Survival lessons we can learn from a tree

- by Joel Rodriguez Dizon    

     The seed must have fallen off the back of a truck carrying lowland vegetables, as this truck inched its way up to Baguio on the newly-cut "Benguet Road."

     That’s right-- "Benguet Road" was how it was called before this road was renamed after Col. Lyman Kennon of the US Army Corps of Engineers, who built it in 1903.

     Or perhaps it was blown up from the lowlands by a strong wind. Perhaps a bird had it in its beak and dropped the seed because its strong minty, camphory scent was unappealing. Still another theory is that the seed somehow got mixed in with a bunch of betel nuts in a native roadworker’s betel pouch and was tossed away in the vetting process.

     No one knows for sure exactly how the seed of a Sangilo tree ended on the road side along Kennon Road--and on top of a huge granite boulder at that. Only one thing is certain: it wasn’t human will that put it there.

     Why not? Because if a normal human being wanted to plant a tree, he would press the seed into the ground, not leave it on top on a dry rock. And for this particular species, if anyone wanted to plant a Sangilo tree, he would stick a sharpened twig from a mature tree into the soil and not start with a seed.

An iconic Baguio shot, if there ever was one, would be

this 25-foot lion head that greets tourists coming up

Kennon Rd. developed by the Lions Club. The sangilo-

on-a-rock grows just ten meters or so farther downhill

from this favorite poster shot setting.

     In fact--who knows?--it might actually have been a Sangilo twig that was shoved into a crack on the rock by a hiker using it as a walking pole. This hiker must have clambered up the rock to catch a panoramic view of the Bued River canyons below and gloat on his mountain climbing progress. When his walking stick got lodged into a crack on the rock, he might have just snaped off a good 3 or 4 inches off the tip and went on his merry way.

     Whether it was a seed or a twig, the progeny of this Sangilo tree lay on top of that rock and teetered between life and death. It had to have been the rainy season. Drops of water from the sky fell just in time, and often enough, to keep the seed or twig from completely drying out. Most of that water spilled off the side of the boulder. But a few drops mercifully pooled in a tiny dent on that rock, enough to soak the seed or the tender bark of the twig and soften it.

     Life finds a way. Nature is a master at survival. Weeks of being soaked in that life-sustaining water enabled this Sangilo sapling to grow tender little shoots that clung to the rock face. Now its was safe, at least, from getting blown away by the next gust of mountain air that blew through these canyons.



It wasn't a perfect likeness but early visitors to Baguio

had long noticed that this particular rock along Kennon

road looked uncannily like the African king of the jungle.

So in 1973 a local civic club bearing the beast's name

commissioned a mason to chip or build up the rock in

just the right places to complete the look. Today the

now legendary lionhead guards the entrance to the city.



     Day by agonizing day, that sapling absorbed drop after precious drop of early morning mountain dew. By midmorning the rising heat of the sun bearing down on that rock completely baked the rock dry. And that tiny sapling held on for dear life, waiting for the cold evening--and the lifesaving dew of the next morning.

     Soon it sprouted a brave little leaf, then two--and then more. The soft tendrils of roots anchoring it to the rock grew longer and stronger too. It shot slowly downward towards the ground in a death race to reach the soil before the rest of the plant died, unable to be sustained only by the dew.

     It was quite a height to creep down for these tender little roots. It was about three meters from the top of the rock to the rich soil beneath it. But those roots finally made it and soon this sangilo was drinking all it could from the ever moist Benguet soil.

     Then the tree grew in leaps and bounds, no longer starved of water or nutrients. Its leafy crown spread wide, and those tender roots grew large and strong. It is estimated that this Sangilo tree is now about sixty or seventy years old, at least. Its complex root system has completely enveloped the rock on which it once clung tenaciously for dear life. Now it is the tree that holds the rock so firm that its viselike grip had actually split the rock.



From a distance, the sangilo on the 

rock is an imposing specimen of a

little-known Philippine hardwood that

would probably never land in any 

endangered species list. But that

should make it even more inspiring 

and compelling to preserve this one

particular tree. 



