we were only supposed to handle the segment wherein this year's Outstanding Citizens of Baguio will be awarded. But as the day drew nearer, the more apparent that we were gonna do the whole event - creative direction, production and stage management and all. We called on our artist friends and asked if they would be kind enough to make themselves available for the program on such short notice and luckily they all said yes, even on such short notice. It's all for Baguio, so why not. 

The morning of the day came and it's as if having to fend off the efforts by some sectors to sabotage the event (for what reason other than more bloated and misplaced egos I don't know), this particular police intern added to our woes.

Our musical director arrived an hour and a half before the event and stopped at the gate nearest to the gym to unload sound equipment (which he was lending to the event free of charge), and a police intern approached. I don't know if arrogance and ignorance is S.O.P. in our police force, but he screamed into our musical director's face, in full view and within earshot of everybody in the area, to get his car out of there, because it's a no parking zone. Our guy explained that he wasn't parking his car, he was just unloading equipment (again, equipment that he was lending for free on short notice). No, the intern insisted, it's a no parking zone, so move it. To have a better picture of how arrogant the police intern was, our musical director came in as traumatized as someone who had just  been in one of those rooms in some military camp with an overhead lamp and interrogated by the military. I thought he was gonna have a heart attack. 

I went out to talk to the police intern. I found him easily, he had this smirk on his ugly face. I asked him if the arrogance was really necessary, considering that the guy he was screaming at practically saved the day for the City Government by lending his equipment for free. His reply:

"Bakit, libre rin naman naming ginagawa 'to a."

No, dumbass, you weren't doing it for free, by being on duty you were earning credits that you need to get that diploma in the hope that when you graduate, you will finally be given a real badge and, God forbid, a firearm, so that you can, though I can't seem to see you ever doing this, serve and protect civilians. See, I've seen your kind at the police stations when I was given the run around a couple of months ago when I asked for protection because the matter would have entailed a lot of paper work. I've seen your kind at the corner where Skyworld used to be turning a blind eye to the watch-your-car-men who lead motorists to no-parking zones creating a traffic mess right in the middle of the central business district. I've seen your kind driving those police cars around town going through red lights and against the flow on one-way streets because you think that being a law enforcer entitles you to break the law, no matter how simple those laws may be.

As if it's not enough that Baguio's pine forests are fast disappearing, that gone are the days when we were famous for having the most courteous taxi drivers because now they're no different from their Manila counterparts who overcharge passengers and deny them service if the passenger happened to be going somewhere they don't feel like going to, it's not enough that we have a garbage crisis... if these arrogant police interns is the future of our police force, then we're in for more woes. 

And to those in charge of these clowns' education, what are you teaching them? Because if there's one thing that these interns, and maybe even a lot of those who are already full-fledged policemen, and maybe even our elected officials, should learn, it's that being a law enforcer is not about power, it is a responsibility. If you're in there for the money and the power, don't add anymore to the already rotten government system, this country can do without you. 

Be a politician instead, at least we'll have the choice not to vote for you. 

Happy Birthday, Baguio!

By the time this sees print, it would be a day before Baguio’s 99th Charter Day. Tomorrow, we could sit back and look at our 99 year-old city and see what have become of this American dream of a hill station up in the cool mountains of the Cordilleras. I may have written about the city’s brief history before, but looking back again as we look forward to the city’s birthday is something I just couldn’t resist.

A little over a hundred years ago, soon after taking over the archipelago from the Spaniards, the Americans heard of a highland oasis that the previous colonizers planned to turn into a sanitarium, thanks to Professor Dean C. Worcester, the only ranking American official who has lived in the country during the Spanish occupation. Worcester, a zoologist, has made expeditions in different parts of the country between the years 1887 (the year Jose Rizal rocked the country with his “Noli”) and 1893 (about the time the Katipunan was slowly turning into a formidable revolutionary force that would eventually open the doors to Philippine independence). During that time, he learned of the planned Spanish hill station in nearby La Trinidad, Benguet. As a member of the Schurman Commission, the group formed to investigate the environmental conditions up here, Worcester came across a detailed report of a previous commission tasked to do the same thing: the Benguet Commission under the Spanish Governor General Ramon Blanco. And that set off a series of events, fortunate and unfortunate, the realization of the Baguio dream.

