| http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view_article.php?article_id=151512 | ||
| INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON | ||
| By Maurice Malanes | ||
| Posted date: July 30, 2008 | ||
|
“I would say my eyes were finally opened and I’m now enlightened Only in his 20s, Copas was one of 17 farmers, entrepreneurs, Copas and the other graduates belonged to the first batch Trainers included organic farming advocate-practitioners After completing the course, Copas embarked on a If he succeeds, Copas hopes his farm would help wean The use of excessive chemicals and monocropping, Quick fixes Ever since it became a multimillion-peso venture, the But by resorting to poison, the farmers lost friendly A study by the University of the Philippines at In the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Charles Cheng of Their conclusion: The volume of pesticides In their 152-page study, Cheng and Bersamira Health problems They also noted pesticide-related health problems Local and agriculture officials then sought to Fearing an adverse implication on their profits, Despite the reported education drives in recent Citing a study, Prof. Jose Balaoing, who heads He says 500 to 600 kg of chemical fertilizers Voice in the wilderness Aware of the health and environmental hazards Despite the unpopularity of organic farming But though his advocacy was not readily He was thus glad that the BSU finally “This course is actually overdue,” he says. | ||
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Breaking free from ‘circle of poison’
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Only good citizenship can save Baguio from decay
Inquirer Northern Luzon
Only good citizenship can save Baguio from decay
By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:01:00 06/18/2008
BAGUIO CITY – Practically the whole of Baguio City used to be his playground. He and other teenage children would climb the thickly forested Mount Sto. Tomas, roam the pine and mossy forests of what is now Quezon Hill, and trek to the hot springs of Asin in nearby Tuba town.
They wouldn’t even bother to bring packed lunch with them because they could dig for singkamas ti bakes (wild turnips), pick berries and other wild fruits, and drink from springs or pitcher plants.
“Ten or so singkamas ti bakes (literally, monkey’s turnips) for each of us were enough for our lunch to keep us full for the rest of the day in the great outdoors,” recalls 69-year-old Carlito Cenzon.
Now the Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Baguio, Cenzon is among true-blue “Baguio boys,” who are not only nostalgic about the place that made their childhood summers whole and happy in the 1950s.
He is among a few pioneers who, after having noted how Baguio has been deteriorating over the years, now seek to rescue it from further decay. How?
Getting involved
“By being citizens,” Cenzon says. “This means participating, getting involved, not being indifferent, chipping in your talents for the good of the community, paying taxes, following rules and regulations. And if you’re in the government, making your office a public trust.”
He laments the lack of good citizenship, which, he says, can be seen in a pervasive “extractive mentality” in which many come to extract whatever they get out of Baguio, even if this means illegally building a house in a vital watershed, for example.
Cenzon agrees such mentality of extraction may have originated from an extractive industry from which Baguio was born – mining.
Baguio as an urban center emerged as a result of the boom in mining in the neighboring gold-rich towns of Benguet, an industry that American colonial soldiers-turned-gold-prospectors began on a massive scale in the early 1900s.
With its mountain climate and the promise of economic opportunities, more and more migrants have poured into Baguio in recent years. Many came and squatted on public lands, taking advantage of a city government with no updated and strict land use and zoning policies.
Cenzon cites, among other things, what is now known as Quirino Hill. During his childhood, the place used to be covered with a pine forest and called Carabao Mountain. With a slope of above 18 degrees, the hill is now one of the densely populated areas.
The bishop and the environment advocacy group, Baguio Regreening Movement, in which he is one of the officers, have since been on a mission to save the watersheds.
They have not only led concerned citizens and students in planting trees but also recommended the demolition of squatters’ houses in Busol, a vital watershed.
Despite the maze of legal bureaucratic procedures required before demolishing shanties, “our battle to save whatever is left of our watersheds continues,” he says. “The battle is ongoing even if squatters have remained despite hundreds of court orders issued against them.
According to Cenzon, many people – big and small – have been “raping Baguio for a long time,” with each one trying to extract what he can get from the city at all costs.
One of the outfits to which concerned citizens have vented their ire on is a subsidiary of a shopping mall chain. For months, officials and residents were kept in the dark regarding company plans to build another structure in a hectare of pine woodlot near the Baguio Convention Center.
Recently, an official of the firm told the city council about its plan to build condominium buildings on that lot. Because of public pressure from concerned citizens like Cenzon, most members of the council have opposed it.