     It has been documented that this particular Sangilo tree is the only tree that grows on top of a rock anywhere in the country. In 1984, this hardy Sangilo tree, now all of twenty feet tall, was recognized by the Tree Preservation Foundation of the Philippines as a success story of survival by a Philippine tree genus. A brass plate riveted at the base of the rock proudly announces its rare and inspiring achievement as a tree!

     The sangilo species is not exactly endangered--and considering how it triumphed over all adversity, to force itself to live when all odds told it to die, it’s easy to understand why.

     Today, you can see this tree--still growing robust and majestically--on the right side of Kennon road when you’re coming up, about ten meters before you reach the iconic Lion head. Ironically, local tourism officials seem little enlightened about the significance of this hardy woody survivor--all they could think of to do about it is to convert its behind into a restroom. What a pity.

     But it is a tree with an inspiring story. If you have ever faced a situation whose beginnings are bleak and discouraging--even life threatening--take heart from this sangilo tree, as I do many times.  Everytime I look at it, the only thing I could think of is to parody Joyce Kilmer's undying classic poem and also say to myself, "pithy essays are made by over-the-hill and has-been writers like me....but only God can make a tree.

     The saddest part is that not everyone knows the story of the sangilo-on-a-rock---not even among Baguio residents.

     And now you are among the few who do.*jrd

　

　

　

The Derelict Seminary of the Dominican Fathers

by Joel Rodriguez Dizon

     I have written about this subject in an earlier post. However, it doesn’t do justice to treat a subject like this in fewer than 500 words, and just a couple of images.

     So I went back to Dominican Hill one balmy Saturday afternoon to try to "soak in" the biggest story ever to be NOT told about Baguio City. If the story had to be told at all, it has to be by a Baguio boy.



The fountains in the inner courtyard must have been a

thing of beauty in the days of their prime. All corridors

had these windows to permit a view of the water casca-

ding through four levels.



     I grew up around the neighborhood of Mirador and Dominican Hills on the northwest edge of the city. This was around the years between 1968 to about 1980, when Baguio’s population was under 250,000. I have always felt, even as a young boy, that there was something more to the phrase "a city close to heaven" than meets the eye. It was a phrase sometimes used to describe Baguio City. It’s an attempt to allegorize the fact that at 5,000 feet above sea level, Baguio City does in fact soar higher in the atmosphere than its lowland neighbors.

     But it was more than metaphor. If you don’t debate the issue too deeply and simply grant that the mere existence of religious institutions in a city says a lot about its spiritual heritage, then Baguio is a very religious town. That is only one step removed from saying it is a town close to God’s heart.

     It has the only authentic Gothic cathedral outside of Manila. Baguio is the educational capital of the North. But it doesn’t only dispense diplomas in the liberal arts and the sciences. What few people realize is that Baguio, too, is a center of biblical study. This was especially true in the early years--like the 70s and 80s.



This used to be a winding staircase with heavy pine

wood bannisters. It landed on the ground floor where a

100-bulb Victorian chandelier used to hang on the

ceiling, not too far from the fireplace in back..



     Back then, as a rule of thumb, the male religious ran seminaries, and the women religious ran convents and retreat houses. So priests ran the Recoletos seminary at the fork of Naguilian and Asin roads, the San Pablo seminary in Crystal Cave subdivision, and the Dominican seminary at the top of the hill named after them.

     The nuns ran the convents of the Pink Sisters near Brent School, Santa Catalina Daughters of St. Paul along Marcos Highway, one in Outlook Drive beside the Mansion House, called the Sisters of the Little Flower Novitiate, Divine Word retreat house in Leonard Wood Rd., and a famous one, Good Shepherd Convent in Gibraltar Road near Mines View Park.

     Presently, a sweeping evangelical revival is buoying up the popularity of pentecostal Christian ministries. This has enhanced the significance of inter-denominational bible schools, the two biggest ones are the Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary (PBTS) in Pinsao Road and the Asia Pacific Theological Seminary (PBTS) in Ambuklao Road.



There used to be ornate iron grilles in each of these five-

foot windows. They were a priceless collection of fine

metal art that would be invaluable to any art curator

today. But instead, they were yanked by looters and

sold cheaply as scrap iron. 



