A Visit To "Little Baguio"

The Benguet Pine is a species that is found in the Philippines at high altitudes. It is most famous because of Baguio City, a large metropolis that sits at an altitude of about 5000 feet. The American colonizers, wanting a cooler place to operate from, purchased land from the Igorot people to build a city that continues to grow in popularity as the country swelters in heat that sometimes approaches and exceeds the limits of human ability to adjust.

People I have talked to relate how Baguio is becoming expensive because so many are moving there. Even in this heat loving country where people shiver at 70 degrees, cooler places are becoming more popular. If I were to live here long term, Baguio, with its "perpetual spring" like weather from the 50s to the 70s would be my choice. Usually, we get to Baguio for at least a short visit, hopefully next time. While still a cacophonous, loud  and endlessly interesting Filipino city, the weather makes it super comfortable.

Baguio City is the only only city of any size besides the volcano rim of Tagaytay south of Manila that sits at higher, cooler elevations. Most of the higher, cooler elevations are populated by small communities of indigenous tribes and steep forested hillsides mixed with rice terraces. As the denizen of a "cool' country, I always wonder why more people don't live in these places. The reasons are a mix of traditional rights and lack of roads, but new roads may be changing that equation. Baguio didn't become a boomtown until the Americans built a road to it. The highlands have always been the place of the indigenous tribes and the lowlands the lowland peoples, but now the much more numerous lowland peoples may be moving to the mountains.

The so called "Little Baguio of Abra" is just such a place that has a new road that leads through largely unpopulated country.  It is an area of forested ridges and high valleys covered by pine forest 32 kilometers straight up the mountains on a winding new road that is peppered with little landslides. The forested savanna with its grassy spaces between trees invites hiking and camping, though even if allowed, it wouldn't be advisable. Going there felt very much like visiting a forest in Montana. Unfortunately, unlike Montana, we couldn't just park the car and set up a tent or hike off into the woods. One of the privileges we enjoy in the United States is the free access to public lands that is almost unheard of here. If there is hiking, it is with a guide and is tightly managed by whatever community controls the space.

 It isn't only not done because of access, safety is a concern. Random murder is a fact of life in the "Killing Fields of the North" as Abra is known as because of its murderous politics. In addition, the New People's Army which mostly roams the hills on the other side of the Abra River are out there somewhere. When I asked about government troops aerial bombing of NPA positions this past spring, a local joked that it was only because someone from the Army needed to get to Bangued and the rebels were in the way.

 

Shadowy rebel groups have been a feature of these mountains dating back hundreds of years to when the rebel Gabriella Silang fought the Spanish. I'm less afraid of the rebels, who keep too the mountains, than the random and pointless violence of evil elements in this Christian country. Being a Christian country doesn't help those who refuse to heed the moral messages, something our politicians in the U.S. could take lessons from. The Philippines is ripe to be a hikers paradise if access and safety can be secured, but until this country moves beyond being a place where most people scrape, while the few exploit, I don't see that happening. There is so much potential in this nature rich country. 

It would be interesting to discover who owns the land around Little Baguio. I'm sure the long term strategy of an expensive road to a few isolated villages has a more profit driven purpose. Are investors already preparing for people to flee the lowlands, escaping to the few places in the Philippines that will be livable later this century? Or is there a motive of industrial exploitation of resources that will leave scarred remnants like we saw in Apao?

There are a few people who live in small villages and isolated farms, but for the most part it is uninhabited. Again, just like the road to Apao, the one to Little Baguio is relatively new. Within my wife's memory, the roads to places like Apao and Little Baguio were nothing but mud tracks for much of the year and students from those places didn't go home more than a few times a year. 

 

The ride up the mountain is a popular ride for bike riders who ride up from the Abra River Valley to the pine covered heights and then back down. The stamina to make the ride in cool weather would be a challenge for me, let alone in the low 90s with 80 percent humidity. I would like to.try.another.time. There is a stamina one needs to exercise in this heat that I don't yet have. I spent a couple mornings in the open air gym here and though I am fit, sweat as if I was taking a shower.

On this trip to the Philippines, I've seen many more sport bike riders on mountain roads.than previous times. It has been good to see so many riders.  Like increased vehicle ownership it is a good sign of rising prosperity in this country. As a person who bikes for sport and transport, I wonder why more people don't ride bikes to get around these relatively compact towns. Sprawl isn't a thing here and most things are just a short bike ride away. It can be daunting and unhealthy to bike in the mash of trikes, jeepneys and personal vehicles since exhaust seems more toxic here than back home, but streets filled with bikes would make the streets here so much happier and healthier. 

As the climate warms and the lowlands possibly become unlivable for stretches of the year, will people gravitate to these highlands similar to what the Americans did in Baguio over a century ago?