Baguio's haunted heritage

By Jesus Miguel G. Agreda

ASIDE from the cool weather and lush pine trees that made Baguio famous, the city has also been synonymous to the haunted and the paranormal.

Watching episodes of TV 5's Philippines Scariest Challenge for the past two weeks featuring two famous haunted sites in the city made me realize that indeed, albeit feared by many, these haunted heritage sites over the past 99 years stand as silent witnesses to the growth of the once small hill station into a highly urbanized city.

To name just a few of these so-called haunted places that created Goosebumps, sent jitters and wrought fear among city residents and tourists alike, who experienced seeing shades of spirits and entities in the vicinity of these places, were The Diplomat Hotel in Dominican Hill, White Hall at Teacher's Camp, Casa Vallejo at Upper Session Road and the White Laperal House along Leonard Wood Road.

However, aside from all the fears of entities and spirits that inhabit these places is the apparent evidence that these paranormal sites have been a living testament to the rich heritage of the city.

In an online petition to declare Baguio as a Special Heritage Zone, Dion Fernandez whom our group Ubbog had met before in our monthly workshop at the University of the Cordilleras last year, believed that the city is the nerve center of four rich and diverse cultures: the Filipino culture in general, the highland Cordilleran culture, the lowland Ilocano culture, and the heritage culture brought about by the Americans during the early 20th Century.

The petition claimed that in the past two decades, the city has experienced a substantial degradation of its unique culture, environment and art. It also claimed that the approval of certain politicians with no respect for the aesthetics and the environment of Baguio by cutting numerous pine trees to put up concrete structures such as malls, overpasses and flyovers only worsened Baguio City's lamentable decay as a City of Pines.

Together with more than a thousand signatories of the petition, I believe this over-development and resulting pollution have to stop. By declaring the city as a Special Heritage Zone, I believe that this over-development of the city will be reduced if not eradicated. And that Baguio as a center of culture, the arts and environmental awareness, will be comparable to other major cities like Venice, Rome and Paris.

I join the call of the signatories of the petition for the government to reconstruct, restore and preserve these allegedly haunted sites if not for their spooky past but for its valuable role as a symbol of the rich culture and history of the city.

The recent renovation of the Teacher's Camp back to its full glory for example is a good sign of the government's thrust for heritage conservation. The Laperal house owned by tycoon Lucio Tan has been host to Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club's recent anniversary party.

Soon, other haunted sites like Casa Vallejo and Diplomat Hotel will be restored back to its once beautiful state and will play an important part as a tourist destination of the city and not as a place where fear of its unseen inhabitants linger.

As of this writing, the Baguio Heritage Petition online has more than 1903 electronic signatures from individuals who have loved Baguio City dearly.

In a few days, what a coincidence it will be if the signatories will reach 1909, the same year that Baguio was declared as a chartered city. Let us all help push for this petition's dreams to bear fruit and become a reality.

Through the eyes of a beggar

By Peter de Jesus

THEY walk the streets of the city through the blaring heat of the sun or the heavy deluge of the rain. Regardless of time, they are usually there, extending their gnarled hands towards complete strangers, asking for alms or anything the stranger is willing to give.

Most of the time, they are rejected, or even bad-mouthed. They are treated without an inch of respect, and they are looked upon with disgust. They are the beggars of the city. Old, withered beggars who simply refuse to retire from their "profession."

While I was growing up, I would usually encounter them. I was actually a bit afraid of them before, mainly because of the way they look. After all, they do look a lot different from the everyday man or woman.

Dressed in the same rags from years hence, they would approach me suddenly with outstretched hands, totally freaking me out. I have to admit, I grew up loathing them, and I continued to do so for the greater part of my adolescent life.

That all changed when I read a one-act play from one of the participants in a writing workshop years ago. It was a short piece, but its impact was intense. Ever since that time, I never looked at them the same way again.

People usually spend a great portion of their lives working. Despite financial stability of the family, chances are its members will still work one way or another.

Half a century ago, things were, though fairly simpler, a lot more tedious. Without the aid of automation, people would toil under the burning heat of the sun to keep their finances stable. This is true even to the people living in the cool mountains of the Cordilleras. Cordillerans are resilient; the famous rice terraces are a testament to that.

But then, after they have accomplished that, after they have raised their children and put them through the education that they never had, what happens? Where do they end up?

I never even thought about that angle before. It was then when I noticed the next beggar that came across me. She was totally stooped, and she was getting mercilessly mocked by the people around her during that time. I noticed that both her hands and feet were severely calloused. She also bore the tattoos that usually mean a significant place in the family. She then looked in my direction, and our eyes met.

That scene has haunted me ever since. Her eyes were the same as my grandmother's: exhausted, desperate and sick.

I wish the City Government does something constructive about these old beggars. They have lived way longer than us, and though they are nothing but annoyances these days, we must always remember that years before, they were just like us; doing their part and hoping that they never turn
out as they are now.

Let's form this mountain

By Janice Bagawi

BEFORE there was the ubiquitous ship-shaped supermall in Luneta Hill, the Cathedral was the edifice that could be seen from almost anywhere in Baguio.