Campaign
“I would lead a campaign to boycott this mall if this structure is built despite concerned citizens’ protest,” says Cenzon.
He says an official of the shopping mall had told him the company would look for an alternative site.
But apart from big-time threats, even ordinary residents are helping ruin Baguio, says the bishop. He cites those who use sidewalks for auto repair and vulcanizing shops, sari-sari (variety) stores and other business stalls, and ambulant vendors.
As one of those who conceptualized the recent “Walk Baguio Walk” drive, in which government employees and residents are encouraged to walk rather than drive to work, Cenzon admits that walking would be quite difficult with the lack of sidewalks.
When told that Marikina City was able to clear its sidewalks and succeeded in reclaiming these for the public, Cenzon says replicating that experience requires strong political will.
Good governance, strong political will and people exercising their role as citizens could rescue Baguio from further decay, he says. “But what all these require is love,” he says. “You must love Baguio first so you can have the passion and the heart to serve the interest of the community rather than your interest.”
Responsible citizenship, he says, emanates from love of one’s community or country.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
How Cordillera children are deprived of education
| How Cordillera children are deprived of education | ||
| By Maurice Malanes | ||
| Posted date: June 11, 2008 | ||
|
After classes are dismissed in the afternoon, they have to rush home before it gets dark. Their ordeal – come rain, typhoon or cold season – is a fact of life not only in this Kankanaey town but elsewhere in the Cordillera. This is why Jimmy Jose, 27, a native of Sinacbat village in neighboring Bakun town, and many of his former elementary classmates had to reach at least 8 years old so they can enter Grade 1. “We had to grow older and be strong enough to be able to walk or (literally) climb our way to school,” recalls Jose, a forestry graduate, who worked his way through high school and college. “This remains the reality in our community.” “Worse, those who were too weak and those not so determined to go to school eventually would drop out and forget school altogether,” he says. Kibungan is a fifth-class municipality (annual income: P7 million-P13 million). The Department of Education aims to encourage more children, particularly 6-year-olds, to enroll in Grade 1. It has campaigned to inform parents to enroll their children after noting a low turnout of 6-year-old enrollees for Grade 1 last school year. Only more than a third or a million of the three million 6-year-old children nationwide enrolled in Grade 1 last year, says Benito Tumamao, DepEd Cordillera director. This national trend was more or less the same in the Cordillera, he says. “The difficult access of children to the nearest school where they have to walk six to seven kilometers remains a main factor [for the low turnout of Grade 1 enrollees] in our region,” says Tumamao. Ninety-five percent of the Cordillera terrain is mountainous. The only flat lands are in Tabuk City, Kalinga; Bangued, Abra; and the valley town of La Trinidad, Benguet’s capital. “So I understand how these 6-year-olds with frail bodies can hardly withstand the rigors of hiking kilometers just to reach the nearest school,” says Tumamao. The DepEd has projected over 6,000 6-year-olds in Grade 1 in the region this year or almost 3 percent of the 216,865 projected total enrollees for the elementary level. Education for all It seeks to help achieve in the country the United Nations goal to provide education for all by 2015. But Tumamao admits this goal will continue to elude the country unless policy reforms are made. An area that needs reforms is in building schools in remote communities. Since the government wants to “economize” on what it allots for teaching positions, the DepEd cannot put up schools in communities with fewer than 30 students. But the reality is that many remote communities in the Cordillera have fewer than 30 6-year-olds at a given school year. These children are thus forced to enroll in schools at the town or village centers, if they are fit enough. Tumamao is proposing a policy to establish schools even in communities with low enrollment. A teacher can be assigned to a community where even 15 children can use a barangay (village) hall as classroom, he says. Children in remote communities can also go to school at the right age if they are provided boarding schools, he says. Boarding schools would allow them to go home only on weekends to get supplies for the week. Tumamao says Cordillera lawmakers may consider these policy reforms to help them craft education-related laws. “We, educators, would be happy if our legislators would support these suggested policy reforms,” he says. For secondary education, the Cordillera recorded almost 13-percent dropout rate last school year, one of the highest in the country. Tumamao cites economic difficulties, health problems and the distance of schools among the major reasons. If the trend continues, almost 12,000 of the projected 89,640 high school enrollees this year would drop out. Fast Facts The Cordillera still lacks teachers in both public elementary and high schools. This school year, it needs 95 elementary school teachers and 37 high school teachers, according to the Department of Education. In Ifugao, 25 elementary school teachers are needed; Kalinga, 22; Benguet, 18; Mt. Province, 11; Apayao, 11; Baguio City, six; and Abra, two. Benguet needs 14 secondary school teachers while Apayao needs 11; Kalinga, five; and Mt. Province, four. Abra and Baguio City have no projected need for new teachers until 2011. Many schools still lack classrooms and armchairs or desks. For grade school, Kalinga needs 99 classrooms; Benguet, 64; Abra, 36; Baguio, 23; Mt. Province, 19; Ifugao, 18; and Apayao, 14. Elementary schools in Benguet need 5,836 armchairs or desks. Kalinga needs 4,468 desks; Apayao, 1,990; Baguio, 1,396; Mt. Province, 1,360; Ifugao, 729; and Abra, 622. | ||
Friday, May 30, 2008
A century of Cordillera vegetable salad
A century of Cordillera vegetable salad
Source: Inquirer Author: Maurice Malanes Date: 2001-01-10
BENGUET – The cold winds bite, like frozen needles pricking the bones. But why did the mountain folk come to Atok, Benguet, and called it their home?
