Historical Baguio: tribes and migrants

It was like a giant finally waking up from a century of sleep to find out that he no longer recognize the place he finds himself. The people of Baguio and Benguet suddenly find themselves stripped of a public cultural historical site after National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) awarded an ancestral land which included Casa Vallejo in Baguio, to the heirs of Cosen Piraso. Reactions were varied including petitions, court case, congressional inquiry,  mass protest and a questionable issuance issue from the Natural Resources development Corporation, administrator of the property which happens to be also be a government agency. These and more led to a January 14 issuance of an NCIP pronouncement of a “status quo to prevent further exacerbate the present situation”.

Despite the pronouncement the comments and reactions continue, like this one, because people feel that not all views have been considered in the NCIP awarding.  Local government and people are clamoring to declare Casa Vallejo as a historical site so that history is preserved for the future. A few decades ago, we had the “three witches” prime movers in the preservation of historical sites and would do all sorts of advocacies to be heard. Today, we have all sorts of people from the school children to the senior citizens, from the Baguio born to the Baguio migrant, joining in clamoring for preserving the Baguio they want. It just shows how much our beloved city has deteriorated in these recent past and times.

Winston Churchill the leader said “the farther backward you look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” Baguio is a city trying to retain her historical identity while struggling to become a world class education and trade center as well as tourist and convention destination. It is a struggle of protecting her pine trees and flowers as against concrete walls and malls. It is a fight between keeping its hills, creeks and rock formations against the housing projects which will later be owned by people not from Baguio and left unoccupied for a greater part of the year. It is a city trying to address its worsening garbage and traffic problems while encouraging business establishments while at the same time we see more business establishments violating tax codes, licensing and zoning regulations. In fact, it may even be a battle between the rich who are getting richer and poor becoming poorer. Today, we find vagrants/homeless sleeping doing their toilets and scavenging in Burnham park, a sight never seen two decades ago. Similarly, we see the existence of at least ten condominiums and more subdivisions built for the affluent.

However, in the Casa Vallejo fiasco some Cordillerans use it to air their views and commit ethnic slander. In social media, I read someone say “Baguio for the Ibalois and not for the Kankana-ey” so why the Kankana-ey’s how about the more than 50% Pangasinanses and Ilocanos in the city of Baguio or Kafagway as originally called by the Ibalois.  Squatters, illegal settlers were what they call the Cordillerans or Igorots and lowlanders who settled in Baguio. Being born in Baguio, I gain many Ibaloi and Kankana-ey friends and relatives by affinity. It is now a reality that Baguio is a metropolis even as history is retold that the Americans have rebuilt the city before the war and intended it to be a place where people from outside of Kafagway would converge during the summer months. As early as then and even after they built her, they bombed the city during the war and later rebuilt again the city remains a converging area. The 1990 earthquake also changed the landscape of Baguio and would have been a takeover of people who felt they have better rights over the city. Yet, we did not see that happen. The establishment of the Cordillera Region also brought about more ethnic groups congregating in Baguio City and the ethnic struggle among the tribes heightened, while the lowlanders watch and sneer.

Indeed, Baguio remains to be a city inhabited by tribal people and migrants, Indigenous peoples of the Philippines and foreigners. Historically a melting pot and will continue to be so. For Baguio, it is a city loved by many, envied by most and cared by few.