Is city hall a squatter?

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- It’s timely. As I rummage through old articles for an item to talk about in relation to Baguio’s 110th Charter anniversary, Dorothy Pucay sends an article lifted from the August 2019 publication of Bibak Northern California “Stories and Voices of BibakNC”.

The article is an interview with Eugene Pucay, Sr., her late grandfather, a true-blue Baguio boy who talked about Baguio’s past and the experiences of the early Ibaloys who were “pushed” around to give way to development in an imminent city.

The late Eugene Pucay, Sr. (1901-1992) was an appointed member of the Baguio City council in the mid-50s by the administration of President Ramon Magsaysay. He was a teacher, church leader, and a sportsman as he was a base stealer in baseball so that once upon a time he was called “Phantom of the diamond”.

Mr. Pucay was active in the local Boy Scout Council, the brotherhood of the Masons, helped build the YMCA in Baguio, the Eastern Philippines College or EPC along Magsaysay Avenue and Bonifacio St., that was sometimes called “Eugene Pucay College” because it bore his initials.

In excerpts from that interview, Mr. Pucay narrated why they moved out from where Sunshine Grocery now stands, the spot where he was born, to Guisad Valley that became their permanent residential place.

He said, the Americans told them to move out from the center of the city because “you have many animals and you are making the road dirty”. Apparently, what the Americans were referring to was a dirt road that was not even asphalted.

To quote Dorothy’s article in the Bibak NC magazine, the Americans told the Ibaloys “Alright, you get out of here and we will give you a place further away. That’s where you will live.”

With the condescending way the Americans said “… get out of here…” and as retold by Mr. Pucay in his interview, it appears as if the colonizers had more entitlement or ownership over the lands in Baguio than the first Ibaloy settlers.    

After the Ibaloys got out from Abanao, the Americans surveyed the lands in the outskirts where the displaced Igorots were relocated. So sometime in 1911, the 10-year old Eugene Pucay, along with his parents and relatives moved out from Abanao to Pinsao, Guisad Valley.

Other sources of historical accounts said that the Ibaloy siblings Pinaoan and Piraso also had a house where the former Empire Cinema stood along Abanao road, but the Americans drove them back to Lucban Valley. Likewise, the Carantes family moved from Session road to Lucban.

Take note, the article says the Ibaloys “paid for the lands” that the government surveyed as relocation sites. They were placed in a sad situation where they had no choice.

A case of rubbing salt to injury or simple double jeopardy as they were ordered to get out from their land in the center of the city because it was to be developed and sold to lowlanders who can afford, then they were asked to buy the land where they will be relocated.   

There were Igorots who maintained ownership of lands very near the center, one of whom was the Sepic family that owned Campo Filipino. But they were also asked to move away at least one kilometer away from where city hall was built.

Mr. Pucay said in the article, “when I was councilor, I asked to name the road, Sepic Road, but when I left, they changed it to another name…” Indeed, the city council renamed it to Roman Ayson, after the name of a former city councilor. Dirty politics reared its head in exchange for historical fact.

Sepic was an Ibaloy farmer who tilled patches of vegetable gardens extending from where the Maharlika building now stands to the Campo Filipino area and the Bureau of Plant Industry at Guisad.

In an internet blogger’s account, Sepic’s great grandson said his great grandfather was unceremoniously evicted by the Americans in the city from his grazing land because they cannot stand the smell of his animal’s manure.

His grandfather never said a word, instead he moved to Naguilian Road, San Luis and Asin Road where he again tilled the land until they were developed.

After the Pucay family left Abanao, an American took over and put up a business establishment called the Benguet Store. That, to me is plain and simple land grabbing.

The article described the right side of Session Road as planted with “coffee trees beginning from the market all the way to the top where Pines Hotel was on the left side…”

“At the Sunshine Park where Baguio City National High School is – that is where the first government building was, for the residence of the governor of Benguet.” The UP Baguio area was pastureland of the Carinos, going towards Camp John Hay.

The Burnham park area was a swamp where animals wallowed. The Americans later excavated it and developed it into a big concrete pond. In his account, the place where their relatives stayed near the swamp was called “Apdi”.  

The Ibaloy councilor of the 50s said, the spot where the cement horses are at Abanao Road made by sculpture-artist Ador Carantes as commissioned by then Mayor Jun Labo was exactly the place where horses drank.

Mr. Pucay claimed, “The present location of city was only a caballoreza where animals went for shade during typhoons. Now, it is the City Hall. The Carinos, since they had plenty of animals, built the house of the animals. In our minds, the stables and corrals belonged to the Carinos because they built the corrals. Whenever we caught animals, we drove the animals into the corrals.”    

By the way, somebody should suggest to the organizing committee of the anniversary program that just like what it had been doing in past, a portion should be allotted to learning about the history of Baguio.

Just like those who have become permanent residents in the city, a continuing information-education drive about Baguio should be disseminated for the benefit of new migrants, visitors, transients such as students and non-permanent residents.

This part may be effected through research and writing competitions for high school and college students, through the arts and by any means, or by constant public dissemination of historical data through reading materials and social media.

This is important in order to put back on track the true history of the Baguio area and its surrounding communities, especially its real occupants before the American colonizers set up its government.

History has to answer the question of who were in the area before the Muslim, the Chinese, the Spaniards and the Americans arrived and get rid of malicious information that might be believed if repeatedly circulated, and not corrected.

Certainly, the Ifugaos and Kalingas and other tribes from the north were not residents of Baguio until after World War 2. Maybe, Bontoc traders even came earlier than the Kalanguyas as shown in some old pictures of the Baguio market that were taken early 1900s.

To end this article, let me lift from Dorothy’s work lines that might interest our readers: “The Americans did not buy the territory, (referring to the Baguio area) but the Philippine government occupied the City of Baguio and made it into a reservation. Until now the City Hall is a squatter. The City of Baguio has no land of its own. It is a reservation composed of 49 sq. kilometers.”