Sunday, January 27, 2008

Hill Station: Baguio City

Although Baguio was already known to the Spaniards and it was, in faact, a Spanish report that confirmed the U.S.-Philippine Commission to go ahead and establish a hill station, it was the Americans who were reponsible for getting Baguio started.

Spaniards in the Highlands: But it was in Benguet’s capital La Trinidad that Spanish presence was most felt. Guillermo Galvey in one of his military expeditions between 1829 and 1839 discovered a flourishing community in La Trinidad of 500 dwellings and irrigated fields planted to gabi, camote and sugar cane. Galvey’s military campaign decimated the people reducing the dwellings to about 100 and the population estimated at contact to 2000 to 400.

The last decades of Spanish rule, saw La Trinidad converted to a hispanized small town of about 3000. The traditional shape of a colonial town took shape with a prominent church and attached convento dominating the plaza, a government tribunal, jail, school and teacher’s house. Private dwelling clustered around this nucleus. The military barracks, parade ground, armoru, district headquarters surrounded by a formal gardens and four general stores marked La Trinidad as a military establishment.

In time, La Trinidad’s salubrious climate convinced the miltiary of the importance of establishing a military sanatarium in the highland. Land was surveyed, plans drawn but in 1891, the project was cut short for some unexplained reason. Yet La Trinidad grew in fame as a healthful site. The government in Manila did improve the lodging at the tribunal, increased its boarding capacity so that in the later part of the 1890s, as many as forty to fifty military invalids were sent to recuperate. By 1897, capacity was increased to 300.

The news about La Trinidad was not limited to the military the lowland’s European population began trooping to Benguet. José Camps, an entrepreneur who owned a lodging in La Trinidad reported to the U.S. Philippine Commission on 26 July 1899 that his establishment was well patronized by wealthy lowlanders. Some remained for months attracted to the uplands bracing climate.

That same climate encouraged the planting of high-value “temperat” crops. A botanical garden of aesthetic and functional value was established in La Trinidad as a place for agricultural experimentation. In the 1870s, botanical and agricultural research was well underway and in the 1880s Gov. Gen. Valeriano Weyler ordered the development of a small military-agricultural colony near the cabecera. Attempts to develop plantations for coffee, tea and cacao in Benguet produced not as expected but substantial nonetheless. Mid-latitude vegetables and berries were introduced and European and Igorot farmers began to produced cabbages, peas, tomatoes, Irish potatoes, and other cool climate vegetables. Although some produce made their way to the Manila market most were consumed locally by the growing European population.

Americans in the Highlands: In the 20th century, the Cordillera was the scene of American interest. Protestant missionaries, notably Baptists, Methodists and Episcopalians, entered the Cordilllera to bring their own brand of Christianity. Establishing mission stations and schools, and teaching English, they penetrated communities that the Spanish friars had not touched.

American civil government brought democratic institutions and its iconic buildings to the Cordilleras: municipal halls, libraries, schools and hospitals. And an extensive road system to link the towns and settlements and circumvent the tortuous route up rivers.

But the center of American interest was Baguio, a settlement called by the Ibaloy inhabitants Kafagway. Here, the American colonial government would build a sanatarium. The impetus began within less than a year after the arrival of the Americans in 1898. The Schurman Commission began making inquiries about La Trinidad and the Spanish sanatarium there. Pivotal in the development of Baguio was Dean Worcester, who served as US-Philippine Commissioner from 1899 to 1913. Worcester had arrived earlier in the Philippines in the course of two zoological expeditions conducted between 1887 and 1893. He spent a total of three years in the Philippines and in 1892 was preparing for an expedition to Benguet to confirm reports of its extensive pine forest, temperate weather and occassional forts. But about of typhoid brought his plans to an abrupt end forcing him to return to the US. But six years later he was back as a member for the Schurman Commission. Worcester got hold of a Spanish report on Baguio in the government archives in Manila, which contained more technical data that he was able to assemble by interviewing Europeans who had visited the highlands. Returning to Washington in the winter of 1899-1900, he convinced Secretary of War Elihu Root to recommend the development of Baguio.

