LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza
My dear Baguio

I hope you will not find this letter so corny. Anyway, records say you are 99 years old, although many of your children of a silent past believe you are older than that. I also believe you already had a share of the good life even before carpet baggers from Manila collaborated with the Americans to give you the name “Baguio.”

They subdivided you into “zones” but at the same time, tucked pieces of prime lands under their names. Whatever happened to you in the past, we wish you a very happy birthday and may you have more birthdays to come. As you set to live a hundred, I hope that the people who run your affairs today, including us, have all the time and energy to correct the wrongs that happened to you in the past.

As you celebrate your 99th anniversary tomorrow, I would just want to revisit some things about how you lost your lands and forests to logging concessionaires, realtors and the mining companies. I personally experienced some of these while some were read from old reports and heard from my old folks.

You were looked upon as the beauty of the sub-province of Benguet and her capital town when you were yet to become a chartered city on September 1, 1909; aside from being baptized as the Summer Capital of the Philippines by the Philippine Commission on June 1, 1903. In 1916, La Trinidad, your older sister took over as the capital of Benguet.

The establishment of communal forests followed with the issuance of Proclamation No. 15 in April 1922 by Gov. Gen. Leonard Wood that proclaimed Busol as a forest reservation. Along with that proclamation was an American colonial title issued in favor of one of your daughters Kalomis for a tract of land alongside the Busol reservation.

In trying to analyze the twin issuances, I have become more convinced that the Kalomis property sits alongside the Busol reservation, not overlapping each other. Even the Supreme Court upholds that in a recent decision it issued. It now turns out that the facilities of a water utility company are built inside a private title. But that is another story which can be discussed in the future.

The American period was the time of exploitation of your forests and the natural resources of your sister towns in Benguet. Two sawmills at that time were already operating in Sto. Tomas and Irisan. Incidentally, if not deliberately, a forest license to cut an “allowable annual quota” of 3,000 cubic meters of Pine lumber from forests inside and around Baguio was issued by the government to the Benguet Commercial Company, an entity established in 1902 by Governor HP Whitmarsh.
In 1923, the Benguet Electric Co. was in operation in the Agno River . It was installed to support mining and logging activities. It was mining that consumed the timber and water from your forests. In fact, mining activities below you continue to suck water from your watersheds today. The volume of water and lumber that your constituents and your sister La Trinidad consumed was insignificant in comparison to the volume required by the tunnels and mills in the mining camps.
The Heald Lumber Company, even before becoming incorporated in 1934, already had its glory days logging over most of your forested areas here to the north in Mt. Data . Together with the Bobok Timber Project, the Pine wood sawmills supported the booming gold mines in Lepanto and Itogon.

To justify what they did to your Pine forests, the Americans in 1936 issued Proclamations 581 and 634, respectively opening Mt. Sto . Tomas and Mt. Data to “controlled” logging. It was in this period that migrants of job seekers and businessmen of all sorts from the neighboring provinces migrated into your lands.

The mining camps established by the Americans in Lepanto and Itogon served as magnets to thousands of job seekers who later became permanent squatters in your bosom. From a sleepy mountain district envisioned for at least 30,000 souls, you now hold within your seams a population of more than 300,000.

More communal forests opened in the municipal districts of Bokod, particularly Bobok, Ambangeg and Banao; and Ampusongan in Bakun. These forests, including those at Asin, Irisan and Kennon were not spared by the concessionaires.

Aside from licensed businessmen, Manila real estate brokers and almost anyone who had the proper connections got involved in the mining and logging industries. In Busol, an American named Federly was permitted to open a logging road, cut timber for firewood that was delivered to the old Pines Hotel (later to become Vallejo Inn) for heating the fireplace and firing the ovens of bakeries in the city.

Today, the laws are unjustly applied on your sons and daughters everytime they gather just a little firewood for home use – something that the government did not enforce when the Americans were raping your forests.

And those who manage your affairs today do not exactly tell your children the truth. It should be enough that a part of the Busol forest was segregated for squatters who were relocated during the time of Mayor Lardizabal. These lands were chopped off by means of an agreement called the “Lardizabal-Biado line.”

These were named the Workingmen’s Village, Bayan Park and Brookespoint. These were originally part of the Busol Pine forest. Similarly, other squatter relocation sites were established in Quezon Hill, QM Subd., Holy Ghost Hill and Quirino Hill.

Many of those who benefited from the Busol segregation and who now occupy the Workingmen’s Village – Bayan Park – Brookespoint relocation sites are relatives of present-day politicians. Adjacent to these sites is the Kalomis property.

Now, while the relatives of these politicians and other beneficiaries of the squatters’ relocation sites enjoy their occupancy undisturbed, the descendants of Kalomis never built a single house nor introduced any development into the land they rightfully owned. They do not have the courage to squat on their own property. The land has practically become a buffer zone between the larger part of Busol and the relocation sites.

My dear Baguio , more than 52,300 households are now inside your domain of 50 square kilometers. Still, the government does not stop selling your lands. With that, you will encounter more problems as you are experiencing now. Your children will not have enough water to drink and there will be more garbage to get rid of. If your caretakers will not have solutions to these problems, you will be stinking head to foot and many of your children will surely die.

I just wish and pray that your officials will sincerely stop being the padrinos to squatters and concentrate on solving the water and garbage problem. Anyway, happy birthday again. Your grandson, March.

P.S. Pls. tell your officials to stop townsite sales applications (TSA) now because you are not growing any bigger. More TSAs means more houses that will surely contribute to the water and garbage problem. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com