Any day of this balmy season, from noon to late evening, thick fog hugs the environs of Atok’s Barangay Paoay (pop: 3,552), some 50 kilometers north of Baguio City.
Trekking along the winding road from Sitio Sayangan along the Halsema Highway to Paoay’s plateau (7,500 foot above sea level) is like going up a stairway to a cloud-blanketed heaven.
The hardy Kankanaey and Ibaloi folk came to Atok not just because the place was near heaven. Suited to growing tropical vegetables, the once thickly forested area promised abundance.
Ever since a former soldier of the American colonial government at the turn of the 20th century set foot in Atok, Barangay Paoay through the years has been transformed into what it is today--a salad bowl.
Some migrant Chinese, who were among those the Americans recruited to help build Kennon Road from 1902 to 1911, followed suit and introduced intensive vegetable farming.
Once mere hired hands of vegetable plantation owners, the Kankanaey and Ibaloi folk learned to grow vegetables and turned Paoay and the other six neighboring barangays of Atok (pop: 16,000) into a vegetable district.
The vegetable industry soon spread to the neighboring towns of Buguias and Kibungan (particularly Barangay Madaymen), both in Benguet, and some towns of Mt. Province. Now considered a ``vegetable belt,’’ these areas supply 80 percent of the country’s tropical vegetables.
Century-old
The Cordillera’s multimillion-peso vegetable industry is almost a century old. And in a country, which loves and honors anything American, the upland folk must be historically sentimental toward Paoay as they are toward Camp John Hay and Kennon.
In the early 1900s, a certain Guy Haight came and fell in love with what he saw atop a plateau-–grassland surrounded by mossy and pine forests.
A member of the US Army’s engineering corps, Haight was among the American soldiers and officials who colonized the Philippines after the Filipinos defeated the Spaniards in 1898.
Contracting lung disease (probably an early stage of tuberculosis) after helping supervise the building of Kennon, Manila’s main link to Baguio, Haight was advised by a doctor to look for a place as cold as his Philadelphia hometown.
Unlike other former American soldiers who explored the Cordillera for its fabled gold mines, Haight settled in what is now Paoay and became a farmer. He married an Igorot lass from Suyoc in Mankayan town, also in Benguet, and built a grass-thatched house and log cabins on the grassland, the best part of the dominantly mountain village.
Some photographs of the houses and of Haight’s family now hang at the living room of the house of former Atok Mayor John Haight, now 71, a grandson of Haight.
The elder Haight ordered vegetable seeds from his parents in Philadelphia, and, with the help of Igorot laborers, he grew cabbage, turnip, rhubarb, lettuce, sugar beet, carrot, celery, parsley and potato. He also grew oats and rye, whose stalks and leaves were fed to cows, horses, pigs, carabaos and other livestock.
Haight’s almost 30-hectare farm and house were an ideal organic farm. The soil was virgin and fertile then.
Thus, there was no need for chemical fertilizers. But later, Haight used compost in his farm that consisted of decayed weeds and livestock manure.
Haight’s produce was marketed to Baguio. His clients were fellow Americans, many of them colonial officials on vacation at Camp John Hay, and Filipinos who learned to eat cabbages and other newly introduced tropical vegetables.