It didn’t happen overnight, and several times the whole dream was threatened. Upon visiting the area, the Americans decided that Kafagway, an area that approximates the present site of Baguio City, then divided primarily among Carino, Suello, Carantes, Camdas and Molintas families, was the better site for the future hill station, mainly because of its better accessibility from the lowlands (ha!). The first thing they needed was a road to get there, and here lies the first major setback.

They wanted a railroad from the lowlands up to Baguio, and thought that the trail the runs alongside the Bued river was the best route. The first man tasked to build that road (which was supposedly a mere prelude to a railroad), was Captain Charles Mead, who greatly underestimated the challenges posed by the conditions of the area. What the Americans thought would take only a year to build took 5 years, and would cost only $75,000 in the end cost $2,000,000. And after two failed attempts to complete the Benguet road and millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money and several years, what did the Americans have to show up in the proposed hill station? A tiny hospital and meager lodging facilities. The clamor to abandon what the people believed was a wasteful project aimed to benefit only the elite became stronger and stronger, but the resolve of the Americans seemed to grow stronger than that clamor.

But When Lyman Kennon took over the construction of the road, the dream came closer to realization. Construction activities went into high gear when Kennon made significant developments in the road’s construction, and when he announced in January of 1905 that the “road as it stands is entirely completed and ready…,” Baguio was on a one way road to becoming one of the most beautiful hill stations in the world.

Burnham entered the picture and provided one of the beautiful designs for a future city (of 25,000 people by the way). What was once planned to be a mere sanitarium took a life of its own and became a premier rest and recreation center, helped in so many ways by the declaration of Baguio as the country’s Summer Capital which meant that for a period of time when the heat becomes unbearable in the country’s capital, Manila, the seat of government and its functions are transferred to Baguio.

Here’s my two centavos’ worth: in the decades that followed after 1909 when Baguio became a chartered city, Baguio became one of the most beautiful cities in the world, famous for its pine forests and sunflower covered hillsides and cool climate. But in the last decade or so, we seem to have thrown all that away in the name of mindless hyper-urbanization and to sustain some people’s greed and gambling addictions.

Happy birthday, Baguio! I pray that your people would once again be bound by a sense of community and deliver you from all evil.

Cordillera Today, August 31, 2008 issue

Slaves

At Puerto de San Juan Beach Resort in La Union, we made our way to a table at the restaurant for lunch. I called the attention of a waiter, who signaled for me to wait as he took the orders of another group at another table. After writing down that group’s preference, he proceeded to give the list to the kitchen before making his way to our table with menus.

We already knew what we wanted, and as I was giving him our orders, a Caucasian male with his girlfriend entered the restaurant and while I was in midsentence, the waiter took off to seat the foreigner and his girlfriend, gave them menus, and with a huge patronizing smile on his face, took their orders. He passed our table on his way to the kitchen, and I called his attention once again to tell him that we weren’t done yet, and he grudgingly stopped to get the rest of our orders.

Racism in this country is puzzling – we are biased against ourselves.

I wanted to tell the waiter that we’re not under colonial rule anymore, but of course his attitude could’ve been motivated by the prospect of a tip in green bucks.

I was cast in a movie produced by a Dutch production outfit years back, and I experienced the same odd case of racism – I arrived at the set one morning, the location was up in the mountains and quite far away from the nearest available restroom, and the site of a portable toilet greeted me with a huge sign that said “For Foreign Cast” only. Of course I explained to the local crew that we Filipino actors experience calls of nature too, and when I didn’t get an explanation, I brought my case to the Dutch producer – I told him how they can probably make their racist biases more discreet, and I was bowled over by his reply: having the portable toilets exclusively for the use of their kind was not their idea and that they were as taken aback as I was.

In Baguio, a look at the Sunday classifieds would reveal several ads for houses for rent with this qualifier at the end: “Preferably Foreigners.” Or if the ad came with a description of the house saying how beautiful it is, chances are it would be concluded with “Ideal For Foreigners,” as if Filipinos have no business living in a house with a fireplace and a dirty kitchen. And no, the Baguio Country Club’s decision to ban Koreans hardly makes things any better.

In Malou Jacob’s play, “Pepe,” a line goes: “Noon, ang mga Kastila’y kinamuhian naming. Ngayon, ang mga banyagang nagsasamantala sa inyo’y tinitingala, pinagsisilbihan, minamahal.”

More than a hundred years after the Spaniards left, and more than fifty years after the Americans gave us our independence (or dumped us, depending on which historical author you patronize), we’re still slaves.

Ay, kawawang bayan. Gising!

