Moved

I was invited by a university instructor to participate in a mock press conference for her journalism class. The topic would be our documentary on Baguio, "Portrait of a Hill Station." As soon as the instructor introduced me, and what the topic for the day would be, the students were hardly able to hide their disinterest. And I thought, well, this was exactly what pushed us to produce this documentary in the first place. I also thought that if I could get these students to be interested in the project itself and what it's trying to achieve, then there's hope that "Portrait…" may just make a small dent in next year's much-anticipated centennial celebration.

I believe that the Centennial Commission's tagline, "Fostering a culture of caring," is a great take-off point for next year's celebration of the city's hundredth year, for that was the first thing I thought the young minds infront of me needed – a culture of caring. From the time the instructor gave them a brief background on the project to the time I started giving my own introduction to it, a couple of students tried to stifle a yawn, another looked at her watch and perhaps thought about how long the next 55 minutes would be until the class is over.

Infront of me was the generation whose Baguio is about malling on weekends and mauling by gangsters on weeknights; Gagamba 1 has male strippers and Gagamba 2 has female strippers (or is it the other way around?); instead of fog rolling on to blanket and cool the city in the afternoon after a long day, it's smog covering the skyline during rush hour. They never got to delight at the sight of sunflower covered mountainsides in November, or pine-scented approaches to the city.

After speaking for a few minutes about the Baguio they never got to experience, I made some progress, and the questions started pouring in. What happened to "that" Baguio you're talking about? When can we see the documentary? And one of the best questions for me, What's your next project after this?

And our conversation made me realize one thing: Looking back at the last hundred years, the city's history may perhaps be divided into two major periods: pre-war and post war Baguio. The former paints a portrait of a city built because of and to make the best out of what it had: the magnificent mountain sides, the breathtaking skyline, a generous share of mother nature's resources… or simply put: utter beauty. 

The latter gives us a totally different picture, in fact the total opposite of the former. After the war, the city went in the direction of eradicating what it had: the magnificent tree-lined mountainsides were ravaged (those pretty sunflowers trampled on to make way for condominiums and hotels and malls), the breathtaking skyline ruined (the city's horizon today shows a hard, unfeeling, gloomy silhouette of ugly concrete structures), and mother nature's resources abused (how much more than 300,000 people can the city really carry?).

At the end of the mock press conference, I think both me and the students at least agreed on one thing: we wished we had more time to talk more about Baguio. At least I thought that during that hour or so, they were moved, and they cared.

The airing "Portrait of a hill station" has been moved to December 14, 2008, 7:00PM on SkyCable (Baguio) Channel 12.

You get the picture

Really, the picture Jocelyn Bolante painted at the Senate inquiry into
the alleged fertilizer scam back in 2004, is an ugly one. Sure he
tried to coat the real picture with layers and layers of tall tales,
tales too tall to be true. Sorry, Joc, it's an ugly picture, and
that's the way I see it.

The premise: P728 Million was released by the Department of Budget and
Management in February of 2004. The fund was supposed to finance
various farming projects all over the country, with the noble aim of
benefitting the country's farmers, to which group much of the
country's poorest belongs to. The fund did not specify for which
project it should be spent, the local government units that received
the money were free to spend their share for whatever purpose they
deem their constituency needed more urgently.

He thought that the picture he was showing us yesterday showed that
there was absolutely nothing wrong with the whole thing. And that's
exactly what was wrong with the picture: how do you explain then his
desperate efforts to avoid testifying at the Senate inquiry for four
years, going as far as seeking asylum in the United States if there
was nothing wrong with the picture? Not to mention his last minute
efforts to prevent himself from facing the inquiry by holing himself
up in a hospital as soon as he arrived in the country.

