Putting the Filipino heritage in hotel rooms

Baguio City – Afternoon rains bring me memories of a 12-year-old watching the raindrops fall on picture windows, homesick for her parents in Manila, but loving the company of cousins in Baguio. We really can’t live in two worlds or have two lives. I withstood the rains and the evening sadness and stayed joyfully in Baguio throughout the summer.

Today it’s raining in Baguio again. I refuse to think of the passing of time nor life getting shorter... Instead I quickly glance upward to accept a reality and see 400 carpenters drilling on simulated pine wood made of heavy cement blocks and connecting them outside the windows of the Ozaeta west wing to make flower boxes. Red blooms called impatience, that’s a characteristic I possess, mixed with cascading greens called pinsarai, which Sylvia Ilusorio Yap chose, will fill up these boxes to make the Club smile from the outside like it did years and years ago.

This is now – and the unchangeable past will be relived at the only club in Baguio since 1905. There’s a face- lift going on for its members who’ll be pleasantly surprised at the BCC’s new look. So, now it’s time for me to scrutinize the executive suite Bobby Mañosa conceptualized. Seventy-four rooms, 87 to follow to complete all the new rooms for the BCC members and their guests. Bobby and his son Angelo with Chelo Hofilenia withstood our persistent reminders to keep the timetable for Carlos del Rosario and Jojo Ozaeta’s projected income. Lyn Ilusorio Bildner, our finance officer (what a tedious assignment) with Anthony de Leon and Ernie Sanchez have kept a hawkish eye abiding by the intended budget statements. It’s a tremendous help when Atty. Rico Agcaoili gives us his full trust and lets things be. That’s action in inaction producing better results. Lao-Tzu would smile.

What’s one to see in the new rooms?

Glass and gliding louvre doors that have taken the place of curtains giving the rooms that warm feeling. Striped carpets and upholstery with the Mountain Province and Kalinga colors of electric blue, palay green, stunning red, sunset oranges, sunflower yellows. A bit of antiquity and culture in old Abra and Igorot décor like a Tinggian striped wrist band with tiny beads... a miniature wooden shield behind plexiglass head boards. Pen and ink and pastel drawings from BenCab’s Tam-awan Village by his Baguio artists. Pinky’s wooden bayong by lightened furniture. And no whites? That’s the antiseptic pale new tiles on bathrooms and switches by the bedside for the security of lights for lazy occupants who refuse to budge an inch and radios for wake up calls. At last Baguio Country Club will be finally dressed in its finest, with Bobby Mañosa reminding us about our Filipino heritage from up north. Mabuhay, Bobby!