From Kafagway to Baguio

By Freddie Mayo and Ramon Dacawi

(First of 2 parts)

(Note on the authors: Frederic G. Mayo was one of the best feature writers and broadcast journalists from Baguio and Cordillera who died in New York in 1997.  Ramon Dacawi was a veteran journalist, environmentalist and philanthropist who passed on in July this year.  Both were pioneering members of the City Government Public Information Office.) 

Pre-history

Evidence shows that the general terrain on which the city of Baguio now stands rose from the sea several million of years ago. Fossils of crustaceans identified during the 1950s show that the latest that the area was underwater was during the Pliocene Age. Limestone formations of three or more layers measuring 20 meters thick contain coral fossils and have cracks from which form caves that are extremely permeable to water.

Over these rock formation is red mud, known as Terra Rosa which contains a large quantity of animal remains.

Then vegetation appeared in the eastern part of the city. The assortment of its vegetation is still a mystery. How the Benguet pine or Pinus Insularis, the Brazillian chayote or sayote, the Australian everlasting, the Benguet Lily and the native under-sized passion fruit or masaflora found their way into Baguio’s environs is still a mystery.

True enough, later species of flora which grew only in the temperate and seasonal climate of the northern hemisphere could be traced to the introduction of these plants by the Chinese, Japanese and the American, but the greater number of species are still unaccounted for.

 Even before the Americans finally decided to set up a rest and recreation center in this section of the Cordillera, the Spaniards had already accumulated enough data about Baguio’s climate, plants and animal life, and its terrain to pre-empt any plan to establish a highland post in the place originally called Kafagway.

 A member of the First Philippine Commission, Dean Connant Webster, heard that the place exists, from a Spanish forester while the latter was hunting tamaraw in Mindoro in 1892. He came to verify these reports only on 1900, and immediately fell in love with the place.

Later records would show that Kafagway was only composed of about seven houses as a rancheria of La Trinidad, Benguet. But then an observer’s report would claim that there were more than 21 houses, with a meeting hall. The disparity could be accounted for the fact that most of the people of Kafagway withdrew to the outskirts of the city to avoid the final confrontation between the Americans and the Spaniards.

Kafagway was inhabited by the Benguet Ibalois. Of the Benguets, then Minister of interior Worcester wrote: They were kindly, industrious, self respecting, silent tribe of agriculturists. They never indulged in head-hunting or caused any serious disturbance of public  order, and had persistently refused to give up their ancient beliefs. When I first visited their country, I found their men clad in clouts, supplemented, in the case of the wealthy, by cotton blankets. The woman usually wore both skirts and upper garments, with bound towels over their heads as turbans.

Kafagway, on which the original Baguio townsite stands, means rono or grassy clearings. It was first mentioned by the Spaniard Quirante’s report on the district of Antamok in 1624.

Coming of the Americans

The drafter of Baguio’s charter, former Justice George Malcolm, said that his favorite city was still Baguio although he had already seen Simla in India.

Baguio could truly be called an American creation.

The trip up originally was made in two stages. The first was by streamer from Manila to San Fernando, La Union.

The second from San Fernando through the towns of Naguillian Sablan by horseback and then either up to Kafagway or La Trinindad which was then established as the capital of the Spanish comandancia.    

In order to shorten the trip up to Baguio from Manila, work on the Benguet Road began on  January 5, 1901 after the Philippine Commission appropriated US$50,000 for the construction of a connection from Dagupan, Pangasinan. The final cost would come to US$2 million and it would take Col. Lyman Kennon to complete it four years later. In January 1905, Col. Kennon rode up on the first wagon to reach the place over the newly constructed road, now named after him. Due to the initial enthusiasm of the first Philippine Commission, the early development of the city was not only well planned but also well-funded.

In 1904, Architect Daniel Burnham who laid out the city of Chicago, visited Baguio and made a plan for its future development.

In the spring of 1905, the Baguio Country Club was organized. The clubhouse was a “rude, grass-roofed shed made of pine slabs”.

In 1908, a modern hospital and the governor-general’s residence (now The Mansion, the officials’ summer residence of the president) were built.

In April, 1908, there was opened a “Teacher’s Camp” to which came American school teachers from all over the islands.

