The new Mt. Cloud Bookshop
‘Book Haul’ by Cecil Robin Singalaoa, watercolor on cotton rag paper, 2020, 4×6 inches
Text and photos by Elizabeth Lolarga
Historian Ambeth Ocampo came out strongly about the need for every regional city in the country to have its own independent bookstore, citing Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Baguio. With a following of 30,000 on Facebook alone, Cloud, as it is fondly called, recently staged a ritual for moving from its No. 1 Yangco Road location to its new old digs on the lower ground floor of Tulip’s Place, 3 C. M. Recto Road, with community members dancing to the rhythm of gongs while holding up altars for 20 important Cordillera books.
Leading the caravan activity called Bagkat Aklat along Leonard Wood Road were the shop owners and moving spirits, Padma and Feliz Perez, with Padma’s youngest child Aila. Queueing behind them were book lovers and the city’s creatives holding up scrawled messages like “The Creative City We Want,” “Books Are Magical,” “Love Local, Read Local,” “Local for Local” and more.
This first group met up halfway with another line of participants who passed the book altars one at a time until they reached their new home.
But before the street jamming took place, Cloud ensured that the assembly points, final route, role assignments, crowd safety, and other details would be mapped out through a Google meeting of volunteers and participants. Padma said she was inspired by similar moving rituals she saw on video held by US and Australia indie bookstores.
Pink cloud stickers that serve as signages leading to the lower ground floor shop
The event drew senior citizens and babies alike and all the in-betweens. The little ones were also passed around from one doting adult to another. I stood with the other seniors under the 3 o’clock afternoon sun and used the complimentary white, with a dash of the pink Cloud logo, bandana to protect my head. Later, I opened my umbrella as we waited for the altars to arrive.
Actor-director Karlo Altomonte preparing to pass on the altar of a children’s book
Guests, owner, and staff celebrate the moving with a Cordillera dance.
Gingerly, we passed the cardboard altar to the next in the line until it reached inside the shop. As people climbed down to its new location, gongs played non-stop, and soon an impromptu dance circle, formed with arms outstretched and hands open, following the Cordillera custom. A joyful Padma was among the dancers.
Feliz offered boiled sweet potatoes from a tray, traditional celebratory fare. The buffet table also groaned with boiled bananas, pancit, lumpiang Shanghai, sans rival, egg salad in dinner rolls from Café by the Ruins, coffee, water.
A laughing and well-covered Becky Luyk receives the altar of the ground-breaking book ‘Tiw-tiwong.’
Yes, the shop boasts more shelves for books, zines, stationery (I was the buena mano as I stocked up on postcards and stickers, while the assistants fanned the goods and their heads with the one-thousand peso bill I paid, wishing good fortune to their beloved enterprise). There were rooms for workshops, an elevated area for children’s literature.
The blue door
What struck me was the color of the front (back?) door, which Padma described as “peacock blue.” It was restful to the eyes as one sat in the small garden. May it bode well for literature and literacy as guests and customers enter through it.
Busy Recto Road, location of Baguio’s beloved indie bookstore
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