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The Baguio We Know
"today, with the emergence of new, and concededly more titillating, tourist destinations, many will admit that Baguio has 'fallen from grace' from its once lofty position as the 'Summer Capital of the Philippines.' However, perhaps more than anything, this collection of works reveals the Baguio that is so much more than the handmaiden to tourism that some falsely believe is the answer to this city's ultimate salvation." " This collection of works provides a glimpse into that 'view from within' of a place forged in consciousness that transcends boundaries of time and space." from the introduction
- GenresTravelNonfiction
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 21, 2012
250 kilometers away from Manila, we find solitude in a frigid city tucked in the mountains, cloaked by a thick blanket of fog and under the imposing presence of pine trees. Baguio has always been the ideal, summer capital of the Philippines, a cold getaway in the middle of summer vacation in a tropical country.
Today, commercialization is slowly destroying what has been a sacred space for those who have made Baguio their home, and their own little secret. Nostalgia is abound for these people and with the memories that they have of the old days in Baguio continues to occupy their souls.
In this collection edited by Grace Subido, "The Baguio We Know" contains essays of Baguio’s residents, habitués, and lovers present a strong attachment to the once lofty city, a place where one takes in a different kind of rejuvenation of the soul. From roadside restaurants frequented by writers, to diminutive cafés which can hold thousands of stories exchanged by strangers, friends, and others to casual chess competitions in airy Burnham Park to whiling away slow afternoons in Session Road, there seems to be a place for every activity and a chance of everyone to do what they want.
Whether you return to Baguio every summer, or stay for good, the magic that one discovers when you immerse in the culture of this city is unfathomable, never to be severed, and to be treasured for years to come.
I may be over romanticizing Baguio in this sense but to me, it defines home in various ways. Home is the smell of taho in the morning wafting through the bus station. Home is watching storeowners unload the day’s cabbages onto a cart and into their market stall. Home is a rocking chair on the porch in Camp Allen. Home is walking through the fog when you were 14, as you make your way home at six in the evening with the red, pulsating light of K-Lite station guiding you. Home is getting a glimpse of the tall pine trees through your room’s windows as you wake up in the morning.
Baguio is home.
Today, commercialization is slowly destroying what has been a sacred space for those who have made Baguio their home, and their own little secret. Nostalgia is abound for these people and with the memories that they have of the old days in Baguio continues to occupy their souls.
In this collection edited by Grace Subido, "The Baguio We Know" contains essays of Baguio’s residents, habitués, and lovers present a strong attachment to the once lofty city, a place where one takes in a different kind of rejuvenation of the soul. From roadside restaurants frequented by writers, to diminutive cafés which can hold thousands of stories exchanged by strangers, friends, and others to casual chess competitions in airy Burnham Park to whiling away slow afternoons in Session Road, there seems to be a place for every activity and a chance of everyone to do what they want.
Whether you return to Baguio every summer, or stay for good, the magic that one discovers when you immerse in the culture of this city is unfathomable, never to be severed, and to be treasured for years to come.
I may be over romanticizing Baguio in this sense but to me, it defines home in various ways. Home is the smell of taho in the morning wafting through the bus station. Home is watching storeowners unload the day’s cabbages onto a cart and into their market stall. Home is a rocking chair on the porch in Camp Allen. Home is walking through the fog when you were 14, as you make your way home at six in the evening with the red, pulsating light of K-Lite station guiding you. Home is getting a glimpse of the tall pine trees through your room’s windows as you wake up in the morning.
Baguio is home.
December 30, 2020
To me, Baguio is a transient city. I came to the city for college, like many others do, and then moved on, but it will always be a place to consider home. To many more, it is home. The writers of “The Baguio We Know” are writers who have some sort of attachment to Baguio: born there, lived there, frequented there. The Baguio they describe differs from how I know now, and therefore different from what it will be. The language is romantic, reminiscent of another time in the lifespan of a city, to the point of mild nostalgia for the non-Baguio resident. Many of the essays feature food, one of the most nostalgic experiences one can write about, such as the legend of to the origin of the popular commercial strawberry jam (“Lola Felicing’s Strawberry House”) and another on indigenous foods (“Recipes”). Some talk about the changing environment of Baguio (“Guppy Pond,” “Requiem for a ‘Pine’ Tree”), others about history (“Finding Chainus,” “A Journeyman’s Cocktail of Remixed Memories”). I think the writers have collectively produced an image of Baguio as it was and won’t ever be again, with careful consideration for its various facets: its colonial origin, its indigenous residents, its ever-changing status and landscape as a city.