By the end of the first decade, Baguio found itself the proud possessor of a city hall, a storehouse, a corral, market buildings, a hospital-sanitarium, cottages for government officials, an automobile station, a garage, a plumping plant and laborers’ quarters.

The immigrant

While the first immigrant to the general vicinity were probably traders and personnel of the Spanish Comandancia in La Trinindad (now capital of Benguet province), the first to Kafagway came up with the construction of the Kennon Road.

Motley of races manned this construction, notably the Chinese, Japanese, British, Americans, natives of the old Mountain Province, and Ilocanos from Eastern Pangasinan.

The Chinese and the Japanese, who were earlier recruited for the Benguet Road, got immediately assimilated into the city’s lifestyle. They were mostly traders and merchants but later also found themselves developing the multi-million-peso highland vegetable industry in the hinterlands of Benguet.

They were later joined by the old trading partners of the Ibaloi-Ilocanos from La Union and Ilocos Sur – who plied their trade via the newly opened Naguilian Road They also engaged in trade and barter, aside from joining the government service or as a teachers in the numerous schools which were put up for the city’s primary and secondary education.

The Indians came in profusion shortly after the Second World War, and the Batanguenos soon after. The Muslims from the south, the Pampangos, the Visayans and the Bicolanos came soon after.

Together with the Americans who stayed behind, these immigrants developed a lifestyle which is uniquely that of Baguio.

The early years

After the first sale of residence and business lots took place on May 28, 1906, the next 30 odd years demonstrated immense development. This was mainly due to the efforts of the visionary American Mayor, Engr. Eusebius Halsema.

The telephone system was inaugurated earlier in 1903. The marker was established in 1913.

The rock crusher was installed in 1916. The vegetable market was completed in 1918. The concrete pipe factory was established in 1920. The first hydroelectric  plants were completed in 1924, so with the Baguio auditorium was finished in 1924. The Baguio Central School was completed in 1924 and an expansion of the sanitary sewer beyond the Trinidad irrigation system was completed in 1929.

Governor General Leonard Wood wrote in 1926: Baguio has 50 percent more people this summer than ever before and a good deal of building. We have a good many conventions here this summer and tremendously large number of attendance of Teachers Camp. Camp John Hay is packed to the limit.

Think we can count on Baguio as a real fixture. More and more Filipinos come every year; and in fact it is almost impossible to house all of them  this year. The government center is now being used for insular government employees and authorities and others cannot find a place to stay. I think as the years go on, Baguio will be more and  more summer capital of the Islands.

The permanent population of Baguio was estimated in 1927 at eight thousand souls, while the number of visitors during the preceding year was estimated to be over sixty thousand.

The missionary thrust

In the summer of 1902, Anglican Bishop Charles Brent sailed to the Philippines, his island diocese, while the government was already starting to construct the Benguet Road. That same year, Brent sent Rev. John Staunton to look into the possibility of building a rest house for American missionaries and of converting the Igorots to Christianity. Staunton chose a site which later would be known  as “Constabulary Hill”, from which he went daily to La Trinidad where he opened a school for Ilocanos and Igorots.

Bishop Brent later on went on to establish the Baguio School for Boys and Brent International School as it is presently known. Meanwhile, the fathers of San Patricio or the Belgian Fathers came to the Philippines at the invitation of the bishop of Nueva Segovia. The priest assigned to Baguio, Fr. Serafin Devesse, built – small parish church and attached a small school to it in 1911, and purchased some land overlooking Campo Filipino. So, from modest beginnings did St. Louis University start as well as the old Holy Family Colleges.

Easter School was founded in 1906. Maryknoll Convent School (Marishan) was established in 1938.

The Seventh Day Adventists founded their school in 1948. The Philippine Bible College was founded by Ralph E. Brashears in July that year. The united Church of Christ pioneered in the field of pre-school education in the early sixties. Baguio is, perhaps, the first place in the country where ecumenism took an early and firm root.

Perhaps the highest point in the city’s history of missionary endeavor was the visit by Pope John Paul II in February 1981. Before a crowd that drew from all walks of life and religion, the Pontiff said that Baguio played a very special role in the history of evangelism especially those who are classified as ethnic authorities.

The true symbol of the faiths contributing to a single landmark in Baguio is perhaps the Baguio Cathedral. At the time of its construction, all faiths, Anglicans, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, even the pagan native, contributed to its cause.