Baguio ‘ukay-ukay’ mecca closes for repairs

BAGUIO CITY—The city government has ordered the closure of the Bayanihan Hotel, acknowledged as the summer capital’s “ukay-ukay” (used clothes) center, due to violation of the fire safety code.

Local officials, however, said the 1930s-era building, which is among the oldest pre-war structures in the city, would not be demolished but would be repaired and reopened once it passes safety inspection.

In their rush to beat the closure order that would take effect today (Nov. 6, Sunday), stall owners have slashed the prices of their goods while owners of grocery and variety stores in the building started packing their merchandise.

Ramon Corpuz, leasing division head of the Bayanihan Hotel, said the building has to be closed because it failed to meet the requirements of Fire Code of the Philippines (Republic Act No. 9514) and has become a fire hazard.

The concrete and wooden building, which occupies a block near Burnham Park here, is owned and managed by Pines Commercial Corp.

“The fire department found the building to be generally unsafe. But this will be rehabilitated and the old design will be retained. This will not be demolished,” Corpuz said.

A Sept. 21 report of the Bureau of Fire Protection to Mayor Mauricio Domogan showed that the building has no sufficient fire exits, water hoses, sprinkler system and fire extinguishers. The report also showed that the building’s electrical wiring system could spark a fire.

The building has 120 stalls leased by ukay-ukay vendors, variety and grocery stores, and law offices. Each stall owner pays an average of P10,000 in monthly rental.

Corpuz said some stall owners could return by next month when a portion of the building is renovated in time for the Christmas season.

Those who would be displaced from the Bayanihan Hotel would be relocated to the city’s night market at Burnham Park’s Athletic Bowl, he said.

Bayanihan stopped operating as a hotel in 2006. After that year, used clothes vendors started leasing spaces in the building, Corpuz said.

“This used to be Baguio’s five-star hotel in the 1930s and 1940s. It used to accommodate important people such as celebrities and movie stars during that era. This building has gradually accommodated a variety of shops through the years, but it still operated as a hotel until 2006 when five rooms were still available for rent,” he said.

Erlyn Alcantara, a local researcher, said spaces in the hotel were rented out to businessmen as early as in the 1930s, among them Hubert Phelps Whitmarsh, who was Benguet’s first civil governor in 1900.

She said Whitmarsh, who owned the Benguet Commercial Co., was into merchandising and put up stores that he rented out to Chinese traders.

The hotel building also served as a Japanese garrison during World War II, said Astrelle Mangacheo, an architectural design student of Saint Louis University who wrote a thesis on the Bayanihan Hotel.

Mangacheo said the hotel, before it was named Bayanihan in the 1960s, used to be known as Filipinas Hotel and Baguio Hotel.

Lawyer Carlos Canilao, city administrator, said the city government wanted the building to be safe and sturdy for its tenants and patrons.

“The tenants would have to vacate the area for their safety because the hotel building has become unsafe. There is no order to demolish the building, only for renovation. The public can be assured that the hotel would be preserved,” he said.

A used clothes stall owner said they were saddened by the order because they depend only on their income from their shops at Bayanihan.

“But we have to accept the fact that we have to leave the place for our safety although we are sad that we will have to leave the place for a while. Some of us have been running our shops for 10 years,” said the stall owner.