ARE you Baguio?

Chances are you are. The target of the question is inclusive. It’s to whom it may concern -- like a shotgun blast.

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It’s not limited to those who are Baguio by birth, upbringing, education, career, retirement or residence.

It’s for anybody who had been up here -- be it for a vacation, a conference, a romance, a wedding, a honeymoon or whatever.

It’s also for those who haven’t been up here, yet swear they’ll make that trip sooner or later, if only to feel whole and complete, even if they see Baguio different from what they had heard or read.

If you’re any of the above, then you’re Baguio. We owe it to tell you about a seemingly innocuous and unimportant development that may also mean a lot to all of us.

It’s about pine, particularly a patch of over 900 standing near the heart of Baguio. The small, green pine stand rose beside the Government Center. The Center was built at the turn of the last century, as seat of the National Government in summer, when the tropical heat is unbearable in Manila. (That’s how Baguio became the country’s Summer Capital).

The forest came from young trees which were balled somewhere and replanted to provide ambience for the 1978 World Chess Championships between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi. Karpov won that one, and we now hope to win this one.

By a stroke of the pen of then President Marcos, the Government Service Insurance System acquired portions of the Government Center, including the lot on which the pine stand grows.

It’s alarming that GSIS is determined to replace the green patch with a four-building, 13-story condotel complex in a joint venture with Shoemart, the mall chain that also built on Luneta Hill where the Pines Hotel used to be.

Baguio needs that patch of pine more than it does another concrete business enterprise being added to the urban congestion and sprawl. A condotel dubbed “Baguio Air Residences” would run counter to Baguio’s over-all come-on as the place where you want to live in because of its temperate climate, pine-scented air and natural landscape.

Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. and the City Council want to keep the patch as is -- a park for whoever is and will be Baguio to access and enjoy, a counterpoint to the smog and crowding triggered by “utak semento” and commercial enterprise.

Like you, GSIS can and might become Baguio, too. It can scrap the condotel project and save and preserve the patch of pine -- and its own dignity, as system with values intact for national heritage.

By its own admission, the GSIS does not only insure government workers and property. It said so when, in 2002, it bought “Parisian Life, a painting by national hero and artist Juan Luna for P42 million. Criticized by some of its members for the purchase in an auction in Hong Kong, GSIS said it does not only insure its members; it also insures national heritage.

Makapasangit. It’s a tear-jerker to hear that argument of reason.

So is Baguio a national heritage. Its status as such is not limited to its history and titles - as the country’s Summer Capital, Flower Garden City, Honeymoon Paradise and City of (vanishing) Pines.

Access to parts of Baguio that were and are still government property and serving public purpose, such as forests and open spaces should not now be limited to those who are fencing us out of them, especially if these were acquired by them without cost, and without our knowledge and consent.

Up close, yet ignored in the push for concrete and exclusivity, is the personal sentiment of millions of Filipinos about Baguio being a personal, family, collective and inclusive heritage -- whether they come up here by and sleep in a bus or in a Mercedes and stay in their own vacation houses or check in at a condotel.

We who walked Baguio’s forests in hunts for mushrooms and wild strawberries, swam and fished its creeks, sold its weeklies, shined its shoes, or got a shiner from a fistfight at Mt. Mary’s feel they, too, are Baguio who rowed boats at Burnham Park, rode ponies at Wright Park, studied, courted, loved, married, honeymooned or parted ways, raised kids and then left with memories. Or stayed and settle down with us up here.

They, too, are Baguio who will come after us. Saving the patch is more for them than for us who now pine for the lost scent of pine.

So we’re all Baguio, because this city is inclusive, a melting pot tries to live by the sense of fair play that is (or was) the mark of a Baguio boy or girl.

So shall GSIS be, too, if it can spare and bestow that tiny pine forest as its gift for Baguio’s Centennial.

With a change of heart, the green patch would be GSIS’s proud patch for being Baguio, for saving national heritage. After all, Baguio is not GSIS. Or SM.

Lest it forgets its hierarchy of values, let’s write, petition and even beg GSIS if we must, before the patch of pine is lost or become an enclave of those who can afford, something we now feel Camp John Hay, even with the city’s conditions for its open access, is turning into.

Igorots of all sizes, from all walks and all over, by blood, birth, heart, sentiment and choice did petition GSIS when they met April last year in Banaue, Ifugao for the seventh Igorot International Consultation.

If not, we can let our kids and grandchildren -- who will be affected the most by what we do (or not do) with the environment they will inherit -- break open their piggy banks to start a campaign to help the city buy that patch.

The city, under its power of eminent domain, can expropriate a piece of property for public use -- to offer us common folk equal access and space in this concreting urban landscape.