At yesterday's hearing, Bolante wanted us to believe that it was just
a coincidence that most of those who received the money needed the
same thing: liquid fertilizer. That was part of the picture he
painted, almost all the farmers in the country needed the same thing,
whether they're rice, vegetable, tilapia or bangus farmers, they
needed fertilizer more than anything else. He also wanted us to
believe that coincidentally, almost all the local government units in
the country get their fertilizers from one particular supplier. That
it was just too bad that there were reports that these liquid
fertilizers were diluted with water, and that the fertilizers were
overpriced by as much as over 1,000(!) percent. That it was just a
coincidence that the money was released during the run up to the 2004
presidential elections.

A triple whammy, Senator Loren Legarda called it – it's more than just
a triple whammy: we have an undersecretary who was so powerful he can
have the release of hundreds of millions of pesos in a day; the money
was distributed among local politicians during the campaign period;
most of the fertilizers were bought from one supplier; farmers
complain that no fertilizer reached them and that a lot of those who
did receive the goods say the goods were bad; and bad goods were
grossly overpriced.

And Bolante wanted us to believe that there's nothing wrong with that picture.

Not only is the picture so wrong, the saddest thing is that that same
picture is painted all the time all over the country in practically
all branches of the government. The same picture is painted whenever a
local government official puts his name on a billboard next to a
waiting shed, or deep well, or road construction project; whenever a
politician approves a useless projects such as a concrete pine tree
instead of using the money to truly serve the people; whenever a
policeman offers you to settle a traffic violation fine "on site"
earning him "pang-kape." You get the picture.

Pang-kape or P728 Million, the picture is as ugly.

Flattening the pyramids

In the beginning, there was space, and the space was beautiful. And Burnham said, let there be parks. And a hundred years ago, he reserved the choicest part of that space as that - a park, an open space where everything else in the future city spring from. Around it are the bare necessities – a town hall on one end, a government center on the other, parallel to it was the central business district, and emanating from that space, like a spider web, are the roads that led to residential areas enough for what he thought was this beautiful space's carrying capacity – 25,000 residents.

Surrounding this charming open space were scenic mountain sides, and so he said that no structure should be built that would ruin the picturesque skyline of the future city of Baguio. That open space eventually bore his name.

While other cities with a much bigger land area would have a park or two at most, for some none at all, Baguio's design included several open spaces. Daniel H. Burnham, renowned city planner during his time with several prominent beautiful city plans to his name, wanted to make the most of and protect what Baguio had - its cool climate, its unique landscape and wonderful scenery.

Fast forward a hundred years hence, and that cool climate is being threatened with pollution, that landscape unique only in how so many structures can be crammed into such limited space, and that picturesque backdrop gone, buried behind and under towering hotels and commercial buildings. How could they have missed the point?

Why did the people in charge of the city's public transportation think it was right to clog Baguio's narrow roads with thousands of extra taxicabs and jeepneys when even on the busiest days, a lot of these polluters are without passengers? While our city officials stand on the steps of city hall proclaiming to whoever cares to listen to them that Baguio is a character city, right behind them just a stone's throw away are sleazy establishments that proclaim to everyone passing that Baguio has become a city of characters.  

How could they think that Baguio is much better off with several imposing shopping malls? How could they think that Baguio needs three golf courses? How could they think that Baguio can carry garbage from more than 250,000 residents instead of from 25,000? How could they think that Baguio is a prettier site with towering commercial billboards?

How could they think that developing Baguio means getting rid of what it is all about: its natural beauty.

You don't carve the rice terraces to make way for condominium buildings, or flatten the pyramids to make way for a mall, or put tarpaulins on the Eiffel tower to sell cellular phones, or hold a tiangge at Stonehenge.  

Nothing says it better than Joni Mitchell: "They paved paradise to put up a parking lot."

And Baguio's parks, or at least whatever remains of them? When they're not being used for trade fairs and motorcycle races, they're a reminder to all of us: we don't know what we've got 'til it's gone. 

If they can't follow something as simple as...

