Contest of Superlatives

We are a country engrossed with contests of superlatives. These superlatives mostly have something to do with size or length. So we have La Trinidad town’s biggest strawberry cake, Dagupan City’s longest bangus (milkfish) grill, and now Baguio City’s longest longganisa (meat sausage). Of course, we are not the first with this idea. Germany, for instance, has had its longest frankfurter.

The sponsors of these displays of the longest or the biggest have their reasons, apart from possibly landing in the Guinness Book of World Records or in Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Through its giant strawberry cake, La Trinidad wants to showcase its strawberry crop. This is the same with Dagupan City, the source of the famous Bonuan bangus. The big guys in Baguio’s longanisa industry also wish to feature a recipe, which, they say, has been concocted since 1946.

By showcasing the longest or biggest, the sponsors seek to draw tourists who are expected to spend their money and help invigorate the local economy. Yes, we need all the gimmicks to help nourish our local economy. We need more guests to check in at our hotels, and to buy our vegetables, peanut brittle, brooms, wood carvings, and souvenir items.

This November, Benguet Province will hold its Adivay festival, which also falls during the province’s founding anniversary. The cutting edge of the Adivay festival is that Benguet people from the 13 towns can exhibit not only the biggest cabbage or squash or the longest cucumber, but also the most variety or diversity of crops.

As expected, the commercial farming towns of Buguias and Atok can come out with the biggest carrot or potato. But other upland towns, which have maintained their traditional crops, can display their wide diversity of sweet potato and other root crops; upland rice of all colors, aroma, texture, and taste; beans and other legumes; and other crops.

In fact, I encourage the provincial government to organize some kind of a competition that can promote diversity. Our diverse crops have been overrun by commercial mono-crops. As a result, our diverse traditional crops, which supply us with a wide array of vital minerals, vitamins, healthy carbohydrates and plant proteins, are under threat of disappearing.

As a child growing up in Kibungan town, I remember looking forward to feasting on a wide variety of native corn, which we would harvest by August. We had yellow, orange, white, violet and multi-colored corn, which would sustain us during the typhoon months. We also had yellow, orange, violet, and yellow-white camote or sweet potato. My grandparents’ rice terraces would also provide us with red, brown, white, and violet rice of all texture and aroma. And we had a wide variety of beans and legumes, which gave us proteins. Much of these diversified crops, including taro or yam, cassava, and bananas, were raised in our nem-a or upland swidden farm, our supermarket.

Unfortunately, much of these traditional food crops that sustained my youth are now, to a large extent, just part of my childhood memories. Much of these native food crops are gone and replaced with mono-crops. Cash-crop agriculture has ruined a more diversified traditional farming, which put a primacy on food self-sufficiency. In Kibungan, for example, the once diversified swidden farms have been replaced with a sea of sayote. Sayote farmers had to sell their sayote before they can buy other foods such as rice, which are mostly sourced from Baguio City.

So in a contest for superlatives, I would suggest something on the most diversified. We need diversity because, as they say, it takes all kinds to make this world.