The City of Pines

We were migrants to the city of Baguio as are many others lured by the talk of a place with clean rejuvenating air. It is famously known as the City of Pines as the mountain city that lies 5,000 feet above sea level abound with a forest of pine stands.  The air was cool.  It was because of clean, cool and rejuvenating climate found in this elevation that Americans decided to build a hill station as a sanitarium, a rest and recreation area for those   who were assigned in various places in the Philippines during the US commission era . The city grew in parallel to the Hill Station that the Americans planned.   Soon it was declared as the Summer Capital of the Philippines. http://www.cityofpines.com   My mother suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis.  Her doctors said there was no cure for her ailment and that she should not bear any more children.  They also suggested for her to move to a place where she can get fresh, healthy air as apparently it was the dusty air from the lowlands that was making her sick.   When she was given this prognosis there were already five of us.   And so my parents decided to relocate from Manila to Baguio City.  That was in 1955 when my father who was in the military sought  assignment  to PMA. He never left this assignment despite the many opportunities he had primarily because he found the most ideal place for him to care for his wife and his children.  Baguio then was green and yellow.  The mountain cover were pine trees and sunflowers. True enough just as Americans who planned the hill station foresaw, Baguio’s air and climate did a great job at sustaining my mother’s health that the next five siblings followed.    The weather and the trees were the natural cure to her ailment.  We lived at Navy Base then called Polo Field for a while and then a greater number of years at PMA, Fort del Pilar.  These areas were thick with pine trees.    She lived a long and fruitful life contrary to what her doctors had said.

My siblings and I grew up exploring the forests of Loakan with PMA brats like us.  We walked everywhere from the fort down to Kennon Road, or up Mt. Sto. Tomas or Asin Hot Springs.  Everywhere you go were thick pine stands, ferns and cogon grass.  We enjoyed  listening to the chirping of birds,  the varying sounds of fauna and feast on guavas and  wild berries freshly picked from the vine.   We enjoyed  nature more than anything else.  

All of a sudden the trees began disappearing.  Forests and watersheds were  encroached on.  Like us, people started migrating to Baguio apparently lured by the same reason.  G.I sheets started sprouting like mushrooms on hillsides.  Slopes were leveled and high rise structures erected by those who had money to spend.  When Americans left the bases, Camp John Hay was not spared.  It became fair game to people who had the money and the connection.  We can't blame these people.  By its very nature, Baguio was and is a magnet.  What is obvious now is that all those times Baguio's leaders at City Hall did not have the foresight of dealing with the rush of migrants to the city.  Daniel Burnham's plan is still in use today since it was the only one followed to build Baguio.  It has become irrelevant overtaken by uncontrolled growth in the city's population.  Efforts to take off from where Burnham began didn't have enough thrust to fly.  So while seemingly people talk about comprehensive land use plans in the city the truth is there never is any plan except from what was done by Daniel Burnham.     Hence concrete structures took the place of pine stands, unregulated growth allowed only through the whims and caprices of those sitting in power.  Baseless decisions that played havoc to the environment    Disasters have struck the city.  The worst was an almost 9.00 in the Richter scale earthquake that struck the city in 1990 that toppled a lot of high rise structures and killed thousands of residents.  Year after year soil erosion happen and claim lives when monsoon rains start pouring as people build on erosion prone slopes.  A trash slide occurred in the city's open garbage dump site, a tragedy that should never have happened.    Now the remaining forest stand at the heart of the City is about to be cut by its new owner SM.   All because the city grew on its own without vision, without discipline and without guidance.   The city is seemingly on a down spin about to reach bottom.   Are we ever going to recover from this downturn?   Without the trees the City of Pines is no more.