Baguio Haunts: Vacacionistas in Their Own Hometown | Basta Pinas | TravelBook

"Bakasyunista" came from the 1956 comedy movie Vacacionista starring Gloria Romero and Luis Gonzales, with Dolphy as comic relief. It was about a trip to--where else--Baguio, back when wearing woolen coats in Burnham was not only cool but necessary.

In the golden days of Baguio tourism (1970s and 1980s), "bakasyunistas" were the tourists from Southern Tagalog who would come in minibuses and stay in Baguio for three days maximum.

It was guerrilla tourism. They would start giving their contributions for the trip in December and then arrive before or after Holy Week. The bakasyunistas would bring everything--pillows, blankets, food, and even a kalan (stove) and blackened coconut shells for fuel. They would stay in ordinary houses, thus preceding the DOT's homestay program.

Once, a busload from Pagbilao, Quezon parked in our neighborhood and their guide begged my mother to let them stay in our house. She agreed. So, about forty tourists stayed over for two nights. Our dog, eased out of the balcony, ignored us for a week.

I thought I had the makings of a journalist even then. I began interviewing the Pagbilaoans, like a neighbor of Julie Vega, the tragic TV waif and a champion tuba gatherer, for example. They told me that they so loved Baguio that they have "Little Baguio" villages in almost every town.

When the coconut industry collapsed, the bakasyunistas stopped coming to Baguio. Some came back when the coconut industry surged back with VCO and cocobiodiesel but those minibuses never returned.

I think about these bakasyunistas often when I go to Quezon province. Lucena City‘s old houses have the architecture of early colonial Americans, much like the old houses of Baguio. Life in Quezon was what I remembered about the Baguio of my youth, but why don't I get a hankering to get back there? Why do I always get homesick after a month out of Baguio?

How do I love Baguio? I love acting like a tourist in the city. When my cousins abroad come and visit, I stay with them in their hotels. When there are workshops and conventions in Baguio, I make it a point to be a stay-in whether they like it or not.

Favorite memories include having a bonfire with Carol Bello and Boy Garovillo of the Pinikipikan band and later, of Kalayo, at the side of Mountain Lodge talking about Baguio music, art, the great Baguio band named The Blank, and many other things. I also have good memories of Safari Lodge, whose walls are decorated with the heads of hyena, antelopes and even an elephant.  "Hard to drink there. Dead animals stare you to sobriety," says UP Professor Grace Subido.

Or the time we got drunk after a Panagbenga party and Nonette Bennett and Wilfredo Pascual stole our office tape recorder and stayed in the old Casa Vallejo recording our stories, except that we forgot to push the record button. Or too drunk (again!) at Rumours when a supertyphoon made it impossible to go home and we (Emmanuel Palo, Robert Acosta, and four other artists), decided to check in that flea-bag "dormitory room" in Mido Inn.

Then there's ghost story telling with Vanessa Balagapo. I remembered a PCIJ seminar where we were holed up in one of these old halls in Teacher's Camp and we still couldn't resolve who was that noisy one in the toilet. "Teacher's Camp was where I spent my summers there. My aunt was the physician. I loved the flowers, the scent of pine, the floor to ceiling windows, and scary ghost stories," says NGO consultant Odette de Guzman.

I remembered sleeping with two blankets and a pillow at the retreat houses above Lourdes Grotto and at Little Flower Novitiate, not wanting a midnight visit from the priests and nuns who once stayed there. Or that Ouija session at the ruins of the Diplomat Hotel where we probably channeled the funniest spirit in the city... or was it something we smoked?

Or staying at El Cielito Inn for an interview with one of those mountain commanders (read: rebels). I liked the place so much, I stayed one more night.

I've seen hotels come and go. I remember the Pines Hotel before it burned down. I knew some of the workers who died in the Hyatt Terraces Apartelle during the 1990 earthquake.  I knew Bayanihan Hotel back when it was a hotel and not the ukay-ukay headquarters that it is today.

Some of the hotels in the early 2000s were converted into boarding schools by the Koreans. The other struggling hotels were taken over by the ukay-ukay juggernaut. I'm not saying that the tourism industry is suffering, as there are more hotels being built right now.

I asked Baguio people about their favorite hotels in the city.

It came as no surprise that the hotels of the memory were the ones they remembered.

"The mere mention of Pines Hotel and the Hyatt Terraces brings back good memories, never mind the tragedies that befell them," says Rico Guttierez, more known as Señor Blues, one of the most respected DJs in town.

Ed Lejano, now head of the UP Film Institute, misses Casa Amapola, that boutique hotel by the Prietos. And so does artist Perry Mamaril, now based in New York City.

Esteemed editor and author Karla Prieto, whose family owns Casa Amapola, which is being loaned to a school at the moment, likes Casa Vallejo because of two magic words: Old Baguio.

Writer Richard Arboleda agrees. "The charm of old Baguio is a stone's throw away from SM," he says. 

"Girl Scouts in South Drive. Very friendly and accomodating ang staff and the pines are still all over. The view of Hyatt was great," says Baguio boy Marcelo Nacionales Jr., now a teacher in Manila.

Environmentalist Shei Datinguinoo still checks in at the Baden Powell Inn "for Ayuyang (the folk den below the hotels), for newspaper-lined waste baskets, for recycled water flushes, for everyday Christmas, for that fellow St. Bernard dog, for nearby Session Road, for the historical marker no one notices, for that blind pianist playing beautiful music at the lobby from 10am-12nn, and for that overall homey vibe.

"The roaches aren't even apologetic," she adds.

Poet Nerissa Guevara agrees. "Ayuyang is the new Mayric's," she says, alluding to that Sampaloc, Manila haunt that helped germinate the alternative rock scene.

Folk singer and journalist March Fianza harks for the Lucky Lodge, which burned in the 1980s.

"It has big rooms and a back door that you can open to let your friends sneak in without the hotel people finding out after you have checked in alone at the front door. It was practically the ‘shelter from the storm' during the times you can't get home because the taxicabs are all gone," he says.

Noted poet Ed Maranan misses London Hotel at the corner of Kayang and Zandueta Sts.

"A stone's throw away, quite literally, from the Baguio City Market. Doon kami tumira nang matagal in the 1950s, but it went up in flames sometime in the early 1960s. It was actually more a complex of low-rent apartments for families than a proper hotel, but the owner must have wanted to make it sound prestigious," says Maranan.

Those who chose the new hotels liked them for their Baguio-ness.

Cruz Cholo likes the Forest House Bed and Breakfast for their service and of course, for the pine-filled view, especially while having breakfast.

Lorna Danganan likes the Heritage Mansion, the former ancestral home of the Mullers, which opened only last year.

"Hotel Elizabeth Fersal. It's located in a really nice environment and the interior design is so relaxing," says Kim Quintos.

Bookseller Padma Perez vouches for Chaya Bed and Breakfast.

Students Bones Alqaseer and Kim Padilla, and my highschool classmate and now Manileña Nina Sandiko prefer John Hay Manor. "because it takes me back to the days when Baguio was still in its height of beauty and glory," says Sandiko.

Noted photographer and wanderlust Noli Gabilo chose Pines View Hotel along Legarda Road for a different reason. "I always choose Room 518 or Room 514. Perfect for taking dawn and dusk pictures of the city. Suite 2 also. For sunset pictures, just go to the fire escape at the back," he says.

If you hear of photographers falling from the fifth floor of Pines View, you know who to blame.

Basta Pinas, Napintas!

Frank Cimatu is a Palanca-Award-winning poet and a correspondent for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. His CV lists him as a "poet, blogger, NGO worker, editor, newspaper reporter, art critic and eventologist."