I'm Heading to Baguio and I'm not Crazy!

Despite the inclement weather, I’m hurriedly making preparations to join the UA&P contingent to the PASSA National Youth Congress in Baguio. Now before my friends and loved ones start accusing me of everything from sadomasochism to aberrantly low intellectual behavior (stupidity), let me assure everyone that I have been monitoring the weather reports and have been continually confirming and re-confirming travel plans with the proper people. Still, I must confess that I’m approaching this trip to Baguio with a healthy dose of fear, and oddly, warm sentiment.

But briefly, let me describe what PASSA is, so I can explain at length why I harbor such warm feelings towards it. The Philippine Association of Secondary School Administrators (PASSA) holds an annual youth congress in Baguio City where teachers and students from both public and private secondary schools gather for three or four days of substantive seminars, workshops, and fellowship activities.

When I first came to teach in UA&P in 1997, I was selected to accompany a group of students and faculty members who were going to serve as facilitators for the proceedings. I must confess, at this point, that I have always had fond memories of Baguio, since my parents would take my sisters and I up to The City of Flowers regularly when we were younger. My sisters and I would have great fun in Baguio: horseback riding, playing mini-golf at the old Camp John Hay, then gorging on ice cream at the ice cream shop right beside the mini-golf course, roller skating, hiking, making our annual pilgrimage for strawberry jam at the Good Shepherd Compound, generally knitting body, mind, and spirit together. Since then, I’ve always associated Baguio with a sense of crisp freshness, and renewal. Baguio was where people went to be people again.

The PASSA facilitators are generally a great bunch of people; how couldn’t they be, since my sisters normally served as facilitators? Still, it was great working with people who tried hard to render infectiously enthusiastic service during the day, and labored mightily to exhaust themselves in raucous recreation later at night. These late-night escapades, I remember, served to validate our day. Partly due to our relative youth, and partly because of the cold, we never seemed to run out of energy, either at night or during the day. I remember patronizing a homey, folksy bar/sing-along joint on top of Shakey’s with Chiqui Reyes, Jun Peñaverde, Monique Escueta and company, where the aforementioned balladeers regaled the assembled crowd with terrific renditions of local, folk, and jazz hits. I remember Javi de Ubago, before throwing in his contribution to the impromptu bonfire at Teachers Camp, pronounce with all the solemnity of a church service “For world peace, pare”. I remember my sister Joey never letting Javi forget about the inappropriateness of wishing for world peace when everyone else was happily toasting to less serious things. I remember Joey never letting Javi forget that she knows that he wears the same pair of jeans everyday.

I also remember sitting down in awe as my former teacher, Mr. Pagsi, delivered a magnificent, truly magisterial talk to thousands. Mr. Pagsi was so powerful, so moving, and so effortlessly eloquent that not a single participant went to the bathroom in the two hours in which he delivered his talk. I remember Dean Antonio Torralba, despite his great fatigue, and the numerous minor difficulties which popped up every once in a while, normally at the most inconvenient times, go about with more than his usual display of grace and good cheer. I remember looking forward to coming back, year after year, because this was the closest a teacher in the Philippines could get to an actual Teachers’ Mecca.

Just earlier as I was excitedly panicking over the weather and the road conditions, Dean Torralba gently reminded me that “Baguio is in a state of calamity, not ruinous chaos”. The same can be said of me now. With all the preparations for the opening of our pre-school, the preparations for Juan’s 2nd birthday, the fact that Tina’s delivering this September (and all the attendant little complications that come with it), and all, I consider it a blessing to be called to serve at PASSA. Baguio, here I come!