     One reputation that Baguio has steadily lost over the years was its distinction as a favorite retreat place. In the 70s, when you talked about "spiritual retreat" the first name that came to your mind was Baguio City. In fact, the peak of tourist arrivals in the city was the annual observance of Lent--more commonly referred to here as "Holy Week."

     That was then. Today, the City Government has all but abandoned Holy Week in its tourism calendar. It frontloads, instead, the monthlong Baguio Flower Festival--or Panagbenga.

Little wonder then that Baguio City is also, ever so subtly, losing its religious heritage. Superficial ritualism remains high, but that’s about all. Churches are packed on Sundays. But the final priestly benediction, "Let us go and serve the Lord," rings hollow today in the face of the continuing erosion of the city’s religious traditions--and the death, or dereliction, of its once-iconic religious institutions.

     Diminishing interest in the orthodox priesthood is depressing enrolment in most seminaries. In the end, some of them simply had to close. This was the fate of the Dominican Hill seminary, which ordained its last young priest in 1977.

A Korean ministry has offered to acquire this property to

turn it into a pilgrimage site or "prayer mountain." But

offers to buy Dominican Hill are stymied by unsettled

issues of which government agency actually holds title

over this land. Some public opinion is against a Korean

buyout simply because they have acquired many more

properties all around Baguio--some say too much.

     I arrived at the site of the old Dominican Hill seminary rather late, around 4:00 p.m. The afternoon sun was beginning to cast long shadows of the few remaining pine trees around. Some local tourists were still sauntering about the yard, taking an obligatory sourvenir shot now and then. But not too soon after, I was alone to contemplate the ruin and emptiness of this once grand and anointed institution.

     It’s a large estate, approximately 5 hectares. The once-stately yard is severely unkempt--live bushes untrimmed, the grass unmowed. As I walked around the crumbling building, I get a chilly and haunting sense of walking after the footsteps of grieving souls, lamenting the derelict state of their "home." I’ve heard stories, as a little boy, that the prayer garden right outside the main building used to be a small cemetery, where old and anonymous priests were buried. It doesn’t sound true, but the eerie silence punctuated by the chirping of birds and the gentle rustle of the wind certainly makes it believable enough.



In the afternoon haze of Baguio's legendary fog, you get

a sense that this place stis on the clouds. A few local

tourists take obligatory sourvenir shots at the black St.

Martin de Porres prayer garden, reputed to be a small

old cemetery before it was transformed into an outdoor

venue for priestly sacraments. This is the main drive-

way leading up to the front of the seminary building.



     The scene is like the setting right out of a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys mystery novel. I was decidedly alone, but sometimes I catch the fleeting shadow of something--or someone--that seems to have just crossed the marbled floor to hide behind another pillar. Inside the building, you could almost hear the reverberating echoes of Gregorian chants being mouthed off by an all-boys choir. All the rooms inside the building have been utterly and totally looted of all window grilles, and bathroom fixtures. Nothing is left inside this building that is made of anything else but concrete. All wood, iron and glass have been removed, stolen by looters.

     I felt a tinge of sadness about this, because I remember the ornate sashwork in these five-foot tall windows. The wrought iron was heated, hammered and brazed to form elaborate depictions of scenes from the bible. For one, the Holy Spirit dove was always at the top form of each window grille, and the cruficix was always built into the motif of every piece of sashwork. They were classical pieces of metal art, invaluable to any art curator today. How could looters only see the value of these ironworks in their actual weight as mere scrap metal?



A glint of Baguio sunset silhouettes the main seminary

building, momentarily concealing its derelict state.

Someday, this place will be revived as a world-class

bible college. God didn't seem to approve its use as a

hotel nor as a host to a high-stakes casino.



     If you study its layout, the building is a squarish ring with an inner courtyard dominated by two round cascading fountains. They must have been a thing of beauty, because every corridor opened to large windows so you could see these fountains with anywhere inside the building. The rooms ring the inner courtyard on three flanks--the front was where the grand main door opened into a panoramic overview of the whole city of Baguio below it.

