‘Pepeng’ draws out best in Igorot culture

‘Pepeng’ draws out best in Igorot culture
By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: October 27, 2009

THE SHAKEN EARTH AND floodwaters from Tropical Depression “Pepeng’s” fury may have begun to settle so survivors can now rebuild or relocate homes, replow farms, and repair roads and bridges.

Rehabilitating the damaged infrastructure and property requires billions of pesos, which, officials admit, is a big challenge for a cash-strapped government. The other concern is how to fast-track it so isolated farming communities, such as those in the Cordillera, can resume transporting their chayotes, cabbages, carrots and potatoes.

But there is yet a bigger issue: How to restore hope among orphaned survivors whose dreams were snatched when their elders were buried in landslides or drowned in floodwaters?

The good news is that in all these challenges, something in the culture of northern Luzon folk has not changed. The trait of being each other’s keeper and the tradition of volunteerism have helped the people cope with the extent of Pepeng’s devastation.
Such culture has helped fill in gaps and lapses in governance.

For example, when Pepeng slowed down on Oct. 10, officials and residents of Kibungan town in Benguet came out with shovels and picks to help clear the roads of landslides and debris.

Mayor Benito Siadto says the landslides were so enormous that residents had to augment with sheer brawn the municipal government’s lone pay loader.

Community spirit

The strong sense of cooperative self-help and community spirit is also alive in other Cordillera towns.

Leaders of the towns of Bakun and Kabayan, also in Benguet, report that they used the relief supplies they received for “food-for-work” projects.

Instead of simply doling out to survivors a few kilos of rice, canned goods and instant noodles, Bakun and Kabayan officials say they gave these items as incentives to those who helped repair the roads and bridges.

Kabayan Mayor Faustino Aquisan commends the village chair of Tinongdan in Itogon town for accommodating stranded motorists from Kabayan at the height of Pepeng in their barangay hall and feeding them.

“Please tell us when you (Tinongdan folk) will celebrate your village fiesta so we can bring you cabbages, pising (gabi or yam leaves) and red rice,” Aquisan announced recently over radio station dzWT. It was his way of expressing gratitude to them.

In Sagada, Mt. Province, members of tourist guide organizations lost no time in soliciting help from town mates so they could immediately send relief supplies to survivors of mudslides in Tadian town, the Cordillera People’s Alliance reported.

In upland areas of the Cordillera, the people have resorted to the ob-obfu or binnadang (labor exchange) to repair damaged homes, rice terraces, irrigation systems and bridges.

Rebuilding hopes

But as homes, farms and other infrastructures are being rebuilt, the hopes and dreams of survivors of the last storm must also be restored.

“When the earth and waters settle down, I know for sure that those left behind will be on their own. It’s time for us to come in,” Harry Basingat, a retired Igorot professional based in California, says in a letter to members of Bibaknet, an online network of Igorots here and abroad.

Basingat and his colleagues have been discussing online how best they could help, particularly those who were orphaned after Pepeng triggered killer landslides that left more than 300 people dead, many of them in Benguet and Mt. Province.

“We finally decided to focus on the education of children orphaned by Pepeng,” says Jerome Gawidan, a Baguio City-based Bibaknet member and businessman.

Bibaknet has been setting aside funds for immediate relief supplies, such as food and clothing.

“We also want to provide something to the orphans that will last a lifetime—education,” says Basingat, the online moderator of the Bibaknet e-group.

Immediately after this decision, members started pledging money for its Bibaknet Education Scholarship Fund (BESF). Some have committed from $100 (P4,699) to P100,000, though the network can accept even a peso or a dollar.

“Any amount will be gladly accepted so I don’t see why anyone would ignore this loud call,” says Basingat. “Nothing is too small that comes from the heart. Not getting involved is just another personal option that we can choose.”

The fund began in 2005 to support the education of the orphaned children of Andy Dumawa, a Bibaknet member, who was killed in an accident on the Halsema Highway on his way home to Mt. Province.

As the e-group’s online moderator, Basingat regularly posts all names of donors and the amount pledged, including those of anonymous benefactors.

Warmth of ‘dap-ay’

BESF board member Marilou Delson Fang-asan, who is based at the Benguet State University, is coordinating with government agencies in the affected towns to identify orphaned survivors whom the group can help send to school.

The ease and spontaneity of help from the Igorot peoples for the orphaned could be traced to what Basingat calls the “warmth of the dap-ay, which is meant to be shared for those out in the cold.”

The dap-ay is the basic sociopolitical institution in Mt. Province where elders teach children about social responsibility, among other things.

Fr. Rex Reyes, National Council of Churches in the Philippines general secretary, agrees with Basingat.

Reyes, who visited Mt. Province after Pepeng left, says the Igorot could again pick up the pieces because of their strong community support system of helping each other, in good times and in bad.

Isolated Benguet town rations rice to stave off hunger

Isolated Benguet town rations rice to stave off hunger
By Maurice Malanes
Inquirer Northern Luzon
First Posted 03:10:00 10/22/2009
Filed Under: Weather, Landslide, Disasters (general), Government Aid, Food

BAGUIO CITY—The upland town of Kibungan in Benguet province, which has been isolated since Oct. 9 because of Tropical Storm “Pepeng” (international codename: Parma), has resorted to rationing rice to stave off possible hunger as residents and officials double their time clearing landslides before Typhoon “Ramil” (Lupit) dumps heavy rains on Friday.

For the first time since the town’s isolation, officials and residents—after a six-hour grueling trip from Baguio—transported 200 cavans of rice via the Palina-Bakun-Ampusongan Road and Halsema Highway on Oct. 17 and 18.

Ironically, until the early 1980s, Kibungan (pop: 16,000) used to be self-sufficient in upland rice, which is augmented by sweet potato and other root crops.

