Baguio City — Long celebrated as the country’s cultural and educational hub, Baguio City is facing a growing crisis beneath its postcard-perfect image: the steady erosion of its creative soul. A recent UN-Habitat quality of life report reveals a stark imbalance in the city’s development priorities, exposing how the arts have been sidelined and commodified in favor of tourism-driven growth.
The report paints a tale of two cities. On one hand, Baguio’s education sector stands out as its strongest pillar, with an education score of 87 and a 94 percent education completion rate—figures that underscore the strength of its academe and student population. On the other, Culture, Recreation, and Community Participation scored a troubling 34, highlighting a severe lack of institutional support for the city’s creative and cultural life.
This disparity is more than statistical. It reflects a deeper structural problem in which art is treated primarily as a marketable product for tourists rather than as a living expression of the city’s identity. Cultural outputs are increasingly shaped by what sells, not by what sustains communities, resulting in shallow and repetitive representations of Baguio’s heritage.
Local art, once rooted in lived experience and community narratives, is now often repackaged into sanitized, commercial forms. The consequence is a creative landscape that feels disconnected from its origins—described by critics as soulless and hollow, designed for consumption rather than cultural continuity.
The tourism industry’s dominance has also taken a social toll. Residents are left alienated from their own cultural spaces, while artists struggle to find platforms that value integrity over profitability. Without meaningful investment in creative infrastructure, the city risks losing the very authenticity that made it attractive in the first place.
The UN-Habitat findings serve as a warning. A city cannot thrive on education alone while neglecting the cultural ecosystems that give meaning to knowledge and place. Arts and culture are not decorative extras; they are fundamental to community cohesion, identity, and long-term sustainability.
For Baguio to reclaim its cultural integrity, a shift in priorities is needed. This means investing in arts education beyond the classroom, providing sustained support for local artists, and empowering community-led cultural initiatives that resist purely commercial agendas.
If the city continues to treat its arts merely as tourist commodities, it may gain short-term revenue—but at the cost of its soul. The challenge now is whether Baguio chooses to be a city that sells culture, or one that truly lives it.