With no road link to Atok, Haight had to hire porters and had to mobilize his horses to transport on foot the vegetables to Baguio. Each porter had to carry an average of 30 kilos, says Celo Haight-Tan, now 82, whose late father Selo, a.k.a. Toki Lawangen, was recruited by Haight as ``tent boy.’’
Celo, a native of Kapangan, Benguet, was barely 12 years old when he was hired. The boy was rendering labor during the construction of Kennon as payment for community tax. Celo soon assumed the family name of his American master.
Celo and his family also spoke American English. ``We came to learn our language only when we went to school in Kabayan (a neighboring town),’’ recalls Haight-Tan, the fourth of the late Celo’s 10 children.
The old Haight died in 1926. But planting tropical vegetables, which he introduced, continued.
Enter the Chinese
After the construction of Kennon in 1911 and of the American military barracks and buildings in Baguio, which Chinese migrant workers helped build, the remaining Chinese laborers saw new opportunities.
They surveyed La Trinidad Valley and other areas in Benguet, which included Paoay and other villages in Atok, and found these areas promising for agriculture.
In Paoay, the Chinese introduced intensive farming and new varieties of cabbage, such as pechay and wombok, aside from head cabbage, celery, carrot, broccoli, lettuce and potato.
With intensive farming, the Chinese had to use chicken dung mixed with ashes, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, recalls Paoay barangay chair Dewey Tomas, a former child laborer in a Chinese farm in the 1950s.
But the Chinese were also basically organic farmers, according to Baguio-based Dr. Charles Cheng and Katherine Bersamira in their 1997 book ``The Ethnic Chinese in the Cordillera: The Untold Story of Pioneers.’’
The Chinese also introduced composting, recycling of organic matter, crop rotation, using insect predators to control pests, and some irrigation techniques, say Dr. Cheng and Bersamira.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Clan reunions replace'cañao' tradition in Benguet
Reprint
Clan reunions replace
'cañao' tradition in Benguet
by Maurice Malanes, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 9 May 2000
TIME was when the mountains of Kibungan town in Benguet
would echo the beats and rhythm of gongs and solibaos (native
drums) and the cries of pigs and carabaos being slaughtered
and offered to the gods and spirits during traditional feasts
called cañao or pedit.
Abundant farm harvest and good swine and cattle production
would be enough reasons to hold the cañao.
In these feasts, members of the community would gather in the
home of the host family to dine and wine, to dance the sadong
(usually performed by girls and women) and the tayaw (usually
done by men), and to sing the day-eng (an extemporaneous
chanted poetry).
For the host family, the cañao was a way of sharing with the
rest of the community blessings the gods and spirits bestowed
or what may be considered the family's surplus. The cañao or
pedit is thus a thanksgiving feast.
In thanking the heavens, a traditional priest would pray: ''O
gods and spirits of the heavens, bless members of this family
(referring to the cañao's host family). Let their cattle and
livestock become more productive. Let their rice, peas, grains,
camote (sweet potato) and other crops bear good harvest. Spare
this family from ailments and bless the family members with
long, healthy lives. O gods and spirits, we are asking all these
so that tomorrow or one of these days, we can again celebrate
your blessings for this family and have the chance again to
honor you and pay our respects.''
As a community affair, the cañao or pedit had also served a
social purpose. Through this affair, each member of the
community, in the spirit of bin-nadang or cooperation, would
help out in all activities.
The whole community would gather firewood, pound rice, fetch
water, slaughter animals and cook, and would participate in
religious rituals, such as dancing the sadong and the tayaw,
playing the gongs and drums, and joining in the religious
chants. In the early days, the cañao had thus helped strengthen
community spirit and unity.
Also through the cañao, families and clans were able to trace
their blood lineage and family tree.
Vanishing tradition
But in Benguet towns, such as in Kibungan, which used to hold
traditional feasts at least twice or thrice a month until three to
four decades ago, the cañao is now slowly vanishing.
The reasons are both economic and cultural. In Kibungan now,
there just are not enough animals to butcher, unlike in the early
days when, as Lakay (old man) Paguli recalls, there were more
animals than people.
The mountain town, which is 67 kilometers northeast of Baguio
City, also used to be self-sufficient in staples such as rice and
camote.
These days, however, Kibungan folk have to buy their rice from
Baguio because of a growing population and the lack of
government support services, such as small irrigation systems,
to improve farm production.
Populated by about 16,000 Kankana-ey folk, Kibungan has also
been saturated by various Christian sects, some of which
preach that the cañao tradition is ''unchristian,'' if not ''the work
of the devil.''