You don't know what you've got til it's gone

Baguio was never about a mall, nor was it ever about a grand parade of floats bedecked with fake flowers. It's not about the humongous P100,000-day convention center, nor the proposed multi-storey parking structure, it was never about having a multimillion-peso concrete pine tree. It's not about having thousands of taxicabs on the road, or having enough hotels to host an advertising congress, or that many call centers, or pseudo-English language schools.

Next time you're on your way to town, leave your car and take a jeep. Listen in on the conversation between the driver who's been plying the same route for decades and the old man who's been riding the same jeep in that same seat ever since he was a young high school boy at City High – they know what they're talking about.

Take a walk through Burnham Park, and hear the laughter of the children at the swings, have your portrait taken by a photographer who've captured the portraits of generations of families, friends, lovers who have made the air and the trees of the park an indelible part of their lives, buy a bag of peanuts and just watch the world go by, or stay still, under the trees and watch the fog hover just above the lake as boats full of smiles come in and out of view, or walk over to where the men play chess and watch the game while having your shoes shined.

Weave through the jeeps and the pedestrian traffic and stop to say hello to an old friend and have a nice steaming Benguet brew in a glass in any of the restaurants along Session Road that have witnessed the transformation of the city through the years.

You don't need to line up at the check-out counter with your vacuum-packed stale vegetables – you can get them fresh at the city market where every single carrot, potato and tomato was picked, cleaned and offered by hands that came from generations of vegetable farmers who have tended the same farms through the years. Get lost in the aroma of freshly ground Benguet, Kalinga or Sagada Coffee. Have your pinikpikan chicken prepared right before your eyes just the way it's supposed to be done.

Treasure the sight of sunflowers that begin to bloom in November, smell the pine-scented smoke coming from a freshly swept yard, pick-up a pine cone and see that tiny pine nut and wonder how that glorious tree hovering over you can came from something so small, so fragile, and imagine what you can do to protect it.

These are just some of the things that make Baguio… Baguio: taken for granted, ignored, buried under tons of uncollected garbage and smog, hidden behind newspaper headlines, unheard of amid the din of political, commercial and industrial noise.

Hush, clean up the mess and all these things will come back to the surface, revealing the real image of a city we all love.

It's so true: You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Saliw - isang panalangin.

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)

Oh, please...

Where is Calderon Street?

There are “No Parking” signs all over the place: along the side where Prime Hotel is, across it where Skyworld used to be, at the triangle a little further in, so why is Calderon street filled with parked vehicles all day long?

On any given day, during the afternoon rush hour, this is what welcomes you along Calderon: Going up the road from Harrison Road, you’re stuck in a gridlock because there are no traffic lights which comes as a surprise considering how busy that intersection is: perhaps at least half of all the jeeps in the city pass there, add to that the taxis, the private vehicles that are either passing through, or filling up at the gas station at the corner, or getting a carwash across it.

Finally you get out of the jam and your vehicle crawls at an agonizing 5-10 feet per minute if you’re driving. After several minutes, you finally go past Burnham Hotel, and see the reason for your misery: More cars, most of them imposing gas-guzzlers parked right next to “No Parking” signs. Out of nowhere, “parking attendants/watch-your-car boys” appear from nowhere flagging you down to offer you a parking spot. And because it’s 4PM and they can’t park along Session road anymore, and they don’t wanna pay P25.00 to park inside SM, or around P50.00 at the Baguio Cathedral or Porta Vaga parking lots if they’re gonna park for more than a couple of hours, those who accept the services of one of these “parking attendants/watch-your-car boys” are led to where? Another “No Parking” spot.

It’s a jungle out there, anarchy rules all day long. Delivery motorcycles spilling out towards the middle of the road, next to that an illegally parked armored vehicle surrounded by intimidating heavily armed guards, and if that isn’t enough to create a road traffic mess, those who are too lazy to walk more than 10 feet to where they’re going from their vehicles would double park right next to the illegally parked cars leaving hardly enough room for vehicles to pass through. That leaves you with no option but to overtake and go into counter flow, which brings you head on with oncoming vehicles turning right from Session Road going the other way – a pissing match begins:

The car ahead honks his horn at you, and you do the same to the double parked vehicle. The driver of the car ahead sticks out his head and shouts obscenities your way, you stick out your head and shout obscenities at the driver of the double parked vehicles (if there’s a driver in there, otherwise your screaming at a non-living thing).