August 6, 2020
A nostalgic collection of personal essays and works that is somehow made an impression and left something behind in me. Some works are ornately written, it's quite hard to feel the writers' experience. But some just hit right square in the soul.
September 30, 2025
In The Baguio We Know, published by Anvil in 2009, we are re-introduced to the city of Baguio as a “state of consciousness, forever locked in space and time” through 16 essays by different writers with a special connection to the city, most of them being born and raised here. The different perspectives throughout different points in time offers us a glimpse into what Baguio is to the people in it beyond our common over-romanticized picture of the city with lion heads or night markets or the need for sweater and hoodies.
Some stories run us down through history: “Finding Chainus” intertwines the city’s early days to a forgotten personality and reveals what the Americans envisioned for the city; “The Colors of Our Alma Matter, The Colors of Our Childhood” a piece that feels lifted straight from a yearbook that features an ideal early education in Baguio and had some familiar names to me; in “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times”, UP Baguio’s former chancellor tells a recollection of Martial Law as a student of PSHS and then-UPCB. It was great to learn what Martial Law was like here in a city of the north since we always get narratives set in the capital; “A Journeyman’s Cocktail of Remixed Memories” is Baguio’s history of gold and cowboys and the city’s enduring magnetism.
Baguio’s culture on food is featured in other stories. One of my favorites, “Notes to the Self on Drinking” is on the surface a manual on drinking alcohol for the first time but also a guide to Baguio’s drinking culture. Picture drinking tapey rice wine near a cozy campfire. “Lola Felicing’s Strawberry House” is a wholesome story on the family that spearheaded Strawberry Jam production. I would be bored reading usual recipe books since I have little interest in cooking but it’s the stories that come with indigenous food preparation that makes “Recipes” so great. In “Food Lover’s Story”, the writer roams around the whole world for a while before arriving at the Baguio food scene.
The greenery of Baguio, once its glory, is now at risk due to rapid urbanization. “Guppy Pond” is a nostalgic and imaginative story of childhood memories featuring trips to Camp John Hay before its development while “Requiem for a Pine Tree” is an ode to a symbolic concrete pine tree and all other trees in the city. The most well-written story personally, “Sunflower Raga” gives an historical account, told through the sunflowers that grew throughout time.
Multilingualism, something very apparent in Baguio, is discussed in “Usaping Atchara”. A very visual trip to memory lane is told in “Vignettes of Baguio”. “My Love Affair” is a short and sweet romance that reflects most Baguio migrant stories of the initial sadness that comes with the weather and the eventual falling in love with the city.
“Musings on Baguio and Darnay” is a story that I thought would be about late artist Darnay Dementillo but is actually more about one of his paintings. “Holy Wednesday Exercise and Reflection” is a motivational self-monologue of someone who exercises at Burnham Park. The book’s closing “Baguio at Pagtatapos ng Semestre” is a sudden veer in topic as it is a labor and economic situationer of the country in 2009.
Overall, while I thought the book was a bit limited in perspectives that show mostly comfortable, middle-class artist/academic state of living in Baguio, I enjoyed reading these different stories that were so personal yet revealed a lot about what the city once was. Most of them evoked a strong sense of nostalgia for the place when its various problems were not so glaring yet, nostalgia for the Baguio I only saw now in vintage photographs.
Some stories run us down through history: “Finding Chainus” intertwines the city’s early days to a forgotten personality and reveals what the Americans envisioned for the city; “The Colors of Our Alma Matter, The Colors of Our Childhood” a piece that feels lifted straight from a yearbook that features an ideal early education in Baguio and had some familiar names to me; in “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times”, UP Baguio’s former chancellor tells a recollection of Martial Law as a student of PSHS and then-UPCB. It was great to learn what Martial Law was like here in a city of the north since we always get narratives set in the capital; “A Journeyman’s Cocktail of Remixed Memories” is Baguio’s history of gold and cowboys and the city’s enduring magnetism.