Following, Root’s verbal instruction the Taft Commission of 1900 appointed Worcester and Luke E. Wright as leaders of a special commitee on Benguet. Organizing and exploration party, a small contingent of American soldiers, army physicians, a Filipino metreologist, and the English engineer, H.L. Higgins who built the Manila-Dagupan railway accompanied the two commissioners on their trek to Benguet. The left on 1 August and upon arriving in the Cordillera stayed for a week. A meteorological station was set up which continued on functioning until the summer of 1901. The party stayed with Otto Scheerer in Baguio. This German planter and scholar had settled in Baguio in 1896. Returning to Manila, Worcester and Wright confirmed the Blanco report and recommendes Baguio as an ideal site for a hill station.

The government moved rapidly. Transportation was important. As the railroad has already been laid, studies were made if a railroad to Baguio was feasible. A new road, to complement the old Spanish trail that passed through Naguilian, Ilocos Sur, was planned. Intially called Benguet Road, it was to follow the course of the Bued River. This was recommended as the best and shortes route too for the railway. To prepare for the rail, a cart and wagon road to Baguio was necessary. Construction began in mid-January 1901 with Captain Mead as general supervisor. By July, the onset of the rainy season, Mead had completed a mere 10 kilometers. Reassigned to Manila as city engineer he was succeedd by N.M. Holmes who did not quite succeed in his task as torrential rain flooded the Bued, forcing Holmes to modify the route planned in earlier surveys. Despite Holmes’ labor force of 2000, he reported the completion of 18 kilometers. It was a long way to go. Complaints were heard about the extravagant waste of money, being poured into the Benguet Road.

Benguet Road is now known as Kennon Road, named after Major L.W. V Kennon, who assumed responsibility for the road project after Holmes’ failure. Under Kennon the road was finally completed in 1903. For various reasons, the train project did not go beyond the planning stage, and Benguet Road was used primary as a road for motor driven vehicles. On 13 October 1904, city planner and exponent of the City Beautiful movement, Daniel Burnham and his assistant Pierce Anderson set sail from San Francisco arriving in Manila in early December. Secretary of War William H. Taft and Commissioner W. Cameron Forbes were responsible for inviting this famous planner of American cities like Chicago and San Francisco. Burnham spent a scant six weeks in the Philippines, enough time to survey Manila, Baguio and Cebu. Returning to Chicago 16 January 1905, Burnham began working on his plans while on board ship. By 5 October, he was ready to present to Taft the “Plan of Baguio.” With the plan as guide, a roadway, public buildings began to rise.

To encourage the peopling of Baguio, the US Philippine Commission invited to well-to-do families and major institutions, like schools and Church groups to bid for property in Baguio. The first such public auctions occured in May 1906. Baguio was on its way to becoming the “Summer Capital of the Philippines” where the civil bureaucracy migrated annually to run affairs of state there for a period of between two to four months.

In 1902, a sanatarium was constructed near the site of the former Pines Hotel, now SM Baguio, but was transferred to the site of Baguio General Hospital. The sanatarium building became Pines Hotel. Camp John Hay had been acquired in 1903 as a recreational and recuperative site for the military. Except for tents set up nothing permanent was built until 1906 when Captain M.L. Hilgard was assigned to convert the tent city to a base. Under Hilgard a hospital, officers quarters, barracks and recreational facilities were constructed.

From 1907-1913 under the supervision of W. Cameron Forbes who was commissioner 1904-09 and civil governor general 1909-13, infrastructure construction in Baguio took a fast pace after bureaucratic hesitation and inaction about the wisdom of continuing with the hill station project because the construction of the Benguet Road cost 4 million dollars, way above the intially budgeted cost. But with Forbes firmly at the helm construction went on. Baguio was beginning to take shape as a government, education and recreation center.

In 1908, a civil hospital was innaugurated in the city replacing the earlier sanitarium. On 6 April of that same year, the Bureau of Education held training sessions for American and Filipino teachers in what came to be known as Teachers’ Camp. And camp it was initially as the teachers and their trainors lived and held their lectures in tents. By 1913, Teachers’ Camp had several large and permanent dormitories, athletic fileds, mess halls, and a road system. Between 1909-11, the Government Center was constructed and so began the yearly exodus of officaldom to the highlands. A wooden market building was constructed in 1908, later upgraded to a stone structure in 1917 using German prisioners or World War I. Between 1910-1913, the construction of a city hall was authorized. The building was up and functioning by 1911. An slaughter house was built and a garbage system was put in place.