The shorter Kibungan-Kapangan-Tublay Road, which is a four-hour drive, remains hardly accessible because of damaged bridges and road cuts, residents said.

The town government, which bought the rice supply, will ration (25 kilos per family) and retail the staple, said Loyda Macario of the Kibungan social welfare and development office.

“We hope this rice supply can tide us over even shortly after Typhoon Ramil,” Macario said in a text message. “We also hope other supplies will arrive for our various sari-sari (variety) stores.”

Macario said residents, with equipment provided by the Department of Public Works and Highways, were rushing the clearing of landslides in the towns of Kapangan and Tublay.

Through cooperative self-help, Kibungan residents cleared landslides from Barangay Poblacion up to Barangay Sagpat in the town’s border with Kapangan and along the road to Barangay Palina.

“But we are worried Ramil’s rains may again delay road repair works,” Macario said.
She said that for the first time airlifted relief goods arrived in Kibungan on Oct. 19 after Mayor Benito Siadto appealed for outside help.

Until now, residents continue to grope in the dark as evening comes because of power outage, Macario said, adding that municipal officials could charge their mobile phones through a generator at the municipal clinic.

Residents from Kibungan and Kapangan are hoping concerned agencies help them restore the vital Salacop Bridge in Balacbac, Kapangan, which tilted to its side during the last typhoon.

Little Kibungan takes comfort in faith

Little Kibungan takes comfort in faith
By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:27:00 10/20/2009
Filed Under: Belief (Faith), Religions

MARSING MALANES LOST a daughter, a son-in-law and four grandchildren, who tried to run to safe ground but instead met an avalanche of raging mud that fateful night of Oct. 8 when Tropical Depression “Pepeng” dumped heavy rain on the province.

Despite the tragedy, Malanes’ faith in God stays stronger than the wrath of Pepeng, whose nonstop downpour triggered a mudslide that swept away houses along a creek in Barangay Puguis’ Little Kibungan in Benguet’s capital town of La Trinidad.

A three-story concrete house was also brought down some 200 meters into the La Trinidad Valley.

“How could my children and grandchildren survive such a powerful mudslide?” asks Malanes, 58.

Although still mourning, she takes comfort “in the Lord’s promise that my children and grandchildren are now in His bosom and are now helping keep watch over us who survived this tragedy.”

“This promise is what continues to lighten our load and burden,” says Malanes, a member of the Church of Nazarene in Puguis. “Now, my children and grandchildren are at peace with the Lord. They are actually now in a better position than we are, who have to experience pain and suffering in this world.”

Malanes lost her daughter Minda, 38, Minda’s husband, Santiago Valdez Jr., 39; and their four children—Ruthi Fe, 14; Von Timothy, 10; James Francis, 2; and Josh Mark, 1.

They were among the 76 people who were killed by the landslide in Little Kibungan.


Swallowed by mud

The Valdez home remains intact, but accounts from neighbors and from Ruthi Fe’s text message before they were swallowed by mud indicated that they met their fate while on flight.

At past 10 p.m. on Oct. 8, Ruthi Fe was able to tell her aunt, Mercedes Cadley, in a text message that her father roused them from sleep so they would evacuate to their grandmother’s house on upper ground in Little Kibungan.

Neighbors say the Valdezes might have thought that the mudslide was coming from above their house instead of the other way because the village was pitch-dark as a result of a power outage, thick clouds and heavy rains.

The family would have survived the avalanche had they not gone down a road along the creek.

Mission and purpose

Despite all, Malanes thinks that “with God, everything must have a purpose.”
Minda and her family’s death “all the more strengthened our faith in God and helped us look deeply into what is more important in life,” says Malanes.

This faith is shared by the woman’s eldest son, Fernando, 40, and his wife, Edwina, 41, who also had a close brush with death that night. “God must have a mission and purpose for us that we have yet to fulfill,” says Fernando.

On Oct. 7, Edwina said she had an “uneasy, bad feeling” so she urged her husband that they leave an extension room near their kitchen in the basement, and be with their three children on the second floor.

That premonition saved them; the mudslide wiped out their room. Amid the heavy downpour, the rescuers arrived and guided them to the house of Benguet Gov. Nestor Fongwan, southeast of Little Kibungan.

Moving on

Malanes, her son Fernando and family, two unmarried children and two grandchildren left to her care are now occupying a space in the house of a friend in the valley.

The widowed grandmother looks forward to meeting with local officials this week for a possible relocation site where they can rebuild their houses and lives. She seeks to find a place where her grandchildren need not fear the rains and storms.

One of her grandchildren, Clever, 14, the youngest of Fernando and Edwina, remains traumatized, she says. He wouldn’t even want to go back to Little Kibungan and retrieve his things.

“Just get my school ID and school uniform. You don’t have to get my other clothes because I have already received some clothes from relief supplies,” Clever told his grandmother and mother.

Fernando continues to earn for his family’s upkeep as a construction worker.

While looking for a job, Edwina, a preschool teacher, earns extra as a hired hand in La Trinidad’s strawberry and vegetable farms.

If they strive to move on, credit that to “our faith,” says Malanes.

“Laton, ilab-lab-ak tako (It’s OK. We shall overcome),” she says.

Determination

That same faith and determination strengthen the Kankanaey people of Kibungan town, 60 kilometers north of La Trinidad, where Malanes and family hail from.

Kibungan has been isolated since Oct. 9 because of road cuts and landslides that block major roads.

But the hardy Kankanaey, led by Mayor Benito Siadto, renewed their cooperative self-help tradition and volunteerism and have been clearing the roads with shovels and picks.

But so they won’t starve, they have appealed for immediate food aid and heavy equipment to repair eroded and washed-out roads, including a key bridge in the village of Balacbac in Kapangan town.