Template:Wp-Baguio City-History

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Pre-colonial period

Baguio used to be a vast mountain zone with lush highland forests, teeming with various wildlife such as the indigenous deer, cloud rats, Philippine eagles, Philippine warty pigs, and numerous species of flora. The area was a hunting ground of the indigenous peoples, notably the Ibalois and other Igorot ethnic groups. When the Spanish arrived in the Philippines, the area was never fully subjugated by Spain due to the intensive defense tactics of the indigenous Igorots of the Cordilleras.

Igorot oral history states the Benguet upper class, baknang, was founded between 1565 and the early 1600s, by the marriage of a gold trader, Amkidit, and a Kankanay maiden gold panning in Acupan. Their son, Baruy, discovered a gold deposit in the area, which he developed with hired workers and slaves.^[1]

Spanish colonial period

In 1755, the Augustinian Fray Pedro de Vivar established a mission in Tonglo (Tongdo) outside Baguio. Before he was driven out the following year, this rancheria included 220 people, including several baknang families. The Spanish tried to regain the mission in 1759, but were ambushed. This prompted the Governor General Pedro Manuel de Arandía Santisteban to send Don Manuel Arza de Urrutia on a punitive expedition, which resulted in the mission being burned to the ground.^[1]

During the period of Spanish rule in 1846, the Spaniards established a comandancia in the nearby town of La Trinidad, and organized Benguet into 31 rancherías, one of which was Kafagway, a wide grassy area where the present Burnham Park is situated. Kafagway was then a minor rancheria consisting of only about 20 houses. Most of the lands in Kafagway were owned by Mateo Cariño, who served as its chieftain. The Spanish presidencia, which was located at Bag-iw at the vicinity of Guisad Valley was later moved to Cariño's house where the current city hall stands. Bag-iw, a local term for "moss" once abundant in the area was spelled by the Spaniards as Baguio, which served as the name of the rancheria.^[2]

During the Philippine Revolution in July 1899, Filipino revolutionary forces under Pedro Paterno liberated La Trinidad from the Spaniards and took over the government, proclaiming Benguet as a province of the new Philippine Republic. Baguio was converted into a "town", with Mateo Cariño being the presidente (mayor).^[2][3]

American colonial period

When the United States occupied the Philippines after the Spanish–American War, Baguio was selected to become the summer capital of the then Philippine Islands. Governor-General William Taft, on his first visit in 1901, noted the "air as bracing as Adirondacks or Murray Bay..."

In 1903, Filipinos, Japanese and Chinese workers were hired to build Kennon Road, the first road directly connecting Baguio with the lowlands of La Union and Pangasinan. Before this, the only road to Benguet was Naguilian Road, and it was largely a horse trail at higher elevations. Camp John Hay was established on October 25, 1903, after President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order setting aside land in Benguet for a military reservation for the United States Army. It was named after Roosevelt's Secretary of State, John Milton Hay.

The Mansion, built in 1908, served as the official residence of the American Governor-General during the summer to escape Manila's heat. The Mansion was designed by architect William E. Parsons based on preliminary plans by architect Daniel Burnham.

Burnham, one of the earliest successful modern city planners, designed the mountain retreat following the tenets of the City Beautiful movement. In 1904, the rest of the city was planned out by Burnham. On September 1, 1909, Baguio was declared as a chartered city and nicknamed the "Summer Capital of the Philippines".

The succeeding period saw further developments of and in Baguio with the construction of Wright Park in honor of Governor-General Luke Edward Wright, Burnham Park in honor of Burnham, Governor Pack Road, and Session Road.

World War II

Prior to World War II, Baguio was the summer capital of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, and the home of the Philippine Military Academy. As such, it was very important in military and political terms. Philippine President Manuel Quezon was even in Baguio when the war began.

On December 8, 1941, 17 Japanese bombers attacked Camp John Hay,as part of the first Japanese air raid on Luzon.

Following the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army used Camp John Hay, an American installation in Baguio, as a military base. The nearby Philippine Constabulary base, Camp Holmes, was used as an internment camp for about 500 civilian enemy aliens, mostly Americans, between April 1942 and December 1944.^[4]

By late March 1945, Baguio was within range of the American and Filipino military artillery. President José P. Laurel of the Second Philippine Republic, a puppet state established in 1943, departed the city on March 22 and reached Taiwan eight days later, on March 30. The remainder of the Second Republic government, along with Japanese civilians, were ordered to evacuate Baguio on March 30. General Tomoyuki Yamashita and his staff then relocated to Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya.

A major offensive to capture Baguio did not occur until April 1945, when the USAFIP-NL's 1st Battalion of the 66th Infantry, attached with the United States Army's 37th Infantry Division, the USAFIP-NL's 2nd Battalion of 66th Infantry, attached with the US 33rd Infantry Division, and the USAFIP-NL's 3rd Battalion of the 66th Infantry, converged on Baguio. By April 27, 1945, the city was liberated and the joint force moved on to liberate the Trinidad valley.^[5]

Baguio is the site of the formal surrender of General Yamashita and Vice Admiral Okochi at Camp John Hay's American Residence in the presence of lieutenant generals Arthur Percival and Jonathan Wainwright.

The 1986 People Power revolution in Baguio

In the wake of the Snap Presidential elections of 1986 antidictatorship organizers were based largely in the Azotea Building midway up session road, and in Cafe Amapola further up Session, on its intersection with Governor Pack road. Because the United States' Armed Forces Radio and Television Network station at Camp John Hay was transmitting news from Manila, they learned early on that the People Power revolution had begun in Manila. Deciding that their locations were too unsafe, they encamped in the courtyard of the Baguio Cathedral, which was located on higher ground.

They were later joined by Lt. Benjamin Magalong, of the Philippine Constabulary detachment in Buguias, Benguet, who had defected from the government, gone to the nearby Central Police Station in Baguio, and disarmed its personnel to prevent any untoward incidents while Baguio City residents continued to gather at the cathedral to protest the abuses of the Marcos administration.^[6]

The Baguio Cathedral, and Session Road adjacent to it, thus became the center of the People Power revolution in Baguio City - paralleling similar protests in Cebu, Davao, Bacolod, Manila, and other major Philippine cities, eventually leading to the ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos on February 25, 1986.^[7]

Creation of the Cordillera Administrative Region

On July 15, 1987, President Corazon Aquino issued Executive Order 220 which created the Cordillera Administrative Region, and made the Highly urbanized city of Baguio its seat of government.^[8]

Various attempts at legally turning the Cordillera Administrative Region into an autonomous region have been pursued, but failed to gather enough public support in two separate autonomy plebiscites.

1990 Luzon earthquake

The 1990 Luzon earthquake ( = 7.7) destroyed some parts of Baguio and the surrounding province of Benguet on the afternoon of July 16, 1990. A significant number of buildings and infrastructure were damaged, including the Hyatt Terraces Plaza, Nevada Hotel, Baguio Park Hotel, FRB Hotel and Baguio Hilltop Hotel; major highways were temporarily blocked due to landslides and pavement breakup; and a number of houses were leveled or severely shaken with numerous casualties.

Some of the fallen buildings were built on or near fault lines; local architects later admitted structural building codes should have been followed more religiously, particularly regarding concrete and rebar standards, and "soft stories." Baguio has been rebuilt with aid from the national government and international donors such as Japan, Singapore and the United States.