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Labor day, summer season, a month to celebrate and give appreciation to our mothers. Whenever May comes around, those aforementioned usually come to mind. It is seldom that we think about May as also the time to honor and remember our cultural heritage, both local and national.
By virtue of Proclamation No. 439, series of 2003, the month of May of every year was declared as National Heritage Month to promote, conserve, and popularize our historical culture. This year's theme "Heritage: Change and Continuity," emphasizes the dynamic nature of heritage as constantly evolving and changing.
Just in time for the celebration, the Baguio Heritage Foundation Incorporated (BHFI) kickstarted their 2023 Lecture Series: Baguio City as Heritage City with a discussion on Baguio as a university town.
History Professor Charita Delos Reyes opened the lecture with a stern clarification: a university town is more than just a town with universities. Rather, to be considered as such, the culture created by colleges and academic institutions must exert a dominant influence over the character of the community.
She explained that the concept entails the interconnectedness of three primary elements - the community, business and education sector. The three affect one another and thus cannot be separated in a university town. "If you do not have impact," Delos Reyes said, "then you are just a university in a city. That is the reason why you have to make yourself visible. Relate more to the Baguio community or the Baguio business sector."
Delos Reyes also pointed out that Baguio has 21 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), 19 of which are private. She mentioned that when there are no classes during summer, jeepney lines and restaurant businesses are greatly affected as there are no students. The apartelle industry is also one of the lifebloods of the city for the same reason.
Other indicators of a university town are whether colleges are the biggest employers, if there is high enrollment in them compared to the entire town population, and if there is a high percentage of the labor force that works in the education sector.
Baguio School, King’s Camp School, and Mrs. Kelly’s School from the 1900s were among the pioneer schools in the town. The Baguio City National High School, Baguio Central School, Anglican-Episcopalian Schools —Easter School, Baguio School for American Boys, and Cathedral Schools for American Girls, and Assumption Sisters Schools —St. Mary's Primary college and St. Martin's School were also among the oldest academic institutions in Baguio.
Among the audience during the talk was Zenaida Hamada-Pawid, a Cordilleran and one of the authors of "A People's History of Benguet." She herself was a student in one of the pioneer schools in Baguio and later became a public school teacher.
"The lecture gives a very different dimension to what we grew up in. And to me, that is the heritage of Baguio as a university town from the very beginning. When you talk about heritage, you talk about the people," she said.
Hamada-Pawid continued, “All of this has to be passed as heritage.” She also reiterated the importance of remembering and talking about our heritage. According to her, through lectures like this “we will understand why we are who we are.”
The university town lecture is only the first in the BHFI'S lecture series, which hopes to organize 6 lectures until the end of the year. It is set to run from May to December 2023.
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