Several public and private buildings were built during this time: Mansion House (1907-08), Topside (Forbes Baguio residence, 1908), Jesuit Mirador observatory and residence (1907), Brent School (1909), Country Club (1909, although the Club itself was established in 1906 in a grass-thatched, wooden cottage). Recreational facilites like Bell Amopitheater (1913) in Camp John Hay and Burnham Park (1914) added to the growing hill station.

Later other development happened. The Dominicans built the largest stone building on a hilltop south of Mirador. The hill came to known as Dominican. Easter School on the road to Trinidad established by Rev. Walter P. Clapp in 1906. By 1920 the school had church, print shop, weaving room, dormitories and school facilities. In 1913, a race track with a rough course was built encircling Burnham Park and the following year an upgraded track was inaugurated. Session developed a commercial strip, by the 1920s it had Japanese and Chinese stores, photoshops (Pines Studio was the best-knwon, silversmiths, and a tailoring shop, bakery and refreshment parlor. The Baguio Post Office building was completed in 1918.

The initial buildings gave Baguio a unique charm. Those constructed by government followed the New England clapboard cottage style for residences and smaller structures. These were whitewashed houses of pine lumber, with galvanized iron roof and green trim. The color scheme blended well with Baguio’s green pine forest and the fog that would creep through the city in the afternoons and the cool months of the last and first quarter of the year. Public buildings had touches of the Tudor style where exposed reinforcements accentuated the whitewashed walls. The stores along Session were more electic in style, some were in the New England style, others were wooden versions of shophouses found in Manila and other cities. None of these stores, however, were taller than two stories and were gentle on the landscape. Session Road began to metamorphose because of the 1933 mining boom. Session was widened and the wooden structures replaced by reinforced concrete. By the 1940s most of the old buildings had disappeared replaced by concret Art Deco style buildings. Moviehouses were also added to the streetscape.

Ecclesiatical style was even more eclectic. The Baguio Catherdral was in the neogothic style as were the Recollect seminary Casiaco, the convents of the Pink Sisters and the Holy Spirit School. The 1907 Jesuit buildings in construction technology and design used elements from Spanish colonial style. The Dominican building was castle-like complete with crenelations. But like the stone market, these buildings blended well with the enviroment because they employed local stone, much quarried at the foot of Dominican and Mirador Hills, a site now known as City Camp and Quarry.

The war years saw Baguio a theater of bloody battles. Japanese troops under General Yamashita made their last stand against invading American troops in the mountain passes of Baguio. After the Second World War, Baguio recovered its traditional role as Summer Capital. In the 1950s its public buildings were fully functioning and the mines near it, many opened by Americans, were rehabilitated, Baguio was on its way to recovery.

During the postwar years, Baguio maintained its charm as a highland retreat. The government exodus inaugurated by the Americans continued until 1966 when the Philippine government decided to do away with the practice. By the late 70s, the heritage buildings of Baguio were being replaced by new structures some five stories or even more.

In 1991, Baguio suffered a devastating quake which brought down several buildings, including recently built ones like the Hyatt Hotel. Death and destruction, and the damage on the access roads to Baguio hit the city badly. It took the decade of the 90s to restore Baguio to its present vibrancy.

Baguio is experiencing the problem of uncontolled growth as the mountains are being bulldozed to make way for new sudivisions and other developments. Mountains are being filled with houses. Baguio has become the education center of the north, and the yearly influx of students, estimated at about 150,000, and the seasonal tourists during the summer months and the dry but cold season strains Baguio’s carrying capacity. The atmosphere of Baguio downtown is polluted with more than 7000 taxis plying the city. When Daniel Burnham drew up plans for the city, he though that it would have a modest population of 20,000 to 30,000. Baguio’s population is estimated at 275,472 (year 2005) and has a growth rate of 5% per annum. Of the total population, 65.5% is below 30 years. During tourist season, the population trebles.

The City of Baguio received its official charter in 1909, as the city inches toward its centennial, Baguio has much to do integrate its historic past with the presurres of the present. While no comprehensive heritage plan for Baguio exists, there are initiatives here and there. National Government through the Department of Education has restored Central School one of the first school buildings in Baguio and Teacher’s camp. Both are gleaming in their new coat of green and white, as if freshly minted as they were around 1913.

No comments: