Helping heal wounds of Mother Earth

INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON
Inquirer Northern Luzon : Widow helps heal wounds of Earth
By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer Inquirer Northern Luzon
Posted date: April 21, 2009

NATURAL or organic farming has a way of helping Florence Macagne-Manegdeg recover from what she calls a “senseless murder” that left her a widow and to raise by herself two young daughters after her husband, Jose (Pepe), was murdered more than three years ago.

“Our backyard now teems with fruits – peaches, plum, persimmon, papaya; vegetables – soybeans, lettuce, tomatoes; flowers, such as jade, zinnia and vines; and herbal plants,” says Macagne-Manegdeg or Dom-an, as she is called by her family and friends.
With her teenage children, she tends her backyard in her home village in the upland town of Sagada, Mt., Province, where she was born and raised.

“In dabbling in natural farming, I am, in my little way, helping heal the Earth even as farming helps me and my daughters heal our wounds from our tragedy,” says Dom-an, 36.

Pepe, a 37-year-old lay leader of the church-based Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, was shot and killed on November 28, 2005, in San Esteban, Ilocos Sur.
He had just finished briefing farmers on human rights and was waiting for a bus to Metro Manila when he was attacked. He was to fetch his wife, who was arriving from Hong Kong, where she worked as a maid.

Beyond pity, rage

Coming home only to see her husband’s remains in a coffin was tragic enough for Dom-an and her daughters.

“I am through with mourning and grieving, and I have to be strong for my daughters,” she says. “I should no longer dwell in anger and sorrow. I should not fall into the trap of self-pity. I have to move on instead toward my journey of peace and healing.”
Dom-an is exhausting all avenues to seek justice for her husband. She has been writing to and engaging concerned officials in the military, the Commission on Human Rights and some members of Congress, as well as regional and international human rights watchdogs.

But she is also engaged in what she calls “peace and healing initiatives,” which include promoting organic farming and organizing an organic farmers’ cooperative in Sagada.

She says the key movers of the cooperative are widows, families of overseas Filipino workers and women farmers.

Through her backyard garden, Dom-an has helped show that “healthy and joyful” food could be grown the traditional and natural way, especially in Sagada where chemicals and pesticides are used in some commercial vegetable farms.

In helping promote organic farming and the cooperative, Dom-an has to collaborate with the municipal government, community elders, the non-government Montañosa Research and Development Center, and the Episcopalian Church-supported St. Theodore Hospital.

“In the process, I’m also reintegrating with my community, my roots, and this is all part of healing,” she says.

Cultural envoy

In between preparing compost, sowing seeds and planting seedlings, Dom-an also dabbles in indigenous music, particularly the nose flute, which she has been playing since 1993.

The nose flute is spiritually significant for Dom-an because one uses one’s breath to produce music from the indigenous instrument.

Playing the flute, apart from writing poetry and essays, she says, is one of her ways of “communing with our living planet.”

For her music, Dom-an was invited by the Sacred Earth Network to help perform in a “healing music concert” on Saturday at the La Mesa eco-park in Quezon City.

Dom-an always brings along at least two nose flutes and she would play them if given the opportunity, making her a cultural envoy of her hometown.

During the congressional inquiry on human rights issues at the University of the Philippines Baguio last month, she played the nose flute before reading a statement about the circumstances and the impact of the extrajudicial killing of her husband.

On March 28, when many of Baguio’s establishments switched off their lights for “Earth Hour,” Dom-an did a “Spark in the Dark” concert at Bliss Café in the city.

Peace, healing institute

Despite the violent death of her husband, Dom-an is now busy with peace and healing initiatives. Part of her long-term dream is establishing the Kasiyana Peace and Healing Institute.

Besides promoting organic farming and cooperativism, the institute seeks to complement the indigenous restorative justice system of Sagada, which stresses peaceful resolution of conflicts, reconciliation and healing, rather than falling into an endless cycle of violence through vengeful killings and retaliation.

“The institute dreams of helping heal our wounds and those of our very own planet,” says Dom-an.