I have known Baguio since I was a child when my family would go there every summer to spend a week at our vacation house. Baguio had always been something to look forward to during the summer break. I grew up knowing Baguio as some distant city locked high up in the mountains, where time stood still. It was a quaint and simple place where life followed its own quiet, unperturbed pace. As my parents later on outgrew their preference for the city, the yearly trips stopped. And throughout more than a decade, my reunions with this cherished city of my childhood were limited only to very brief and sporadic visits. I had been invited by friends on several occasions to attend the Flower Festival in the late 1990s when this annual festival of Baguio was still taking root, but I never found the opportunity to take a break from work to do so. Later on as I went through some transitions in my career and my personal life, I left work for new beginnings, and it seemed a favorable time for me to finally revisit Baguio during its merriest occasion.
I was traveling by myself, hoping to capture images of the festival on film. I got on the bus at the designated time, and still, chance passengers were lining up hoping that there would be some no-shows among the trip’s ticket holders. It seemed a lot of people were eager to get to where I was headed. I arrived in Baguio on Saturday morning, just in time for the start of the grand weekend celebration, and I found it rather enthrallingly strange to see the city bustling with such festive agitation and colorful exuberance. Contingencies of parade performers, garbed in bright costumes and decorations, assembled along the upper end of historic Session Road. Traffic was being redirected, and along the parade route, makeshift food stalls and roadside restaurants were treating visitors and parade-goers to open-air buffets. I was hoping to leave my backpack somewhere and just tote my camera, but it was pretty obvious that I had no time to look for a safe deposit box amid all the commotion of people and events. So, I just quickly unpacked my camera and started shooting away. The air was thick and the crowd much thicker; the whole atmosphere of the place was abuzz with anticipation for the start of the parade. It was bright and hot despite the cool climate.
It was rather strange to see Baguio and its people in this exuberantly colorful and festive mood. I have always known the place to be picturesque in a rustic way, with its own laid-back pace of city life that is far removed from the frenetic buzz and clamor of metropolitan Manila. Baguio was a fair-weather city where crowds were sparse and the day went by easily, almost somnolently  its people rather reserved and unmindful of others’ affairs. Looking through the lens of my camera, I still somehow managed to catch a glimpse of that old Baguio that I knew when I took a picture of a girl dressed as a flower. She had a cool air of restrained simplicity about her, which was very attractive and which I have always thought I saw in the people of the city. She regarded me rather sheepishly and struck a shy, reticent pose as I took the picture. Still, she retained an unaffected composure. But as I took the camera away from my eyes, I saw that the city had changed much. Crowds were everywhere, and the sides of the road were jam-packed with throngs of people scuttling and moving about.
I tried to make my way through the crowds, hoping to find good vantage points further down the parade route. But the mass of spectators along the sidewalks was much too thick and claustrophobically tight, so I found it extremely difficult to worm my way through. I took a detour along the back streets, hoping that whatever innately good sense of direction that I thought I had would lead me out to a favorable spot along the main parade route along Session Road. But no matter where I turned, the entire length of Session Road was packed with people. The crowd was like a wall that you couldn’t get through. Not bothering to brave the ordeal of squirming my way through the crowd, I decided that I had already taken enough good shots, and that it was better to pack up and save my efforts for another parade to be held the next day.
It was the second day of the grand weekend celebration, and already I was at the assembly area where colorful floats decked all over with flowers and other various sorts blossoms and garlands were lining up for the start of the parade. It wasn’t exactly the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, but some of the floats were nonetheless elaborately creative and exquisitely crafted. I exhausted several rolls of film just going around the assembly area, trying to capture images of people losing themselves in the spirit of the moment. The parade then got started, and I decided that my time in the assembly area already gave me enough material. As it was during the previous day, the parade route this day was no less incomprehensibly packed with people.
The week following the grand weekend celebration, the entire length of Session Road was closed off, and all along the street, a plenitude of stalls plying assorted commodities and merchandise were set up. Everywhere, people were crowding, and the air was charged with an intoxicating mélange of sights, sounds and smells. At night, Baguio was wide awake in its festive tumult. All throughout the city, people were out grabbing a piece of the nightlife. I noticed that more bars were set up and jammed so full that people had to wait in long lines, even past midnight, just to get in. The affluent crowd in their fancy clothes and fancy cars were flaunting their style along the hip strips, while in Burnham Park, the more common masses were flocking to night markets, open-air carnivals, and public band performances. For several nights, fireworks danced across the city sky, and people tore their attention away from their affairs to see the crackling resonance of lights. I have never seen Baguio so alive.
Baguio has greatly moved on, and all the childhood images I had of it have become so distant and alien. The once capacious streets have become crowded, more establishments have been built, and the people have surrendered to the more progressive if rather ostentatious lifestyle of the big city. I felt both a soft pang of nostalgia for the Baguio that was and a quiet exhilaration for the Baguio that is. But as they say, the only thing that is permanent in life is change. And just like me, the city has changed. I have changed.