In the meantime, the car in front of you continues his honking, the cars behind it are honking, the cars behind you are honking, you’re honking, and suddenly a “parking attendants/park/watch-your-car boy” appears from nowhere to save day. NOT. He goes right in the middle of the snarl not to untangle the mess, but to signal for everyone to stop for a client of his getting his/her illegally parked car out.

And then you see a couple of police officers at the corner, taking out license plates from one, two, three or four illegally parked cars on Session Road and you wonder why they’re not doing the same to all those illegally parked cars on Calderon Street.

And then you stop wondering when the “parking attendants/ watch-your-car boy” collects his fee from his client, and walks away leaving you at the mercy once again of the car ahead of you, the cars behind it, the cars behind you, and the cars behind them… etc.

Where is Calderon Street ? Is it far away from the center of the city that would somehow make it understandable that nobody in authority notices the anarchy that goes on there everyday?

Nope, it’s right there. It’s just that there’s a big difference between not seeing something and looking the other way.

(Tales From a Hill Station, Cordillera Today, July 13 Issue)

CCP Complex

CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) Complex – a sprawling haven for culture and the arts located along Roxas Boulevard that includes several world-class theaters, museums, galleries and home to the country’s supposed best arts and culture companies.

CCP Complex - Also a psychological condition that makes the afflicted believe that any artistic output that comes from beyond the boulevard and the breakwaters of Manila Bay is inferior.

I must admit I too once had the aforementioned condition, until I stage managed a production that toured the whole country for a whole month and got exposed to the artworks in the regions, from Baguio to Marawi. I knew then that I would get out of CCP soon after the tour. And I did. And I moved to Baguio , around 12 years ago.

Last night a colleague informed me of a group’s interest to feature our productions in a local institution that’s being re-packaged as a cultural and educational destination – they’re interested because it would be much more cost effective to hire a local group to stage a play rather than bring a whole production from Manila . Though I’d rather hear that they’re interested because they believe in what the local artists can deliver, beggars can’t be choosers. And this is among the reasons why I left Manila more than a decade ago to live in Baguio – I just couldn’t stand the arrogance of Manileños in their belief that the best things in this country can only be found in Manila , and everything that comes from beyond the toll gates of both the North and South Expressways are inferior. You patronize artists in the regions only when the budget can’t afford the Manila variety.

They probably haven’t heard the compositions of Ethan Andrew Ventura, and the way he plays his guitar. His work was featured recently in a concert in a mall and the music he composed for Rizal’s Me Ultimo Adios gave me goose-bumps. Or perhaps they haven’t been to a jazz jam session at Overtones, one of many places in the city that houses exceptional local talents. Too bad, most of them never get to sit down and listen to Emerald Ventura, Ro Quintos, Jef Coronado, Cholo Virgo, Yoshi Capuyan, Arkhe Sorde Salcedo, Ramirr Grepo, Jenny Cariño, Sunshine Gutierrez, Mary Raquel, Ron Ruiz, Patchi Viray, SLU’s Glee Club, the reggae bands in Baguio, or the rock ones in nearby La Trinidad, and many others whose music can blow you away.

Perhaps they’ve never been to an exhibit by the Tahong Bundok group at the Baguio Convention Center – watercolors of a beautiful city that hypnotize, or the ongoing exhibit at the Café by the Ruins – coffee on paper, different shades of sepia that calms the spirit, or the photography of local lensmen on Multiply.com that can rival those that hang on Manila’s expensive gallery walls, or the VOCAS group’s multimedia explorations that challenge and provoke the mind.

They’ve never sat in a local writers’ group’s open mic session. They’ve never been to an SLU musical. They’ve never seen Tropang Paltok’s street theater performances. The now Manila-based Pinikpikan charges to perform what one could normally hear for free on the steps of La Azotea or the Dap-ay of Café by the Ruins. Manila charges hundreds to thousands for what one could get into on less than a hundred bucks’ ticket price, or in most cases on a complimentary pass, as in most local theatrical presentations.

And the sad thing is, the community encourages the discrimination against local artists whenever it turns to Manila for most major artistic or cultural outputs in the city. The city’s upcoming centennial celebration is dotted with non-Baguio groups and individuals running this and that show, the institution I mentioned above included.

And what do the Manila-based groups do? Hire local artists to do the job for them anyway, they get the lion’s share and the locals get chump change. But maybe that’s precisely the reason why the local artists continue to produce great art despite the situation: the main thing the fuels them is passion, and just like love, all the money in Manila can’t buy that.