The old man and the Club (PI)

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

The old man and the Club
Sunday, 01 09, 2005

A sign in the exclusive club in the city the Americans had carved up in the Cordilleras once read: “No natives and dogs allowed.” And if either one made the mistake of venturing into the premises, they received a hearty kick in the butt or a load of buckshot from a double barreled shotgun. Notwithstanding that the entire countryside had been their own since time immemorial, the natives - Igorots and Ibalois - could not so much as set foot on that patch of earth which the white-skinned colonists prettified and called the Baguio Country Club.

It was under this racist environment that, in the 1920s, a young man watched in seething anger as a relative, who was neither native nor canine, was mistreated in and shooed out of the club by the Americans. He vowed that someday this inequality and discrimination, doubly outrageous because it was being committed right in his homeland, would have to go.

It took the young man thirty years to realize his vow, during which time he had acquired enough shares in the Baguio Country Club, making him a person of consequence able to overturn the club’s discriminatory policy and make amends for the indignities heaped on Filipinos. Potenciano T. Ilusorio even lived long enough to a vigorous old age to savor, with a justifiable sense of accomplishment, a club that has expanded its membership, built a number of additions to its amenities and facilities, and modernized its infrastructure, yet has successfully managed to retain much of the ambience of the Cordilleras: aged but still pristine in the bosom of mother nature.

To this day, the Baguio Country Club - three years after the death at 89 of this man whom friends affectionately called Nanoy - continues to be the living legacy of the individual who transformed this erstwhile 25-member white man’s bastion into a Filipino institution.

Up to his death in 2001 Nanoy was president for life and chairman emeritus of the Baguio Country Club, and in the 27 years that Nanoy had been president the Club steadily underwent a renaissance - a transformation of sorts, if one prefers the understated.

The Club now boasts of a five-storey modern edifice, standing over the ruins of the old clubhouse that was gutted by fire in 1990. The new clubhouse, a five-star hotel like no other, stands as Nanoy’s legacy to the Filipino people. Nanoy had shouldered the substantial seed money for construction, and arranged for the loan that finally enabled the clubhouse to stand in its own magnificence amidst the pines that have, thankfully, been preserved upon the insistence of Nanoy who was an avowed environmentalist.

In dedication ceremonies last Dec. 29, the City of Baguio honored this extraordinary man, one of its adopted sons, with a bust by Baguio artist Tito Sanchez, and by legislative fiat proclaimed that “Nanoy Ilusorio Drive” shall henceforth be the name of that kilometer-long road abutting the Club towards John Hay (another exclusive American resort of old).

In 1990, soon after the Clubhouse was razed to the ground following the quake that levelled much of Baguio, Nanoy took me in as his counsel in a court case he had with the Benguet Electric Cooperative. We won that that case not only on the merit of our cause, but also on the realization by BENECO, then represented by Atty. Edilberto Tenefrancia, of the rightful causes that Nanoy and The Club represented and had to fight for. In a fitting tribute to the man whom he faced off in court fifteen years before, Tenefrancia, now a city councilor, took it upon himself to sponsor the ordinance renaming the former Country Club Road as Nanoy Ilusorio Drive and, together with City Mayor Braulio Yaranon, led in the dedication of Nanoy’s bust at the entry to that road. Among those present and rejoicing on that occasion was Richard Cariño, a descendant of the native owners of the land where The Club and John Hay now stand.

In a sense, the Nanoy Ilusorio Drive symbolizes the triumph of the natives over their erstwhile racist colonizers: the latter must now traverse a road owned by, and in the name of, the natives. The bust, made of bronze, in addition to honoring the man, symbolizes the riches of the natives, their creativity, their fortitude against the haughty colonizer.

Carrying on the legacy of their father are Nanoy’s offspring. In celebration of The Club’s centennial, Nanoy, wherever he is now in Golfer’s Heaven, will be terribly pleased with the preparations cooked up by his children and the many friends he left behind. Here is a club like no other that, despite its colonial origins, stands for everything Filipino. Here is a club that immortalizes the fortitude and openness of the natives of the Cordilleras.

Last New Year’s Eve - after a round over the Club’s 18-hole golf course, a par 61 lay-out personally designed by Nanoy - I did not only feel Nanoy’s presence at the fireplace in the hotel lobby where we used to meet. Rather, I sat down again and made merry with him reminiscing the old days. Sharing that warm glow with me was Maxi, a spitting image of his dad with the hair on, who is as determined as his dad had been to make the Baguio Country Club a place where everyone could stay - with no restrictions on natives and dogs ever.

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