Baguio’s culture on food is featured in other stories. One of my favorites, “Notes to the Self on Drinking” is on the surface a manual on drinking alcohol for the first time but also a guide to Baguio’s drinking culture. Picture drinking tapey rice wine near a cozy campfire. “Lola Felicing’s Strawberry House” is a wholesome story on the family that spearheaded Strawberry Jam production. I would be bored reading usual recipe books since I have little interest in cooking but it’s the stories that come with indigenous food preparation that makes “Recipes” so great. In “Food Lover’s Story”, the writer roams around the whole world for a while before arriving at the Baguio food scene.
The greenery of Baguio, once its glory, is now at risk due to rapid urbanization. “Guppy Pond” is a nostalgic and imaginative story of childhood memories featuring trips to Camp John Hay before its development while “Requiem for a Pine Tree” is an ode to a symbolic concrete pine tree and all other trees in the city. The most well-written story personally, “Sunflower Raga” gives an historical account, told through the sunflowers that grew throughout time.
Multilingualism, something very apparent in Baguio, is discussed in “Usaping Atchara”. A very visual trip to memory lane is told in “Vignettes of Baguio”. “My Love Affair” is a short and sweet romance that reflects most Baguio migrant stories of the initial sadness that comes with the weather and the eventual falling in love with the city.
“Musings on Baguio and Darnay” is a story that I thought would be about late artist Darnay Dementillo but is actually more about one of his paintings. “Holy Wednesday Exercise and Reflection” is a motivational self-monologue of someone who exercises at Burnham Park. The book’s closing “Baguio at Pagtatapos ng Semestre” is a sudden veer in topic as it is a labor and economic situationer of the country in 2009.
Overall, while I thought the book was a bit limited in perspectives that show mostly comfortable, middle-class artist/academic state of living in Baguio, I enjoyed reading these different stories that were so personal yet revealed a lot about what the city once was. Most of them evoked a strong sense of nostalgia for the place when its various problems were not so glaring yet, nostalgia for the Baguio I only saw now in vintage photographs.
October 29, 2022
It's always nice to see people love the place they grew up in. My onlys struggle with the book was that some essays/articles I don't even know why they are in the book itself. Yung parang nabanggit lang nila isang beses ang Baguio tapos iba na ang kinukwento. For a book about Baguio, I was expecting more stories about Baguio.
Pero iilan lang naman. Karamihan naman ay talagang patungkol sa lugar na yun. Listening to their detailed stories is like them taking you on a trip around the gems that Baguio can offer.
Pero iilan lang naman. Karamihan naman ay talagang patungkol sa lugar na yun. Listening to their detailed stories is like them taking you on a trip around the gems that Baguio can offer.
April 28, 2024
Excellent collection. Most essays are very good. Good variety. Please make a new one!
I'm wondering if someone would write about the fact that cooler places in Baguio might be literally life-saving as the country encounters more heat-related deaths. I want to understand how commentators who mourn the development of the city (leading to fewer trees, more people, more golf, etc etc) will change the way they think about over-population or suggest solutions, consider positives, and possibly embrace it.
I'm wondering if someone would write about the fact that cooler places in Baguio might be literally life-saving as the country encounters more heat-related deaths. I want to understand how commentators who mourn the development of the city (leading to fewer trees, more people, more golf, etc etc) will change the way they think about over-population or suggest solutions, consider positives, and possibly embrace it.
December 10, 2020
The anthology of essays provided a slice of life to the renowned Baguio City. I learned about Eveline Chainus Guirey, Daniel Burnham, Nick Joaquin, and strawberry jams. The selection evokes a feeling of longingness or a dash of nostalgia for those who have lived—and also for those who enjoyed their visit—in the serene city. Baguio is more than just a place. Oh, I miss going to Baguio.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews