BAGUIO, my city, is where I am today.

It's my city because my father's clan moved here from Abra in the Forties and, it was here where I was baptized - at the Baguio Cathedral.

But I was born and raised not in Baguio but in Pangasinan, in a bucolic town called Mangatarem.

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My father (bless his soul) fell in love with my mother (bless her soul).

In the name of love, my father surrendered everything to my mother, including his desire to build his family in Baguio.

And so, Mangatarem it was for my father from Day One of his wedding day.

As John Lennon said, "When you are in love, you leave the boys and your beer at the bar."

I visit Baguio quite often. Sometimes business. Sometimes pleasure. Sometimes both.

Presently, it's both business and pleasure - again.

Thus, I'm in Baguio: 1) To work with Jake P. Ayson as co-chair of the Rules Committee of the 60th Fil-Am Golf Championship from Nov. 28 to Dec. 12 and, 2) To savor anew the city's cool, crisp and pine needle-scented breeze.

The Fil-Am Golf, a brainchild of the late matinee idol, Rogelio de la Rosa, has this potent potion of charisma and magnet that draws me to it almost blindly that I've been into it annually the last 20 years or so.

I guess it's the same thing with the event's perennial participants, who keep coming back come rain or shine, come hell or high water - literally, almost.

So, who said storm Pepeng's wrath shooed away Fil-Am's army of contenders as well as title-pretenders from Baguio?

"Not a single team withdrew," said Shin Paul Chan, a top gun at Baguio Country Club (BCC) who is now a main man in the running of the Fil-Am.

When almost everybody thought Pepeng would decimate the field's roster, a stunner has pleasantly surprised the organizers.

"Amazingly, we recorded the biggest number of participants this year," said Anthony de Leon, the super-dapper BCC general manager who is the tournament co-chair. "To be exact, we have 1,202 players."

How then can Baguio not be indelibly etched in my mind, ineradicably carved in my heart?

Add this: It was in Baguio that I watched my first James Bond film - Dr. No.

Loved it.