Baguio and classical music: MSO serenades summer capital

Baguio and classical music: MSO serenades summer capital

A bookshop where you want to spend the rest of your mortal life in

As Casa Vallejo, its tenants and lovers of Baguio as we know it in our hearts and minds continue the struggle to save a historical landmark on Upper Session Road, I'm re-posting another article with permission from Cocoon Magazine's editor Thelma San Juan. It's my way of tilting windmills, and nothing truly wrong with dreaming and reaching for a reachable star.

But before I do the re-post and punctuate it with photos from Mt Cloud Bookshop's albums in Facebook, let me give the space to anthropologist Padma L. Perez.

Ms. Perez is one of the moving bodies and spirits in the Save Casa Vallejo Movement and a partner of Mt Cloud, THE Baguio bookshop. Here she responds to an online article on the subject "Indigenous rights or heritage: Battle over Baguio's oldest hotel" found in
http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/47720-indigenous-rights-heritage-baguio-casa-vallejo

Dear Voltaire Tupaz,

Thank you for your article! It's helping our cause get more attention and support.

I'm writing to you now as an anthropologist that has done some research on indigenous peoples' rights and the implementation of these rights in the Cordillera region. The title of your article, "Indigenous Rights or Heritage", bothers me because it suggests that these two concepts stand against each other, and that it is not possible to have the two together. It could also appeal to certain dangerous, anti-indigenous prejudices in the public.

Heritage does not exclude or preclude indigenous rights. In fact, indigenous cultures are also part of our heritage. I think it's misleading to suggest that people can only choose one or the other, which is what your title does. It fuels misunderstanding of the issue.

The Casa Vallejo case is not simply about pitting the indigenous claimants against the interests of those who would like to see the building preserved. It is also about the issuance of similar, allegedly spurious ancestral titles over public lands and reserves in prime areas in the City of Baguio such as the Busol Watershed, Wright Park, the Botanical Garden, the Mansion House. Some of these titles are being offered up for sale, if not already sold to developers or private individuals.

So you see, there is a looming threat of loss of control over Baguio's reserves and heritage sites. The move to preserve Casa Vallejo is not a move to discredit or invalidate the rights of indigenous land claimants, as your title suggests to me. The actions of the people behind the allegedly spurious land claims, and the less than diligent implementation of the IPRA by the NCIP are doing that disservice already.

The Casa Vallejo case is also about questioning the process by which these titles were acquired without the knowledge of the NRDC, and the subsequent transfer of these titles so that they are no longer in the names of the original claimants. This information is available at the Register of Deeds, or from the lawyers involved in the legal cases. The NRDC asserts that these titles have been issued without due process.

The questions that this case raises include: How were these titles acquired? Why have they been transferred out of the names of the indigenous claimants so quickly? What are the intentions of the buyers/developers/speculators over this land? Will they respect the wishes of the Baguio community -- which includes indigenous peoples themselves -- to preserve our history and heritage and to take care of the environment? Why were some members of the clan that claimed the property unaware of the claim being made in their name? What repercussions will this case have for public land in the City of Baguio, and for indigenous claimants here too? What actions can be taken to protect our few remaining heritage sites from commercial interests that may have no regard for local history? How can integrity be restored to the process of implementing indigenous rights and issuing ancestral land titles?

This is how I understand the issue, as someone who believes in indigenous rights and who is directly affected by the Casa Vallejo case. At any rate, my deep feeling is that the historically significant building that is Casa Vallejo should outlive both the current issue as well as my personal concerns.

Thanks for patiently reading through this long letter and for giving me occasion to put my thoughts on this together. With all due respect, I ask that you revise the title of the article so that it presents the issue more accurately.

Thank you,
Padma

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The children's faces say it all at this story-telling session at Baguio's premier bookshop

As mini cultural center combined, nothing beats Mt. Cloud Bookshop and the new Baguio Cinematheque, also inside Casa Vallejo.

