Back to being an outsider looking in

NOW that the new powers-that-be in Metro-Manila decided to “repair” and “restore” the office of the Philippine Information Agency here, we, locals, will soon be back to being outside-looking-in.

I grew up at the Pacdal Forest Nursery, a stone’s throw from what the American founding fathers of Baguio called “Sunnyside”. That refers to the area from Wright Park to scenic Mines View Park where most of the city’s most imposing government officials’ cottages, from The Presidential Mansion, and official summer residences of the country’s vicepresident, Senate president and speaker of the House of Representatives are found. Surrounding them are summer residences of the rich and famous from Metro-Manila.

To the Baguio boy, these palatial houses are also as exclusive as the official residences and as empty most of the year, except for a week or two, when the national official or owner from out-of- Baguio visits with his family.

This eastern side of Baguio was called Sunnyside because that’s where the first rays of the morning sun touched to drive away the chill that was common during Baguio’s formative years, a luxury and respite from the tropical lowland heat.

Truth to tell, it was only during a few presidential visits, mostly press conferences, that I was able to enter The Mansion and the other edifices surrounding it. Up to this day, I haven’t had the temerity to peep into these official cottages that, as I was growing up, instilled awe, confusion and even fear, specially when the privileged occupants and their minions from Imperial Manila were around.

We, natives, I mean we who grew up in Baguio, are always awed and confused why all of the choice lots of Sunnyside became exclusive playgrounds of the rich from Manila, yet inhabited by them only once or twice a year, yet al- ways close and inaccessible to locals all of the year.

It was a Baguio boy’s relief then when the Philippine Information Agency was allowed to occupy one of these exclusive edifices, a cottage once assigned to the national press secretary. For a while, its exclusivity to people from MetroManila was broken when the powers-that-be allowed rebel priest Conrado Balweg and the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army to occupy it as their headquarters. Fr. Balweg lost his clout when, out of a feeling for mutual trust, he signed a truce with then President Corazon Aquino. After that peace pact, the national government no longer