     These once-stately rooms have seen a string of transformations, from elegant bedrooms of the mostly-Belgian friars of the Dominican order who pioneered its construction in the early 1950s, to classrooms of the seminary years until the late 70s, to 5-star hotel suite when the whole place was converted into the posh but ill-starred Diplomat Hotel, to storage places of debris. Today, they are a mute statement of demise and neglect.

     If you stand in the main hall and close your eyes, you can still imagine how it must have looked like in its prime. Long flowing white stately curtains behind delicately-embroidered heavy drapes, bright glow of its 100-bulb Victorian chandelier, and in the background a warm fire by the hearth as the red cinderblock fireplace burned aromatic pine wood.



The narrow one-lane road leading up to Dominican Hill

looked before like a "highway to heaven" because the

seminary was the only man-made structure atop this

hill. Over the last few years, a telecom antenna farm

has sprouted near its main gate, adding a quaint coun-

terpoint to the traditional "temple-like" atmosphere

of the old Dominican Hill.



     But you open your eyes and all you see is a skeleton of a once theatrical circular stairway going up--now slippery with moss. The windows are bare openings, the hallways are empty labyrinths leading to no place of any real significance.

     In other countries, landmarks are preserved, their aura of mystery carefully nurtured, their saga propagated. I think about the French monastery of Le Mont Saint Michel--today the stuff of legends. It attracts tourists in droves, who want to imbibe the mystery of the place.

     Will this ever happen to Dominican Hill? I have compelling doubts--even though tourists are, for the first time, now free to roam around the place. But the sense of mystery and adventure is quick to fade, once they realize its nothing but an old crumbling building. As propagating legends and nurturing mystery goes, Dominican Hill fared much better when I was a little boy. I could walk up to the compound (there was not even a gate then, there is one now) and actually hear the seminarians singing hymns. But I couldn’t see them. No one was allowed to enter and disturb the cloistered monks.

By most reckoning, it's stil a very beautiful place, espe-

cially for less mundane pursuits like prayerful meditation.

In fact, from a distance, if you defocus your eyes a little,

you would forget that all you are seeing now is just the

empty shell of a once-stately and historic monastery.

     The city government had actually approved legislation declaring Dominican Hill a "heritage site." What they meant to accomplish by that, I’m not so sure. The law didn’t come with any funding to accomplish anything. Instead, it just opened the flood gate for culture vultures to try to find any way of transforming the awareness into measurable gain. More proposals for hotel conversion have been received. Certainly, improvements in transportation, communication and marketing now make this an attractive buy for developers.

     Unofficially, several evangelical Christian ministries have "ordained" the hill as a "prayer mountain." One local ministry dominated by South Koreans is talking about claiming the hill as an inheritance from God--although God would not give them a title or deed. Perhaps the heavens would open and pour out resources to enable them to acquire the property. It would not be the first significant asset that these well-funded Koreans would acquire in the city--nor the last.

     All this is attended by a lot of talk about privatizing the sprawling estate to pave the way for a private purchase. Technically, on record, it is owned by the government--although nobody seems quite sure which government: local or national.

     When Dominican Hill was commercialized and turned into a losing hotel business, it was financed by loans from a national bank, which soon foreclosed on the mortgage. But the inactivity left local taxes unpaid, entitling the local government to a lien over the same asset. The stalemate keeps Dominican Hill in limbo.



Just a strong stone's throw away from Dominican Hill is

its "sister shrine" the Grotto of the Lady of Lourdes. This

too is about to go the same way of neglect and derelic-

tion--unless a serious conservation effort gets underway

soon. The decline in Roman Catholicism under the sur-

ging popularity of evangelical revivalism is a shameful

excuse to simply let once-famous Baguio landmarks

like these fade into oblivion. 



     The high place, the high wind and the cool November afternoon sun can play tricks in your mind. As I continued to walk around and shoot pictures, I see vignettes of the past, and faint forebodings of the future. Only the present looks bleak. Someday, this place will throb with anointed activity once more. History had already shown that God did not prefer to see this place become a brothel or a gambling den (it hosted a casino in the 1980s)--maybe He wants it to be re-dedicated to a nobler pursuit.