Occupying about 10 x 30 meters, the idea of opening a bookshop entered the minds of sisters Padma and Feliz Perez when they heard that Casa Vallejo was being restored.

The younger Perez, one of two daughters of Adelaida Lim of Café by the Ruins fame and director Butch Perez, said, “We immediately knew that this was where we wanted our dream bookshop to be. Friends helped us figure out how we could make it happen. Tita Mitos introduced us to the developers and we asked if we could rent a space for a bookshop, and they said yes.” 

She continued, “We imagined that the bookshop would be cozy. We wanted it to be homey and for it to have that old Baguio feel. So we opted to use a lot of wood. We liked the high ceiling, then added a small mezzanine for additional shelves. 

The sisters did not hire an interior designer to carry out their idea of the look. The suggestion of a mezzanine came from the developers though.

The mezzanine

The empty shell for the shop was turned over to the siblings, then they worked with a contractor and his carpenters to get the look that they wanted. Again friends suggested where things should go and what they should add here and there. 

CNN Hero Robin Lim at the Cloud

When the bookshop opened in August 2010, visiting friends told the shop owners that Mt Cloud looks a lot like the Mapua-Lim childhood home in Baguio that was also full of shelves and books. Since then, the Cloud, as residents fondly call it, has hosted book launchings and author’s talks, an album launch by Stella Cruz, a Swiss-Ilocana singer, a film showing of Robin Lim’s film, “Guerilla Midwife,” during the time that she needed votes for the CNN Hero of the Year, art exhibits of local artists, poetry readings, poetry slams and children’s story-telling events.

Kabunian de Guia and sons dressed as Katipuneros at the book launch of Weng Cahiles' What Kids Should Know About the Katipunan a few weeks ago

Judges, poets, audience waiting for a poetry slam to begin

The younger Perez said, “We wanted it to be welcoming. Of course, the place that you feel most welcome is at home, so that was our biggest inspiration for the Cloud.

The origami birds hanging on a window and other parts of the Cloud

Hanging inside the shop are 1,000 paper cranes the younger sister made last year “to deal with stress. I did not want to store them in some box in a storage room so after I had finished the entire thousand, I sent them to the bookshop where her best friends strung them up and hung them all over the Cloud.”

A biblio chair in the center stacked with books

Her elder sister said of the biblio chairs that double as shelves and other youthful touches in the Cloud: “There are thousands of ideas for shelves and chairs on the Internet. We did a lot of research there. All our shelves and furniture are locally made. The windows match the look of the rest of Casa Vallejo. The entire frontage had to be uniform. For the small garden we wanted half a dap-ay for people to sit around, chat and read amidst a little bit of greenery in the heart of the city. The giant gabi was a surprise. They sprouted up during the rainy season. We hope they're here to stay.”

Mural of a woman reading - favorite background of local and out-of-town visitors for their souvenir photos

The outer wall along the hallway dividing Hill Station and the bookshop is a mural of a woman in indigenous wear reading. It was designed and executed by two collectives, Dolphins Love Freedom and Trust Your Collective. 

The Cloud’s classification of books is unique. The older sister said, “We thought of titles for the different categories. We call the section for auto/biographies ‘Heroes, Heroines and Quirks.’ We have a section called ‘Folktales from around the world.’ Our young adults section is marked for ‘Young, Discerning Grownups.’ Our spirituality shelf is ‘Open the mind.’ Customers usually get it as soon as they read the headings. Sometimes it throws people off that we don't have a separate Filipiniana section. Actually, Filipiniana dominates the shop; we feel that Filipino authors deserve to be placed according to genre or topic, not all simplistically lumped together under the Filipiniana umbrella.”

Younger Perez added, “We don't put books in alphabetical order by author or by title. Part of the fun of buying books is the little surprises that you find while you are looking for a specific title or genre.”

As for customer reaction and satisfaction, opening day in August was the gauge. Not only was the place packed; people spilled out into Hill Station and even the sidewalk.