However, there remains a towering sight that the big mall has not managed to-and won't ever-overshadow.

That's Mt. Santo Tomas with its two somber eyes, the twin 'radars', which oversee Baguio and its surrounding municipalities. Even when you look up and all you see are low-lying clouds or stubborn fog, you know Mt. Santo Tomas is there, daring you to ascend it and scrutinize Baguio through its eyes.

For us young people of Cordillera, the Cordillera Contemporary Literature is like Mt. Sto. Tomas. It's just there, waiting to be climbed. However, this mountain that we shall call Mt. CCL is yet to be formed; or, rather, it's still being formed.

A browse through the latest anthology of contemporary Philippine literature would show you that under the subcategory Cordillera Literature you would find mostly legends, myths, epics, riddles, and proverbs.

It is lamentable that there are too few and far between contemporary writings to complement the cornucopia of Cordillera oral literature.

Nonetheless, our oral tradition is the firm base upon which Mt. CCL must be formed. To build upon this base is a task our generation must resolve to carry out. It is undeniably a daunting task, one that can't be completed by our generation alone.

Those who would come behind us would have to build upon what we have, and those behind them would do the same, and so on. Mountains, after all are formed over time.

Now, how do we go about forming a mountain? First, we must remove roadblocks that keep us from getting to the building site -- for example, thinking that literature is just for the bespectacled and grey-headed scholars from obscure universities, or that literature should be English.

Burn these misconstructions.

Literature is for and about real people with real experience who use real languages, including Cordillera languages.

Next, follow this advice from a wise writer: "Look into your heart, and write." Write of the Cordillera in your heart, write through the Cordillera in your heart, write for the Cordillera in your heart.

Don't worry that what you've written may not be Pulitzer caliber. Write anyway. The fine dusts on mountains were once crude rocks, or parts of crude rocks.

At the summit of Mt. Santo Tomas one could have a panoramic of vista of the entire Baguio City and the places that surround it.

In the same manner, when there is a Mt. Contemporary Cordillera Literature to be climbed, then there will be a point from which Cordillera could be scrutinized.

When Mt. CCL is formed and its apexes reached, one could better see what Cordillera is and what a Cordilleran is, and where they have been and what they are heading for.

On building a house

By Freda Dao-ines

TIMES are definitely changing. Several decades ago, the primary purpose of getting educated is for the cultivation of the intellect. At this age, our parents and those who have seen better days do not fail in hammering into our consciousness the fact that education is a means in itself to achieve the necessities life requires.

"It's strange how people come to build their houses these days," he said, smiling in a way only men who've greeted the sun for 80 years or so can smile. He sipped from his mug. "Then, it takes a day, a week at most. You get up at dawn, gather sticks and grass-lay them on the bamboo frame by midday, and sleep on it that night.

He chuckles, "Now, still fresh from your mother's womb, you start building a house. Before you can jump your first rope and say 'boo!' to your hide-and-seek pal, mother comes, thrusts a pencil into your chubby fist, makes you sit down, and starts drawing strange things: A-B-C. Follow, she says, and you follow, not having the slightest idea you'll be making ABCs in the long years ahead. By the time you can tie shoelaces, you can count one through twenty backwards so you'll be promoted?

Foundation, they call it. Subtractions, long divisions, frustrating fractions, confusing grammar, voice-exhausting phonetics -- punctuated by tales of men, kingdoms, beasts and gods; mad dash for glory at the playgrounds; fistfights, and Barbie dolls. You'd think six years of that qualifies you to erect a post. But Father says, No, it will take four years to have beams and posts.

"The next four years you lose nights trying to digest numbers, unpalatable subject-verb agreements, and a host of other 'reinforcement materials' -- music, dissecting toads, electric circuit, sewing machine, and QWERTY. You wonder how monstrous ships float while a number as low as 75 -- your chemistry grade -- is sinking you down.

"The four years eventually end and you can almost picture the trimmings on your windows. But grandfather shakes his head and tells you, "You need four years more to have steady walls and planks." Four more years you crunch algebra, spew out conjunctions and interjections, wrestle with Sartre and Descartes, explore the human body and mind, plot specifications, write volumes of ABCs -- all for that house you dream of.

Finally, you stand draped in a dark robe onstage, shake hands and receive a rolled up paper from sober-looking men -- saying that's your permission to buy all the cement and nails for your little house.

"You go to the hardware, and the hardware man shakes his head; that paper with its fancy penmanship is not enough, young man. Why don't you go buy a ticket to Saudi, US, or Europe even? No son, you won't go there and drink piña colada under a palm shade. You go there and wash dishes, an hour of it for a nail, an inch-square lumber; an hour building skyscraper is a GI sheet for you; a week on your feet for a bag of cement, a steel bar, and a cubic meter each of sand and gravel. And yes, that fancy paper will be your entrance pass."

"Yes, strange indeed. But those houses built over the years stand the rain and wind more than our grass-roofed huts," he said softly and stood up. I nod, that's what they tell us everyday, that we're going to school so we can have a house someday.