What and where was Topside?

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

Patricia Afable and Alex Fangonil grew up here and were classmates at the dear old  Baguio City National High School. They  graduated (he he) a year or two before I stepped into grade 1 at the Rizal (Pacdal) Elementary School. Both are based in the United States, she with the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and he a physician (a plumber, he says) in neighboring Maryland.

Both  know more about Baguio-Cordillera history than those who never left. In the same token, expatriate Cordillerans, including Pat and Alex, know more about Igorot culture and heritage that we often take for granted. That is often the case.

           

Before this Lent, Manong Alex e-mailed me a pre-war map of Baguio.He explained: “I lifted from a tourist brochure published sometime in 1936, a publication I found among the collections in the James Guerrero Wingo library that I have acquired in the early ‘80s. This brochure was prepared under the direction of Mayor Halsema then, promoting tourism for the city and the Mountain Trail, the time when the mining “boom” was on.”

He showed  me the map in late January last year, when he came home to visit the grave of Mayor Eusebius Halsema, call on and pay tribute to Cecille Afable (Pat’s mother and dean of Baguio journalists), and knock on take photos of the former Fangonil home at the corner of Naguilian and Ferguzon. He took time to see how I was, just after doctors did some plumbing in or on my heart. The medical  gadgets found  I have one, but that it was not working well, with its biggest pipe almost totally clogged by too much fat from attending too many canaos in one’s youth.    

From Dr. Fangonil’s  map, I tried to trace where Topside was. Immeditely,  there it was, spelled “TOP SIDE” at the dead-end of a road extension jutting northeast, right  from where Gibraltar Road met Outlook Drive. It’s somewhere at the present-day Good Shepherd Convent where tourists buy the best strawberrry jams and preserves. My hunch had been that Topside was built just where the pre-war map indicated, and the confirmation was simple joy.

Topside, built in 1906, was the residence of  William Cameron Forbes, a member of the Philippine Commission that set Baguio as the country’s Summer Capital and later served as governor-general of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913.

In Patricia’s  book “Japanese Pioneers in the Northern Philippines”, a copy of which she gifted me last year, she  noted that “the cream of Philippine society and officialdom came to this elegant retreat. To build it, eight Japanese masons used granite mined in the vicinity.”

My mention of the 1936 map drew Pat’s interest and e-mailed me details of Topside and other bits of local history that program volunteers can later can pass on to children exploring Baguio’s landscape under the “Kids’ Urban Heritage Walk”.  From her e-mail, I learned why and how the two tunnels along Asin Road were built, and that the Roque Peredo house along Navy Road will soon be 100 years old.

She pointed out  that “the Forbes and the (Dean C.) Worcester houses were among the first to be built to showcase Baguio (before 1910), and they were built of substantial materials, but even the city itself at that time had no interest in preserving them as models of some sort.”

She noted that she and Jim Halsema (the son of Mayor Halsema) erred in “putting Topside on Ambuclao Road (slightly upslope from the Ynchausti property which now belongs to a religious order of nuns).”

The mistake was with good reason. Two earlier maps of Baguio (1909 and 1928), reprinted on pages 38 and 39 of the “Pioneers” book, indicated Topside to be along Ambuclao Road, towards Bekkel, La Trinidad.

Back to the map from the 1936 brochure, Alex found interest in its indication of the major hotels of the time. He mentioned the “Estrella Hotel at Abanao and Chanum which Whitmarsh originally built as the first trading post in the territory, and when he died in 1935, the Leung and Wong families convered the place as the Estrella Hgotel, the forerunner of the present Bayanihan”.

He confirmed there was  the Baguio Municipal Golf Course, “a par-nine course, free to the residents and visitors to play”, with “ the first tee …. at the side of the Japanese School at the corner of Chanum… “

Chanum and other city streets, as noted in the “Pioneers” book, were named after Ibaloy terms, as a tribute to Baguio’s original inhabitants. “Thus, there were Chuntug, Chanum, and Chugum Streets (now Shuntug, Shanum and Shagem, from the words for ‘mountain’, ‘water’, and ‘wind, respectively. Others were Otek (from utik, ‘small’), Kayang (from kayang, ‘high’), and Abanao (from ambanaw, ‘ wide’) Streets.”

Former and come-backing city councilor Edilberto Tenefrancia, another Baguio boy with a sense of history, community (and fair play), he who gave the city council vision and intellectual direction, once spoke passionately for the retention of these original and indigenous names of Baguio’s streets that, he stressed, are truly part of the city’s history.

His call came while the city council was discussing a move for the renaming of another road originally named after one of the American colonial fathers and builders of Baguio. Maintain, too, the original name, he advised his colleagues, reiterating the obvious that the proposed “rename” hardly had any significance to Baguio history.

As I was about to send this piece to beat the column deadline, Manong Alex e-mailed: “This may interest you on "Topside". I lifted a mining map which showed a Topside Group, labeled #17, a mining prospect just outside the Baguio boundary along the Bua Road leading to the Kelley school house. Hope this will throw some light on the subject. Any update on the official Baguio seal? Cheers!”

An explanation on the Baguio seal, particularly the four yellow dots, once  earned me a bottle of expensive whiskey as prize from Baguio girl and former Ambassador to Germany Delia Albert. Cheers, Manong Alex and Pat! (e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.)