Younger Perez said, “It was great to see all our friends and the Baguio community’s support. My favorite customer reaction is the gasp of pleasure or squeal of excitement when they enter the shop or when they find books that they have been looking for or that remind them of their childhood.”

For the older Perez, the reaction that warms her heart is: “I love your bookshop. I wanna live here!” –Elizabeth Lolarga

Lovely Casa Vallejo must stay where it is

The original title of this article, which first appeared in a 2012 issue of Cocoon Magazine (part of Inquirer's Hinge Publications), was "This lovely casa is here to stay." Due to the latest developments in Baguio that threaten the continued existence of this landmark building, I've asked the permission of editor Thelma San Juan to re-post this piece in this space. The photos are from the public Facebook pages of Casa Vallejo and Hill Station.

To find out more about what's happening to Casa Vallejo, please go to Change.org, particularly this site, and if you have time and you agree with the petition, do sign and make your voice heard. To paraphrase another passionate lover of Baguio, fellow blogger and theater and film artist Karlo Altomonte, we can't let Baguio turn into "a highland Divisoria."

www.change.org/petitions/felipe-de-leon-jr-chairman-national-commission-on-culture-and-the-arts-declare-the-1909-casa-vallejo-building-in-baguio-city-a-heritage-site-or-important-cultural-property-and-ensure-its-future-protection-and-preservation

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Casa Vallejo remains Baguio’s oldest building, as old as the city, in fact. Despite its place in the city’s history, it had fallen into disrepair until some adventurous developers, who’d rather be unnamed for the time being, saw the possibilities of turning this grand dame of city landmarks into a fine example of architectural adaptive reuse.

Today, it is not only a hotel with 24 remodeled rooms (standard, family, deluxe and honey room) and 21st-century amenities like flat-screen TVs and Wifi, it has become a well-located hub of culture on Upper Session Road, overtaking a giant mall on Luneta Hill and big universities that are supposed to feed the students’ souls apart from their minds.

Inside Casa is the two-year-old Hill Station of Mitos Benitez that has earned for Northern Luzon and the Philippines a place in The Miele Guide for 2011-12, a annual regional guide for the best Asian restaurants.

It’s an honor that moved restaurant Filipinas Salazar to tell the staff in more piquant Filipino: “Hey, take note, we’ve gone international so our standards have to be raised. We’re not just for the locals anymore.” The staff is motivated to improve on all points from service to testing new dishes.

Hill Station was described as “like stepping back in time” with its warm wooden beams and large windows. It menu was also cited for “a hearty repertoire” that “meanders from Old World Europe to New America and Asia.”

For Benitez it was a citation far from any dream she had when the revived Casa Vallejo and its partner restaurant opened. The resto itself occupies 300 square meters that include the main dining hall and two function rooms named after Salvador Vallejo and Justina Vallejo Garcia, the grandfather and mother of columnist-heritage advocate Maribel Garcia Ongpin, respectively, and a garden for outdoor events like weddings where 80 people can fit comfortably under parachute tents.

Benitez, who had served the family-owned Mario’s Restaurant since she was 22, was offered the space for the restaurant. She recalled that “aha moment”: “The minute I walked in, I said to myself, ‘This is it! It’s meant for me.’”

For the interiors of the hotel and restaurant, Gerard R. Mendoza, who has done Manila Sofitel and other projects in Boracay, Australia and England, was tapped. The only big change in the dining room was the addition of a grand staircase, which Benitez privately and jokingly calls “The Titanic,” to connect it to the hotel upstairs.

Before Mendoza started work on the interiors, Benitez gave him a tour of her house where she wanted the wooden floor-to-ceiling French windows with little squares replicated.


He removed the dining hall space’s low ceilings of and exposed the original beams, never touching the original wood, except having them painted brown. He retained the posts, some windows, the fireplace with a full-length mirror by its side, the slanting art deco supports by the doors. No cement was used for the restoration work for which began in earnest in July 2009 as the city was celebrating its centennial.

