BENCHWARMER

Marker attention deficiency
Ramon Dacawi

Writing about numerous markers installed on places here and abroad that Dr. Jose Rizal visited or stayed in, respected historian Ambeth Ocampo considered installing one in his home that, he said, would scream Jose Rizal did NOT stay or visit this place.

In his Philippine Daily Inquirer column, Ocampo, the chair of both the National Historical Institute and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts, quoted historian Teodoro Agoncillo: “Pati yata eskinitang inihian ni Rizal ibig lagyan ng marker.”

So there’s no marker attention deficiency (MAD) when it comes to honoring the national hero. In San Francisco, there’s that re-installed marker noting his stay at the Palace Hotel in May, 1888. Baguio boy Joel Aliping showed it two years back. There’s another one blue one in front of an apartment rechecked in London after his U.S. visit. .

Afflicted with attention deficiency (or deficit) disorder (ADD), I forgot the address of the London apartment, although its numbered 37. Iitâ’s near the Green Park where Rizal must have walked during some his springtime mornings there. George (I forgot his family name but a truly hospitable Filipino host), led and asked me to pose beside the marker.

He had me twice with a bonnet on (a gift from Olivia, a course classmate from Brazil). With George’s head also hooded, we must have startled the present occupants peering from their window. One of them also took photos of us, including the white van with the Ice Sculptures U.K. sign emblazoned on its white body, together the giant telephone numbers of van owner and ice-carver Henry Gano.

Just in case, I guessed the resident photographer by the window must have muttered. Not bothered by attention deficiency disorder of the other kind, or “kulang sa pansin” KSP in Pilipino. I was bothered he might have suspected us as terrorists.

We leave that deficiency problem to some politicians and their self-proclaimed king-makers. The best I could think of to approximate Ocampo’s point comes each time name-droppers (and there are plenty of them still in the wake of the last elections) start getting conversant about how close they are to this or that politician who won.

When a blabbering social climber joins the brandy table at newsman Alfred Dizon’s expense, the soft-spoken, ever-patient March Fianza keeps quiet and just lets the hot air pass. Sometimes I don’t and regret it after. My neighbor’s dog is the brother of the dog of the neighbor of Senator so-and-so, offer.

Back to the Rizal markers, Ocampo also wrote All this reminds me of dogs marking their territory with pee…””.

It seems to be the other way around here in Baguio, a city where film stars and celebrities used to feel getting not much attention from locals. We hardly have markers here for historical buildings (called heritage habitats) such as the city hall, the Presidential Mansion, summer residences of the country’s vice-president, senate president and speaker of the house and the Cabinet Hill cottages of our cabinet secretaries.

I don’t mean signs proclaiming what building these are for whom, but ones that tell their significance and their history. I mean something that explains that the neglected, rotting, under-mined CasaVallejo is the last remaining structure of the Government Center Compound built in 1908-09 by the American colonial government to make Baguio the Country’s Summer Capital.

Which reminds me of Charlestown (or Charles Town), Virginia, which main street marker tells you it was founded by Charles Washington, the youngest full brother of The first President of the United States. It tells you Charlestown was where John Brown, the slavery abolitionist who triggered the American War, was tried and hanged.

If it isn’t there yet, perhaps it would be good to have one in John Hay where the war in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia began and ended in the said camp here.

The markers we have here were defaced or lost, transferred or simply neglected. The one at the historic Baden Powell Hall along Gov. Pack Road had been relocated. It’s supposed to mark the building, now the Baden Powell Hotel, as where the Philippine Commission used to hold its summer sessions here. The commissioners used to pass through the city’s inclined main street on their way to and from their sessions, hence it’s called Session Road. The U.S. Army- 66th Infantry stone marker in honor of the city’s liberators during the second world war was dug up with the improvement of Marcos highway and left lying on its side for months (or years?) before it was reinstalled. I pine for the full restoration of that marker that used to remind our visitors Baguio is not only the highest city in the Philippines. It also has the coldest jail in the
country.

The Veterans Park honoring the Filipino soldiers and guerrillas does not lack markers. Teen-aged boys who never learned history or to read, or are simply afflicted with marker attention deficiency, use it to hone their skateboard twirls and jumps. Some turn it into an open bar and toilet, evidenced by broken glass thrown on the roster of heroes and human waste on hallowed ground the morning after. Recently they added another marker on its side: No Skating in the Park. Retired police officer Larry Fabian also fears they might eventually cart away the relic of a howitzer that adorns the memorial.

Sadly, we have renamed some of our streets, an act of aberration that out-going city councilor Edilberto Tenefrancia wisely put to stop during one of his earlier terms. The original names of these streets are part of our history, he reminded his then colleagues who tried to rename them, for one insignificant reason or another.

I salute the Baguio boy and esteemed lawyer Art Galace and Baguio boy and Senator Juan Flavier. Art objected when there was a move to change Jungletown where he grew up in to honor his father, the late police officer Agustin Galace. Flavier laughed off strong suggestions that the Baguio General Hospital be named after him for his substantial support in its expansion and modernization as THE medical center of Northern Luzon.

Significant places and buildings are named only after people who are dead, he reminded the proponents. Okay, they answered, let’s name it in honor of your father. What did my father do for Baguio?; he was just a worker in the mines, he told them.

With the preparations by the Baguio Centennial Commission towards the city’s 100th charter anniversary in 1909, all these issues about marker attention deficiency can be rectified, the proper markers restored or installed to give proper historical perspective and significance to the places they mark. (e-mail: rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments