TO ESCAPE the heat, I decided last weekend to go to Baguio City. In Pampanga and elsewhere, the sweltering heat sometimes will reach 39 degrees. Coupled with the humidity, it makes many uncomfortable. Seemingly, we are suffering from the heatwave. So if you have the time and your budget can afford you for a three-day stay, why not.
Going now to Baguio City provides a smooth ride because of the expressways. Three expressways, the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), Subic–Clark–Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX) and Tarlac–Pangasinan–La Union Expressway (TPLEX). Few good songs of the seventies and eighties on your player you reach the destination. Whereas before from Angeles City up to the time you hit the endpoint whether taking Kennon road or the Marcos Highway the travel will consume a minimum of five hours including pee stops. Now, in two and half hours, you can reach downtown Baguio.
Anyway, please read this article before you pack your bags. Last Friday, businessman Martin Hinson Vitug and his son Kiks in tow together with popular comedian Jimmy Santos and ace videographer Sonny Canlas agreed to make a shoot of historical places in Baguio. (Btw. Please subscribe to our Jimmy Saints Blog on YouTube). We arrived on time and met no problem. The hassle will start when all non-residents are required to proceed to the triage located at the convention center for swabbing. There were five steps visitors have to follow the designed health protocols. I don’t know if it was coincidental or our luck to have spent there at the triage for almost two hours waiting for the results of our antigen tests. There’s a charge fee of P350.
Baguio City today is no longer the Baguio City of my youth where particularly during the ber months you can feel the breeze and experience cool weathers that can drop down to 9 degrees. Now looking around, those pine trees on the mountain ridges were replaced by houses. Over the years, the local government and including government agencies like the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Department of Tourism failed to conserve the trees. It is only in Camp John Hay where you can still marvel at the many pine trees which luckily remained untouched by commercial progress.
But in the downtown area, it is a pitiful sight. Even the popular destination Burnham Park lost its glory. (American Architect Daniel Burnham, the designer of the park must be restless in his grave). I learned from a boatman that there were earmarked funds for its rehabilitation but somehow withdrawn. As usual, the Department of Tourism (DOT) blamed the pandemic. It was one playground in my youth where I learned how to skate and bike. Anyway, Martin’s son Kiks enjoyed biking around and learned how to row his hired boat in the murky pond. Session Road, the iconic street where in the early years visitors loved to walk and stopped for breakfast, lost also its mystery and beauty. (The road was named such because it was here the Philippine Commission in the early nineties held their sessions.) We are lucky there wasn’t much traffic in the city because there are now few visitors from the lowland. But wait when the pandemic is over.
RETRO: Some time ago, I was having dinner with my long-time friend Baguio=born Cesar Fianza in one of those restaurants along the Kizad road near Burnham and I pointed to him the terrible traffic confronting the city. All roads, primary and secondary, are clogged due to parked vehicles on both sides. Him being a friend of Mayor Mauricio Domogan, I suggested the possibility of putting up multi-level parking on one side of the football field of Burnham. I explained that there is one mode of procurement which the city government can avail and that's the unsolicited proposal that will lead to what they term in business circle as Swiss challenge. And there are other lists of actions to be done, minor things.
A letter proposal( not intent) that will detail the number of floors, the number of slots, the features like elevators, drivers' lounge, the number of lease years, the sharing of incomes, etc. etc. I hope some Baguio businessmen will make a proposal. It is about time the elected officials rethink their positions.