Casa Vallejo and Hill Station opened in March 2010, and when Ongpin saw what had been done, Benitez recalled, “she loved it—the look, the menu—and was very proud.” Her children and grandchildren make frequent return visits when in town.

Photographer-cinematographer Boy Yñiguez, Benitez’s spouse, told Mendoza, “The walls are mine.”

Forthwith, he set up on the bar’s walls his personal collection of black and white photos from the ’70s and ’80s by his friends, mainly photographers with Baguio roots or ties like Tommy Hafalla, Butch Perez, Mannix Santos, Wyg Tysmans. Somewhere on those walls is an Ansel Adams print. Benitez likes to make guests play a guessing game of identifying it. The fairly new Vallejo-Garcia function room also has on its walls photos and paintings from the Benitez-Yñiguez collection.

Benitez’s personal touches can be found in the leather place mats that she asked Rhona Carrantes to design and execute. The floral design is repeated on the menu. The dining and serving plates are all from the kiln of Lanelle Abueva Fernando, Benitez’s chum from their university years. For the Sunday buffets, the staff brings out the pots hand-thrown by Sagada women Tessie Baldo and Siegrid Bangyay.

In keeping with the building’s natural ambience, Benitez also has a pot shaped out of petrified wood by Greg Sabado, always with fresh flowers in season (a bunch of Alstroemeria, a kind of lily, at the time of Cocoon’s visit).

Landscape artist Marita Manzanillo has tamed the once unruly garden at the back of the building. Like Benitez, she doesn’t believe in an instant garden so the old pine trees co-exist with 28 younger ones and new plants and trees like the jacaranda. Capiz lamps are lit for Christmas and special occasions. A trellis was set up so the sanggumay can slowly creep on it and cover an old water tank. There are abundant large gabi leaves in one spot and an herb garden planted to rosemary, oregano, pandan, among others, for use in the restaurant’s kitchen.

With all the acclaim Hill Station is receiving, Benitez has remained committed to “pleasing the locals from Day One. The white guys, those on work detail in the city and are frequent customers, too, come and go.” - Elizabeth Lolarga

On Cloud 9

In business terms, Mt. Cloud, the bookshop inside the century-old Casa Vallejo in Baguio City, is meeting its monthly overhead.

"And then some," adds one of the partners, Padmapani L. Perez (the other half of the partnership is her kid sister Feliz). While the profit is not yet spectacular, the older Perez happily reports that "the Cloud is keeping afloat. We sometimes have concerned customers (new ones as well as regulars) asking, 'How is the business?', or, more bluntly, 'Are you making enough to survive?' When we say yes, we're okay, we're not drowning and we're not in the red, they look relieved and happy, and some exclaim, 'Good!' If anything, this tells us that people want us to stick around."

She is aware that in an era of e-books and big bookstore chains, "the general expectation seems to be that a small independent bookshop in Baguio is doomed to failure. Every day we are open is evidence to the contrary. We aim to satisfy discerning clients who grasp and appreciate what Mt. Cloud is all about: a love of books, above all. This may not be quantifiable in business terms. It may be naïve, but we believe this sets us apart from others in the book-selling business in the country. This is not to say that other booksellers don't love their books. We let our respect for the written word suffuse the way we do things in Mt. Cloud--from the selections we make and the events we hold to the look and feel of the shop."

The eight-month-old Mt. Cloud, and by extension, the year-old Hill Station and its space, including the walls and corridors, have become a hip, happening place in the laidback city where it is common for residents to feel some seasonal affective disorder set in when the monsoon rains pour. That's when they'd rather stay indoors and read and read under layers of clothing.

Perez says, "We've only been open eight months. We feel everything we do is new. We often make decisions on the fly, so it's hard to speak of innovation. We keep the Cloud bustling with warm bodies by lifting the written word off the page and bringing it to life in the shop. We invite authors to talk about and sign their books in our intimate space. Authors we've had the pleasure of hosting have remarked at the depth and quality of the dialogues they hold with the Baguio community members that meet them."