What is it? A government vehicle. Parked right on the sidewalk. Where is this? Right beside the Baguio City Hall(!), and right across Baguio Central School. See those kids crossing the street? Well, those kids would be forced to walk on the street instead of on the sidewalk. I guess the driver of this vehicle didn't mind endangering the lives of those young children. 

(*Photo courtesy of Jojo Lamaria) 

Unconquerable Igorots

Portrait of a hill station. Coming this December, 2008. SkyCable (Baguio) Channel 12. 

For inquiries: email altomonte.projects@gmail.com

25,000 to 250,000 in 100 years

Portrait of a hill station. Coming this December, 2008. SkyCable (Baguio) Channel 12. 

For inquiries: email altomonte.projects@gmail.com

Here to stay

One hardly hears of good news about Baguio these days. Whether you get it on print, the world wide web or from stories told in coffee shops along Session Road, the sentiment is the same: there's hardly anything left of the Baguio we all knew. Makes you wonder why you're still blogging about the city in some internet cafe in town instead of in some far away land where the money's better, the air is cleaner and the surroundings are greener.    

A friend who has since left Baguio with her family after living here for almost two decades once said that the only thing left in Baguio is the cool climate. And that too isn't as cool as it was before, perhaps thanks to more motor vehicles coughing up toxic fumes into the air and with this more engines heating up the city. Not to mention the hot air that comes from mouths of people in high places - but that only heats up people's heads. I digress. 

On a bad day I would tend to agree with my friend - on a day when the traffic is so bad it takes you a full hour to cover a three-kilometer distance. Or when they close Session Road to vehicles for a week during Panagbenga for "Session Road in Bloom" which, with all the stench and garbage generated by the hundreds of stalls selling hotdogs and sweet corn and cellphones and hotdogs and sweet corn and cellphones (and a couple of stalls actually selling flowers, the supposed point of the whole festival), feels more like Session Road's doom. Or when I'm refused by a taxi driver because he doesn't feel like driving to where I wanna go, or when a friend shows up with bruises all over and a swollen jaw and a missing phone and wallet, no thanks to a taxi driver slash hold-upper and his cohort who hid in the back of his cab and pounced on my friend who didn't have a clue because he hailed that cab a stone's throw away from the Baguio City Police Office. Or when, you know, you're in the middle of it all and Baguio just doesn't feel like Baguio anymore. 

But there are good days, days when there's still so much more to Baguio than its cool climate. There's still that hardly known spot somewhere in Wright Park where you can lay down on a mat on the grass and let your children run wild among the trees and up and down the hill on a clear day.  

That same area still offers the best option for afternoon walks - just around the lagoon or through the Little Flower convent up Outlook drive and back towards the Mansion House.

 

On another afternoon, we brought the kids with us for a jog in Burnham Park, after which some friends met up with us and while the kids went crazy on those trikes for rent, 

behind us there were girls flying high up in the air rehearsing a cheerleading routine...

and teen-aged boys doing their own stunts on skateboards and improvised ramps and pipes. 

While a pair of much younger boys amazed us with their rollerblading skills as they wheezed past lovers and vendors and a guy getting a full body massage (!) 

next to vendor selling hot coffee in the skating rink. At that time of the day, when the sun is already setting, you can rent a boat "one-to-sawa" for the price of an hour.

You can hear the distant crash of cymbals and the distorted guitar sounds and you know there's one of those free concerts going on at the big mall up on a hill, and you're glad tha there's still so much going on outside those concrete walls, and you look around you, out there in the open air, with enough room to stretch out your arms and legs and breath in a deep sigh and as the fog comes down on this weary city, it makes you smile knowing that there's still so much more to Baguio than just the cool climate. 

And that's why you stay.  

Dave Tabligan - a tribute

Overloaded

It is true that Baguio was originally designed for a population of 25,000 residents, but the city's population exceeded that number just a few decades since its charter... 25, 50, 100 thousand... we don't need statistics, just looking at images such as this one, something's got to be done.  

And motherhood statements from our politicians do nothing. 

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. 

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.