Among all vacation destinations that are two hundred fifty kilometers from the National Capital Region (NCR), Baguio City is the most popular. It is even more popular than many places much nearer to the NCR. The closest competitor may be Tagaytay City (founded as a city on June 21, 1938) nestled between Cavite and Batangas in the Southern Tagalog/CALABARZON Region/Region IV – A.
Among all vacation destinations that are two hundred fifty kilometers from the National Capital Region (NCR), Baguio City is the most popular. It is even more popular than many places much nearer to the NCR. The closest competitor may be Tagaytay City (founded as a city on June 21, 1938) nestled between Cavite and Batangas in the Southern Tagalog/CALABARZON Region/Region IV – A.
My maternal grandparents, Atty. Gregorio Araneta y Soriano and Carmen Zaragoza y Roxas, had 14 children and 52 grandchildren. They had a house, named “Villa Carmelita”, on a hectare of land along Leonard Wood Road in Baguio before World War II. In the mid 1950’s, my Titas, Teresa and Tina, built houses at the site of their parents’ house that was destroyed during the liberation of Baguio in 1945. My mother, Rosa, also received a portion of the site but she did not build a house. PKP/HUKBALAHAP developed their mass base in Central Luzon. After the war, the ruined economy and the communist rebellion stymied the rebirth of local tourism. Central Luzon was both the birthplace and bailiwick of the PKP/Hukbong Magpapalaya ng Bayan (HMB, formerly the HUKBALAHAP).
On the other hand, the route to Tagaytay City passed through Cavite. Cavite was the hotbed of banditry throughout the 1950’s. When we used to go to Cavite or Tagaytay Cities, we made sure that we were back in Las Pinas, Rizal, before dark. My uncle, then Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Finance Administration (ACCFA) Administrator Vicente Araneta y Zaragoza in the Magsaysay Administration was kidnapped in Maragondon, Cavite. The family paid out P50,000 to the kidnappers for his freedom.
Fifty years later, when I was with Erap, we brought a couple of busloads of Erap supporters to the site of the Bonifacio brothers’ martyrdom in Maragondon. The town Mayor sent his history consultant to guide us. By a stroke of pure coincidence it turned out that he was the ACCFA employees who had been with my uncle during the kidnapping.
The lawlessness in Cavite was personified by “Nardong Putik”, Leonardo Malihan Manicio (March 25, 1923 – October 10, 1971). Among his better - known exploits were the 1952 Maragondon Massacre of the Mayor, Police Chief and several policemen, the 1957 Election Day killing of the Cavite PC Provincial Commander and seven others and the February 10, 1971, killing of two NBI agents in Imus, Cavite.
Even before the surrender of Huk Supremo Luis Mangalus Taruc (June 21, 1913 – May 4, 2005) on May 17, 1954, (through President Ramon Magsaysay’s representatives, Manuel Manahan and Benigno Aquino, Jr.) the PKP/HMB had been much weakened by the capture of the Politburo and the entire General Secretariat including Jose Lava on October 18, 1950.
For three straight summers in 1954, 1955 and 1956, my family went to Baguio. I was five and a half years old and about to enter Prep at Nena Garcia’s Kindergarten on Apo St., Santa Mesa Heights, Q. C. in 1954. We stayed at the official government summer cottage assigned to my uncle, Atty. Salvador “Badong” Araneta y Zaragoza as the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR). He had his own house in Baguio. That is why he let us and our cousins, the Albert y Aranetas, stay there.
We may have bumped into Imelda Romualdez y Trinidad and Ferdinand Marcos y Edralin that summer. Ferdie first met Meldy on April 6, 1954. Very soon after she went on summer vacation to Baguio. He pursued her to Baguio where she was staying with her uncle in one of the cottages on Cabinet Hill. They got married on April 17, 1954.
The following year, together with our New Manila neighbors, the Morenos, we rented a house at Campo Sioco near Dominican Hill. We used the house for a month by each of our families. My mother, my Ate Binggay and I stayed there. My brothers and my Ate Nena stayed with the Alberts at Leonard Wood. In 1956, my mother and I stayed at the Pines Hotel. Ate Binggay, stayed with the Singhs at Leonard Wood. We did not build a house on our portion of the Villa Carmelita property.
(To be continued)