The Cloud (fond name for the shop) organizes art exhibits that complement the books it carries. Perez says, "Ah, this is an innovation! It wasn't part of our original plans, but local artist Chris Yñiguez approached to ask if he could use our hallway as an exhibit space. That got us started. Since then, we've been approached by other Baguio artists, and we've actively invited people to hold exhibits in our hallway or on our walls, among the bookshelves."

The authors whom the Cloud invites to speak were part of the plan from the very start. Perez, who is an anthropologist, poet and essayist, says, "We knew that it wouldn't work to sit and wait for books to be picked off our shelves so we have made Mt. Cloud dynamic, a place that aspires to the life of the mind and approaches it in a respectful, sometimes playful, way. In the poetry slams, aspiring and established poets come together in thrilling battles of spoken word. We've had two so far and intend to make the slam a regular event."

Mt. Cloud has reached out to the local writers, making it known to them that their works have a special place in the shop's heart. Perez says, "We carry books published independently by writers from around the Cordilleras, and we promote their work every chance we get."

Feliz, who teaches at the Laren Alternative School in Makati City while her Manang Padma is based in Baguio, takes charge of acquisitions. She is in touch with publishing houses in Metro Manila and ensures the Cloud has a steady stream of new titles.

The older Perez handles the shop's daily operations. She used to teach graduate classes at the University of the Philippines Baguio, organize field school for Laren, do anthropological research, and freelance writing.

She confesses, "I've resigned from the post of Delusional Superwoman Aspirant. I've narrowed down my occupations to motherhood and the shop. It's like having a baby. I still do the occasional, small writing assignment. To keep sane, I bike. Someday, I'd like to teach again."

Mt. Cloud has a Facebook page and Twitter account to keep people abreast on events there and the arrival of new stock (books or stationery items). In the not-too-distant future, it will launch an online store.

First published in the summer 2011 issue of Prime magazine. Photos by Laarni Ilagan

High on a hill, there's a resto with a diff

In the city that is home to many a Filipino's heart, there stands a building wearing Baguio's old colonial colors of olive green with a touch of white. Casa Vallejo, the chartered city's oldest building at more than 100 years, houses ghosts of eras past on its upper Session Road location.

Apart from these harmless other-worldly presences that go bump in the night, there is also inside Casa Vallejo 24 rooms, the year-old Hill Station restaurant-bar of Mitos Benitez Yñiguez, Mt. Cloud Bookshop of the Perez sisters (Padmapani and Feliz) and North Haven, a spa that offers, among others, scrubs and massage using indigenous techniques and materials (e.g., coffee beans and strawberries).

Coming soon: a cinematheque with limited seating for Baguio-based or visiting cineastes who wish to watch and appreciate Filipino and international film classics.

Yñiguez says, "Both the restaurant and Casa Vallejo have been doing well since we opened. In the beginning, it took some time for us to get known but at least in our graphs, we have been going steadily up since the day our doors opened."

For Hill Station's first anniversary in March this year, it invited jazz singer Jacqui Magno, whose last visit to the city was in 2007 for the Baguio Writers Group's fund-raising concert "Jazz for Tonight" at the Baguio Country Club (one of the beneficiaries then was the group's founding member Napoleon Javier, a broadcast media journalist who was then confined at a local hospital's intensive care unit after a major stroke; the rest of the proceeds from the fund-raiser underwrote the group's community outreach writing workshops for the youth, for mid-lifers and for senior citizens).

Ms. Magno was backed up by local musicians Jason Sta. Maria on the acoustic guitar and Ira Publico on the keyboard. The response to Ms. Magno's hour and a half performance was so electric that Yñiguez, overjoyed by the sellout crowd and the ovations for the performer, was overheard as saying to her hard-working crew and marketing staff, "What the fuck do we do in year two?"

She told this writer, "About six to a dozen friends from Manila came up for this anniversary. The rest are all honest-to-goodness Baguio residents."

