From sunflowers to informal settlers

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

I clearly recall my childhood exploits and abuses that were innocently accomplished with my playmates. Swimming in the river that winded through the Lucban Valley was a twice weekly routine that was capped by catching juju (Japanese fish) and salvaging inch-size potatoes on garden beds below.

Kite-flying was a summer afternoon activity on my grandmother’s hill that served as a small coffee plantation, mixed with camote and pineapple. When our kite strings had snapped and the kites had landed on the sunflowers and rocks of Carabao Mountain which is popularly known as Quirino Hill today, we lie on our backs, stare at the mountain and talk about dreams and plans of reaching its peak one day.

As a little boy in the early 60s and still out of school, I hanged around the back of our old wooden house at New Lucban that stood right in front of the flagpole of the Magsaysay Elementary School.

Each morning is disturbed by the early squeaking of pigs that are butchered at the nearby slaughterhouse before these are delivered to the meat market. I know this had been going on since the time the city designated the area as the slaughterhouse as part of the Health Center Reservation.

That could have been the most practical place for a slaughterhouse since I also learned from Lola Emily that it is just a stone’s throw away to the lot where the Agrix building now stands, a swamp area (Pitdawan in Ibaloy) where pigs, goats, dogs and animals that were brought in by traders from Ilocos, Pangasinan and Nueva Vizcaya were secured.

We had a few neighbors then as the houses in the area were sparsely distributed. We were immediate neighbors with other Ibaloy families and were very close friends with families whose forebears migrated from the lowlands to help build Baguio during its infancy and construct the Benguet road which is more popularly known today as Kennon road.

One afternoon, five of us climbed up the peak of Quirino Hill (which is actually a mountain). On top, we viewed La Trinidad Valley on the North side and Baguio on the South. The rocky mountain was mostly covered with wild sunflower. Looking down, one can see that Trancoville, the Sanitary Camp, New Lucban and Camp Allen, were not so crowded with residential houses. The spaces between were covered with wild grass and sunflower.

Dizon and Camdas subdivisions were territories that had strategic roads alongside houses built next to each other. The subdivisions looked like they were alive that they wanted to crawl up the mountain. Although, I remember that the houses of former mayor Luis Lardizabal and Igorot Elder Teofilo Pilando Sr. were the only structures that stood behind the Lucban Elementary School before the climb.

Farther towards opposite sides of the market are Quezon Hill on the West, the forested Araneta subdivision, Pinsao and Guisad; and on the East side are the Pine clad mountains of Holy Ghost, Honeymoon, the SLU compound and Aurora Hills. These enclaves were all previously covered with green vegetation of Pine, grass or sunflower.

A sunny morning for the gang of pre-school boys begins with the spontaneous habit of meeting under a big Pine Tree in front of the old house, even before we had pandesal breakfast. Unmindful of what to do next, we follow the road, gather dry Pine needles that cover the pathways all year round and put them in a jute sack.

The Pine needles are then stashed inside a tin can that is punctured with nail holes at the bottom. Then fasten the can with tie wire, burn the needles and run around making believe that you are driving a smoke-belching New Lucban AC jeep.  

Our house burned down before I entered first grade. My father wanted to have it rebuilt on the same lot but school authorities requested that if possible, we relocate beside the school in order that it will have an open frontage. My family gave in to the request even while the house was already there many years before the school was constructed.

In the late 60s; the territories of Quezon Hill, Quirino Hill, Aurora Hills, Holy Ghost Hill, Rock Quarry and QM Subdivision were named as relocation sites and were awarded to the actual occupants through a bidding process under the TSA (Townsite Sales Application). That is the main reason why the rule requires that TSA applicants should have at least a house or improvements in the lot being claimed before filing an application. In short, squat first then apply.

Today, I cannot avoid looking at these mountains through my window everyday because our house is positioned that way. And what I see are no longer rocks and wild vegetation but houses big and small. Our mountains in Baguio have truly converted from wild and natural growth of sunflowers, grasses and Pine Trees to enclaves of informal settlers.