Old photos show how to govern modern Baguio

BAGUIO MARKET, ca. 1924 (Michael G. Price collection). Sprawled about 3 meters below the level of Baguio Market is the bed of a creek shown in the foreground. This creek, tapped as the source for the man-made Burnham Lake, drains into the Balili River

A city official celebrated the 104th charter anniversary of Baguio on Sept. 1 by invoking change in place of nostalgia.

Banish any thought about pining for Baguio’s golden years, said Rep. Nicasio Aliping, since “constant change” has shaped the city’s growth and will continue to do so in the next decades.

But it is a foreboding Baguio that has been defined by the present: a rationed water supply, a garbage crisis, settlements encroaching into forest areas abetted by confusing land laws and a migrant population growing faster than ever.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan said this was the outcome of rebuilding from the devastation of the Luzon earthquake, which happened 23 years ago.

Which is why the past still provides some education about Baguio’s urban growth.

The latest lessons may come from a series of vintage postcards depicting a Baguio City that the American colonial government worked hard to populate after it became a chartered city in 1909 and was declared the country’s summer capital.

The picture postcards, on exhibit in a four-month run of “Vintage Baguio” at Sanctuary Gallery in Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary in Baguio, show how fast the city evolved from a sparse settlement in the early 1900s to a bustling small town by 1936.

“Nostalgia is one thing. Gaining insight and finding lessons in the past is another,” said Erlyn Ruth Alcantara, sanctuary curator. “More than being cultural remnants or souvenirs from a bygone era, picture postcards could be rich sources of information, best interpreted within the story of Baguio’s growth.”

“Vintage Baguio is an exhibition intended to encourage conversation and generate ideas. Baguio in the 1930s was a city managed effectively: It was built according to a comprehensive plan providing for long-term infrastructure and utility systems,” she said.

The postcards were loaned from the collections of Alcantara, National Artist BenCab (Benedicto Cabrera), University of the Philippines Baguio professors Delfin Tolentino Jr.

and Rina Locsin-Afable, Japanese photographer Einosuke “Rudy” Furuya, Michael Price and Armand Voltaire Cating.

Early Baguio

The postcards feature early photographs taken by scholars, government photographers and missionaries from 1909 to 1941. These are black and white or hand-colored photographs depicting day-to-day life and activities in the city.

A postcard showing Baguio Station is captioned: “A trip to Baguio in 1911 meant taking a train of the Manila Railroad Company at the railhead at Camp One.”

The postcards that feature market day in 1910 show Benguet Ibaloi people hunched in a row with vegetable baskets in front of a wooden building while boys in coats and G-strings scamper about near a row of bull carts.

“As written in a 1913 guidebook, ‘It may be said with certainty that there are more languages spoken in Baguio on market day than in any place of its size in the world,’” said one postcard caption.

“We need to look back on our history to learn what was done right—beyond today’s politically expedient moves or short-term agenda,” Alcantara said.

“There are compelling issues now that need to be addressed with urgency, especially by the city’s leaders: Rapid urbanization has created a momentum of change that is overwhelming Baguio’s natural capacity to adequately regenerate its resources… So it really is not a question of whether history will teach us anything but, rather, are we willing to learn from it?” she said.