Roberto Villanueva, Shunto Verdun, Jaime and Anne de Guzman, and Diokno Pasilan went down from their paradise in Sagada. Boy Yuchengco was still on his way there.

Then, there were the homegrown talents like Tommy Hafalla, Rene Aquitania, Wig Tysman, Mike Parsons, Inyong Geslani, Perry Mamaril and the guys from Tahong Bundok (mostly members of the Rugged Brush). An obscure group known as the Blank, starring Hec Cruz and Grace Nono, was still singing in a Mexican bar known as Gringo's. In a few months, the customers realized that they were not singing about slow mańanas and Speedy Gonzales but reggae and Bob Marley. In a few months, ex-Mayor Jun Labo would declare that their music was not of this world (considering Labo is a faith healer) and they were creating a nuisance. The Blank would have to go. They would find a home with the balikbayan artists, jamming at the basement of La Azotea.

In 1987, the Baguio artists staged monthly group shows that would blow your mind. "Maybe it had to do with the long lull from the Marcos regime and the hope for Cory [Aquino]," Bose said. "Of course, the hope turned out to be false."

They, with their long hair, colorful loose pants, and weird-smelling cigarettes, were also declared by Labo as nuisances.

So the artists decided to hold their stand and let the mountains come to them by creating the Baguio Arts Guild (BAG) and holding their 1st Baguio International Arts Festival (BAF) in 1988. The residents didn't know what hit them.

There would be Rene Aquitania suspending himself for days over a battlefield of toy soldiers at Amapola Café. A marathon of Kidlat Tahimik films and shorts from Raymond Red. Katrene de Guia's installation of TV sets like luminescent ponds. Pepito Bosch stealing the show with his mere presence. A UP Baguio college production of the new Japanese theater form known as butoh. Villanueva's painting of lizards blown up like Komodo dragons, so frightening that kids started stomping on them.

But in the succeeding years, despite the initial shock, the Baguio people began to love and even emulate them. Perry Mamaril, Leonardo Aguinaldo, John Frank Sabado, Jordan Mang-osan and many others would form the second wave of Baguio artists.

Santi Bose, the first BAG president, said that the Cultural Center of the Philippines made the guild their template in decentering art in the Philippines. There are now about 40 art guilds all over the country. For exuberance and dynamism, nothing beats the Mindanao guilds. So what made the BAG succeed as a template where others became merely wishy-washy, artsy-fartsy relics?

BenCab once said that there is a need for a solid academic discourse to know what the rules and theories are - so you would know what rules to break and what theories to disprove later. The original avatars of the BAG like Bose, BenCab, Villanueva, Kathrene de Guia and Magtibay have solid academic backgrounds in the arts. Kidlat of course got his Business Masters from Wharton. They were already accomplished artists when they organized the BAG. Also, these artists have connections in the art world, enough to fill up galleries at short notice. And they have the clout and confidence to square up with foreign artists.

Environment is another advantage. Bose said that Baguio is the gateway to the Cordilleras, a place so rich in culture. "It is just on the doorstep of all the arts and rituals of the Cordilleras. It is also just beside Ilocos which is equally rich in culture, but in a wholly different manner," he said.

Another crucial factor is the communtiy's acceptance. Artists will always be misunderstood wherever they go but it helps that Baguio is a university town and students are more or less receptive to the quirky artisty feel. Despite the initial "no room at the inn" reception for the BAG, the city government gave them the basement of the Convention Center as their headquarters, and residents came to recognize the artists as an integral part of the community. And the artists reciprocated. After the devastating 1990 earthquake, the artists showed their mettle. They put up a soup kitchen for the hungry and stranded at the Café by the Ruins. Villanueva set up his Atang ti Kararua which later became an annual ritual for those killed in the disaster. The BAG became a leading member of the Baguio NGO Congress which set up a framework of the city's recovery.

The 1990 Baguio Arts Festival was memorable because it focused on art as a form of healing for the city and its residents. The 1992 BAF featured the participation of Sagada Artists and Fil-Am groups like Mahal and Kulintang - a theater group from Mindanao that traveled four days by boat and bus just to attend. Enrico Labayen demonstrated that Filipino dancers can do a Nijinsky and Merce Cunningham, and not just tinikling and singkil. Mindanao's Kaliwat teamed up with Australia's Gonghouse for a fine cross-cultural collaboration.

The 1995 BAF was not as slam-bang as past festivals, mainly because of the lack of funding. Then director Kidlat instead came out with a mini-arts festival focusing on the younger set of Baguio-brewed artists. In the next year, Baguio City Hall was renovated and the Convention Center had to be used as temporary office for the city government. The BAG moved out.

Without a place, BAG members simply went their different ways. BenCab built his Tam-awan Village and the artists who joined him included Mangosan, Rishab and Kigao Rosimo. Hafalla and Magtibay had their headquarters at Biscotti et Cocolat at Nevada Square. Bose built his speaker company. Joke. He actually went to Australia and back to the US for art fellowships, leaving trails of his works like Hansel. Others went to Manila. Tahimik settled in Hapao. Aquitania disappeared.

"It's not that the artists were fighting. It's just that the enthusiasm and camaraderie weren't there anymore," Bose said.

However, the turn of the millennium saw whatever remnants of the BAG split even further. Bose came back to Baguio, but he eventually left the BAG and founded a smaller, simpler arts group called Fish Eye Art Projects. Bose passed away in 2002.

The artists of Baguio continue to work and to create, although they are not as united and single-mindedly focused as in the time of the BAG's heyday. Aspiring artists continue to emerge every year, what with the new generations growing up in a city - an artists colony, where art is now a part of everyday life.

One of the most memorable BAG shows, still talked about today, was the welcoming of the Year of the Dragon in 1988. The members banded together, clad in broken mirrors, and went out onto the streets, menacing pedestrians with their own reflections. Now it is time for us to reflect on the past and the future of Baguio art. Share this cyber-tapuy with me. To Santi, Robert, Topepits, Sinai and the rest, kayo kayo. Shot shot.

By FRANK CIMATU