Fil-Jap group to build Igorot park in Baguio

BAGUIO CITY – A unique “Igorot park’’ will soon rise here as city officials and descendants of Japanese laborers who built the century-old Kennon Road have started working for the development of the park located at a city lot above the zig-zag portion of the historic and scenic Kennon road.

Led by Japanese Consul-General Carlos Teraoka, the Japanese assured City Mayor Bernardo Vergara that the R2.9 million project will be funded by the benefactors from Japan.

They expect the two-phased park project to be finished in 2003, in conjunction with the centennial of the building of the main route to the country’s summer capital.

The Igorot park project will be undertaken by the Filipino-Japanese Association of Northern Luzon which also constructed in 1989 a motorist’s viewdeck on a bluff overtaking the zig-zagging highway.

Kennon road was formerly called Benguet Road, until the highway was carved under the direction of United States Army Maj. Lyman Kennon, and historians said that this triggered the economic development of Baguio City as a Summer capital.

The Kennon Road’s construction was reported to have cost some $2 million.

Mayor Vergara has approved earlier this year a 400-meter eco-trail project linking the viewdeck to the zig-zag road.

Vergara said that four kiosks representative of Igorot tribal huts will also be built, together with a replica of the famous cave in Sagada, Mt. Province, a parking space and restrooms, terraces, landscaping, picnic facilities and a commemoration marker.

[ Kennon Road Wiki ]