The Ifugao’s Banaue Hotel

The old lament of the promdi, or those who were born and live where the country begins, is they hardly, if ever, get to lay their hands on their fair share of the nation’s bounty because it’s hogged by their smart and greedy city cousins.

Even today when education has reduced the sophistication gap between provincial and urban dwellers, the promdi always get the short end in the rivalry over opportunities with city slickers who have superior resources and connections.

This is the context of the apprehension now gripping the Ifugao: the very real threat that they will lose control of a crown jewel of their race, a dream achievement they brought to reality with daring and sacrifice—Banaue Hotel, an inspiring Cordillera landmark.

There is a move, now in its advanced stage, to privatize the hotel’s operations. Makati-based investment players and property developers have reportedly begun lining up for the project bidding. It is speculated that privatization of the operations is a first step toward the real objective—the sale of the hotel.

Banaue Hotel was conceived early in 1970 simultaneous with the construction of the 100-kilometer Lamut-Banaue highway. The highway, it was projected, would bring in tourists to view the world-famous Ifugao rice terraces, hence the need to build a hotel with amenities fit for both local visitors and foreign travelers.

But where to get the money for it? Ifugao was a freshly minted province barely able to raise funds for its basic operational requirements. I was its first governor, myself a greenhorn in public service suddenly tasked to bring an ambitious project to reality.

I worked in a PR and advertising agency before entering public service, and part of my involvement in the agency was fund-raising. I discovered there was not much difference between raising funds for a worthy private cause (like an anticancer drive) and a public cause (like building a structure that will benefit the community). Both require plain knowledge of buttons to push and friends to cultivate.

The first supporter of my Fund-Banaue-Hotel campaign was my good friend and fellow Jaycee, Greg Araneta, since deceased, then board chair of Travel and Tourist Industry. He whispered conspiratorially to me when I called on him for help: “There’s a reserve fund for a development project on Corregidor. It will not be used for a long time yet. Let’s divert it.”

So we prepared a proposal for the reprogramming of the idle Corregidor fund to the urgent Banaue project and presented it to then President Ferdinand Marcos, who approved it. And in one fell swoop the hotel project was fully funded.

We, the people of Ifugao, went through many aches and pains before the hotel became ready for its inauguration and grand opening late in 1970, which, sadly, I was unable to attend. A few nights before inauguration we had a long meeting at the hotel to finalize details. Going home, I met an unfortunate, painful and tragic event which I do not wish to detail.

I went to great lengths to tell relevant details about the building of Banaue Hotel in order to highlight the Ifugao’s stake in it. In plain terms, we want privatization of its operations not to be a mechanism to rob the Ifugao of their source of joy and pride but an opportunity to show that they can be entrepreneurs. Give the Ifugao first crack at running and eventually owning it.

Banaue Hotel belongs to the Ifugao; let it stay with the Ifugao!

Gualberto B. Lumauig (lumauigbert@yahoo.com) is a past president of the UST Philosophy and Letters Foundation, and a former governor and representative of Ifugao.