Before the concert, she and her staff prepared a buffet of Cajun-Creole food inspired by the hot cuisine of Louisiana in the US. Yñiguez explains, "Hot and jazz, bagay!"

So there was a spread of Mediterranean roasted vegetables with evoo and balsamico, Creole friend catfish with hush puppies, squid in saffron-champagne sauce, croquetas de bacalao with aioli, smoked sausages with potatoes, Cajun spare riblets, double dark chocolates, chocolate chunk cookies and lemon meringue bars.

Yñiguez, whose paternal side of the family is responsible for Mario's, another eating landmark in the city, ventured on her own with her immediate family's blessings.

She says, "In Hill Station, we have made it a point to hold an interesting event with music, entertainment and all new tapas buffets at least every quarter at reasonable prices. It's our way of saying 'Thank you' to loyal patrons and followers of our restaurant."

In September last year, the restaurant had a Chilean wine and tapas festival with acoustic guitar music by Aya Yuson and Gou de Jesus doing the vocals. The one-night event cost the patron under P1,000. What was surprising was the house was packed yet it happened in the middle of the rainy season.

In November 2010, Hill Station had a Sangria and tapas night, this time with music from local artists Sta. Maria on the guitar, Publico on the piano and Mabel Tolentino, vocals. For New Year’s Eve, the place featured a Baguio rock and roll band, The Edralins, and tapas again. Yñiguez feared then that the wooden floor would not be able to withstand the all-night dancing. But it did.

She rues, "With events like these, I hope to make this a place to go to and remember. Every month, we put out new specials; the best-sellers go into our menu and out with the old. Constant renovation in our menu has become a standard, and many guests come back because of this. This summer I am trying to make the specials as fresh and refreshing as possible. We have lots of salads, fresh organic greens as sidings of our main courses, new desserts and savories for our chiller as we have a good coffee crowd that lingers in the afternoons, reading books from Mt. Cloud or just browsing on their laptops as free WiFi is available to all."

Yñiguez has her own favorite among the restaurant's summer specials: Cha Ca, a Vietnamese salad made of turmeric-flavored catfish fillets on a bed of greens and boiled sotanghon noodles flavored with patis, lemon juice, honey, fresh mint, dill, Thai basil and chilies. She guarantees that "it is soooooo refreshing!"

During the Lenten season, she made seafood specials like Bacalao ala Vizcaina, based on an old family favorite since her grandmother's time, bangus flakes and malunggay on top of spaghetti with olive oil and garlic and a Thai red curry with shrimp and halibut (locally known as dapa), fresh basil and tamarind.

Like that other Baguio classic, Café by the Ruins on Chuntug street, across from the Baguio City Hall, Hill Station follows the wisdom of slow cooking and buying what's in season at the public market.

Hill Station's new, seasonal desserts are crème brulee with fresh strawberries, and lemon meringue bars. Also available are Malva Pudding, a South African recipe, and Kahlua panna cotta.

Asked what personal and professional fulfillment she derives from running a space like Hill Station, Yñiguez whoops it up, declaring, "I love love love Hill Station and what I’m doing today! I have always liked entertaining at home, and Hill Station has just provided me with a space I can call home. I love the oldness of it, the feel of the wood, the French windows with trees outside jumping right at you. Not just a few have said the place reminds them of my house which looks similar as it’s all pinewood, wood floors and French windows, too. One day I have to add on a verandah like mine, and it’ll be perfect."

She continues, "Professionally, I have grown so much, having my own place to run, then cooking and creating dishes that I feel like making. My staff is highly motivated as many of the things we do are a first for them. I am so happy and so are they. I think it shows."

Visit www.casavallejobaguio.com, tel. no. (074)442-3397 or book through www.agoda.com. Also visit www.hillstationbaguio.com or call tel. nos. (074)424-2737 or (074)423-9100. Email at info@hillstationbaguio.com for reservations and events.

Published in the summer 2011 issue of Prime magazine. Photos, except for the dish cha ca (from Hill Station's Facebook page), by LAARNI ILAGAN