The Cold War in the Coldest City in the Philippines: Revisiting the Baguio Conference of 1950

The historiographic literature that governs Baguio is often from the lens of indigenous and

colonial heritage. There is, however, a need for reconstructing its historical significance withing postcolonial history. Baguio, a successful American colonial project, played a principal role in the direction of postcolonial history not only of the Philippines but the larger Asia-Pacific. This paper explores the importance of the 1950 Baguio Conference in the history of the Cold War in Southeast Asia. A liberal undertaking of selected nations from Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, the Baguio Conference, however, can be interpreted as a step forward in advancing the promotion of a free world against potential communist aggression, or in the words of Romulo, a “collective effort to swing the balance on the side of peace.” I argue that at the height of the Cold War, the Baguio Conference was as salient as the Asia Relations Conference (1947) and the Bandung Conference (1955) in dictating the future of Asia in postcolonial history. This paper also hopes to provide another layer of understanding Cold War history away from the capital, Manila, therefore, decentralizing Cold War history in the Philippines.