     It’s enough to set one’s dreams in motion. One day, if I woke up and I was Bill Gates--if I had a hundred million dollars to throw away--I would lose no time buying this unpromising derelict building and build something out of it. If it were up to me, I would rebuild this place as a bible college, and redeem its proud history as a beacon of spiritual influence to the city it overlooks. Is it at all feasible? Who knows. In the movie Field of Dreams, a man built a baseball park in the middle of a corn field to invite the departed heros of the game to play one last great game. The driving force that compelled him was this admonition: If you build it, they will come...*** jrd

　

　

　

　

　

SM Supermall redefines 21st century Baguio

Built where Pines Hotel used to be, SM is Baguio's top tourist sight today

by Joel R. Dizon
     It's considered by many to be the most beautiful and scenic mall in the entire Philippines. For one, it has Baguio City's patented "centralized natural air-conditioning." The year-round subtropical climate of Baguio makes this mall the most comfortable to roam around in. Wraparound verandahs on all floors aboveground give you a seamless view of Baguio City's central business district (CBD), but the view of the surrounding suburbs if unobstructed as well. If you are from Baguio, then you know that this site (Luneta Hill) used to be the location of Pines Hotel (which burned down in 1984).  It's the highest point in downtown Baguio, even higher than the Baguio Cathedral which it now overlooks.
     The shopping is great--as in any SM mall--but perhaps SM Baguio is one of only a few shopping malls where you won't feel so bad even if you coudln't find anything interesting to buy. The outdoor cafes scattered around the verandahs are wonderful places to catch up with stories about the old neighborhood. Because, now, the first place that most residents and tourists go to get a taste of the Baguio community life is SM.

   

     What sets this mall apart is its use of a radical roof design. Instead of a rigid roof, architects stretched a specially-designed tarpaulin across the topfloor area, suspending it on reinforced tubular frames and stretching it taut with a complicated system of pulleys and guyropes. At night, the tarpaulin gets lit from underneath bythe ambient light of the mall interiors. During the daytime, its light color reflects the sun's heat, keeping  the temperature inside the mall a balmy 24 degrees Celsius regardless of the weather outside.  It is only five storeys tall--two of which are basement floors housing the indoor parking lot. A central scenic elevator serves aesthetic purposes more than transportation (the elevator car holds only 20 people). But getting to the upper floors is not a problem, thanks to five flights of escalators and a scenic semi-spiralling staircase on the opposite end.   The mall boasts of globally-recognizable franchises--McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, ACE Hardware, Watson's--just  to name a few--mixed in with some very successful local  shops. Its supermarket is world-class. Its four moviehouses are equipped with the latest big-screen imaging technology and chest-thumping Dolby sound systems. James Cameron's Oscar-winning "Avatar" was the first 3D movie screened here just a few months ago.   As you can see from the panoramic photos of the Baguio landscape (below) the view from the west verandah of SM mall is truly captivarting.  The landscape is expectedly dominated by Burnham Park, on the far horizon is Quirino Hill. One can walk around the whole perimeter of the mall on any floor above ground and get a seamless vista of Baguio from all angles. At night, the view is even more exhilirating, with a thousand points of light illuminating the mountainscape, and the perennial Baguio fog reflecting some of that light to blanket the city with a gentle wispy, almost ethereal aura of mystery. It is tricky to capture even with advanced digital camera equipment, one has to remember some the old-film basics on color shifts and reciprocity adjustments.

     Before this mall opened, it is estimated that the population of the city was only around 400,000. Since this mall opened in 2003, that population is now estimated to swell as high as 600,000 on weekends. Foreign and local tourists pour in from the surrounding provinces, from Manila and other points south, to experience shopping in this unique mall. It is also estimated that the downline employment generated by the mall's operation probably spawned another 10,000-15,000 new permanent residents, finding work in the mall and its many smaller  concessionaires.

     One thing local photographers appreciate about SM is its strong support for the local arts community. It regularly hosts photo exhibits  and other art events in its spacious premonades and foyers. In fact, its upper basement foyer serves as a year-round venue for art exhibits. (all photos copyright 2010 Joel R. Dizon)