Ninety-nine years of history are tucked behind Baguio as a chartered city. With another 365 days, she will notch a hundred!

One thing is clear though, we can never regain the Baguio of old. Why, even the climate is not the same. Just like everything else, Baguio has changed. We can harp about her golden years, about how it used to be. Yes, we can reminisce, but to stay transfixed would just be a waste of time. It won’t get us forward.

Baguio is faced with numerous problems, mostly man-made and mostly carried over from years back. So what lies ahead should be what concerns us. The future is here. Baguio’s citizenry will have the say on how she fares, whether she flourishes or flounders. Surely, those truly concerned will do all they can to help Baguio draw near her glory days.

There are valuable lessons to be learned from close to a century of history, none more important now that Baguio is beset with problems. Social responsibility, civility, community spirit that embody our love and concern for the city – being upright citizens, exercising wisely the right to vote, strengthening the family core, educating our children, conserving energy and natural resources, planting trees and keeping our surroundings clean, segregating our garbage, promoting good governance, taking government to task for corrupt practices – will most certainly get us back on track.

The people of Baguio are a proud lot. With faith, they will do what has to be done. With confidence, they embark towards her centennial. Mabuhay Baguio!

(Reprinted from the first Baguio Day editorial of the Baguio Midland Courier, written by its founding editor, Atty. Sinai C. Hamada, c. 01 September 1947)

Baguio is a dream city. It has always been a dreamer’s city. No less than the dream of empire drove the first man crawling up the mountains from the lowlands to reach these cool heights. Long before any Spanish conquistador or American pioneer set foot upon the once rolling prairie land that is now Baguio and Camp John Hay, little brown men were already enjoying what have been basically Baguio’s chief attraction to man: gold and beauty and health.

The same urge has lifted both brown and white men to scale these heights from the coast and plain, the lure of gold, empire, health, and a beautiful dream. All who came thus inspired are here today to be found. This is no table land for retreat. For baser reasons than golden, men have been laid on these hills, exterminated.

It is significant that, the people of the Philippines once more returned their freedom; a native son of Baguio is appointed first Mayor under the Republic. This is the vision of brown and brown. This is all part of the design and dream.

This is not a return to the East, but giving time its natural order, progression from the east to the west. But this is begging and trying to be cryptic.

Suffice it that the builders of Baguio have all been dreamers, Burnham, Halsema, Bayan. So have been the builders of England, America, Russia, Germany, Japan, not their destructionists.

Where one has forgotten to vibrantly dream, she is a sleeping giantess, with false opiate longings. Where one has begun to feel the strength of dream, there is awakening. Behold India, Malaysia. But this is being cryptic again, maybe. Nevertheless we shall at least feel rewarded if this last paragraph will satisfy the demand for national and international comment from our readers in the hinterland.