YPS

Climbing the Marcos Highway at sunrise, one is greeted by “cloud-kissed mountains” to borrow a phrase from my grandfather. Today is the celebration of Baguio’s Centennial as a chartered city. Today I am coming home to a city I have not lived in for 23 years. My memories are of a kinder and gentler city. The images I return to again and again in my mind are greener and filled with characters a young girl grew up fascinated with. All of us have that place we call home, a repository of our identities and an anchor for our idea of family.

Baguio City brings different memories for different people. Everyone I know has a Baguio memory and a stirring of nostalgia about a city with pine breezes, cloud-kissed mountains and hot coffee to break the chill of a morning.

Today, the bus passes jampacked hillsides of houses and houses. Garbage piles belie the capacity for solid waste management. A cement flyover precariously sits atop a natural drainage sink-hole, a dilapidated convention center stands beside a number of parade floats assembled for today’s “festivities” and a modest pinestand of young vulnerable trees stoically standing their ground against unfettered urban construction.

I do not know the Baguio I am coming home to. I know OF its ails and vulnerabilities, I know OF its issues and political possibilities, I know OF its grace, its people and its indefatigable spirit. I have voted for Baguio’s leaders ever since I started voting. But I do not know Baguio as I should.

Humility wars with poignant anger at what I feel has become an uncaring city. There is less identity here than there is one-upmanship and there is less dignity than there is greed. It is as if Baguio is for sale literally to the highest bidder whether monetarily or by virtue of who wields the power.

The images of the parade and the program are fitting contradictions of Baguio’s confused assertion. The Ibaloi first nation of Baguio parade in costume but remain landless and confined to the fringes of a city they love. A motley mix of dancers from Pangasinan and Baguio universities gyrate to modern dance tunes and indigenous beats wearing almost unrecognizable costumes. Nurses, lawyers, teachers and other professionals who have found their careers and built their lives in Baguio’s embrace proudly wear their colors. PMA cadets gyrate to the song “Careless Whisper.” This is Baguio visually. Embracing and welcoming all. Losing a bit of herself everytime she gains another identity. I come home to a Baguio I do not recognize.

But I come home. I come back to an identity and heritage deeply rooted in one’s aspirations. I have made the decision to work for the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines and chose Baguio as my base. It is an exciting crossover from civil society and government to a corporate arena. The values, principles and aspirations for democratic politics, good governance and development outcomes remain. The arena expands and the constituency brings me back home.

In Manila, political announcements in the next hour will change the landscape of the arenas in which we fight for reform. I will be home in a City, that would benefit from these developments. We wait with anticipation for the genuine frisson that will electrify the coming months for change. We are a nation of cities, municipalities, provinces, barangays and communities. Each a part of a whole and each with a distinct responsibility in the coming 2010 elections.

Come to Baguio, come see as I will in the next days, weeks and months what a hundred-year old mountain city can bring to nation-building. Come to Baguio to invest in a community and city that should find its assertions and identity from its first nation and its welcomed residents.

Come reclaim your Baguio. See you here!