But as more and more Kibungan folk are turning their backs on
the cañao tradition, more and more are also looking for ways to
restrengthen community spirit and family and clan ties. Clan
reunions have thus emerged in recent years.
Tracing ancestry
Like the cañao, clan reunions enable members to get to know
one another better by tracing common ancestors.
Unlike the cañao, however, each family head of the clan
contributes to the cost of holding a reunion.
In the recent grand reunion of the Gelwan-Dangsuyan clan, one
of the biggest in Kibungan, for example, each family head
chipped in P150 mainly to cover the cost of lunch and dinner.
Each one of the over 500 clan members gathered was excited
and happy about the grand reunion held in the home of Ganaya
Bay-an Bolislis, the only surviving elder of the Tamang
sub-clan.
But the grand affair apparently lacks the festive mood of the
cañao of yore. The affair was rather formal, complete with a
program of activities, during which all sub-clans were presented
on a stage installed with a sound system.
There was a spice, however, to all the formalities: each sub-clan
presented ice breakers, such as country and folk songs and
children's dances, which integrated traditional dance steps.
Folk singing
And the singers, mostly young men and women, were good at
aping the late John Denver, Kenny Rogers, Joan Baez and other
American country and folk singers.
Some elders did not want to be outdone. Gaerlan Wance and
Celino Cayad-an, both World War II veterans, sang songs they
learned from their American senior officers in the last war.
That American country and folk songs are tops in Kibungan
and other Benguet towns is an interesting subject for
sociocultural research. But that's another story.
What is clear is that cultural practices accompanying the cañao
tradition are now on the way out.
The mambunong (a traditional priest), who leads the religious
rituals in a cañao, no longer has a place in a clan reunion. In the
recent Gelwan-Dangsuyan grand reunion, for example, a young
Pentecostal pastor, who married a woman of the clan, led
members in a praise and worship rite.
Guitars and sound systems have replaced the beats of gongs
and drums. Hawaiian dances performed to the tune of ''Pearly
Shells'' and ''Tiny Bubbles'' and other dances, such as one
played to some weird beat called ''Dayang-Dayang'' have
replaced the traditional sadong and tayaw.
Hardly heard now is the day-eng, an extemporaneous poetry
that is sung by elders as they pass around a common cup of
tapuy or rice wine.
This poetry is also a form of discourse because one leads and
opens up a topic, and another responds by agreeing or
disagreeing through metaphors and lots of folk wisdom-laden
philosophical thoughts.
Cultural artifacts, such as traditional dresses and heirlooms, can
be preserved in museums. Not so with a cultural heritage such
as the day-eng, which has to be continually practiced for it to
continue to breathe life.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Brave new world in museum work unfolds in Baguio
Inquirer Northern Luzon
Brave new world in museum work unfolds in Baguio
By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:40:00 05/07/2008
BAGUIO CITY – This museum, perhaps the first of its kind in the country, will tell a community’s story from the perspective of its people.
The Baguio Historical and Mining Museum will rise on one of the city’s historic sites – Dominican Hill, where the ruins of a monastery lie. It will be led by its foundation, chaired by Philippine Ambassador to Germany Delia Albert, in time for the city’s centennial celebration in 2009.
“There’s a brave new world in museum work – one that employs modern technology, such as biotechnology, but…offers an atmosphere of warmth, which encourages collaboration with and participation from the community,” says Marian Pastor Roces, who has been appointed curator of the proposed museum.
Roces describes the project as “community-centered,” meaning residents can participate and collaborate with the museum staff to interpret data rather than have these interpreted by outsiders.
“This is a museum that learns from the community and tells the community’s diverse stories of interaction,” she told reporters during the project’s launching on May 2. The stories include not only those from the past but also those that are “continuing, unfolding,” she said.
How Baguio evolved as a chartered city because of the mining industry that boomed in the early 1900s in the neighboring gold-rich communities of Benguet is one such account.
Albert, a native of Baguio, says the mining industry’s growth is intertwined with the city’s development. She points at the four yellow dots against a green backdrop in the official seal, representing the four original neighboring mining communities in Benguet.
A lot of stories related to the mining industry still need to be told, Albert said. She cites the Kankanaey and Ibaloi traditional mining experts who claim they can find gold in rocks by using their tongue and saliva.
Even before American colonial soldiers-turned-gold prospectors came and founded the forerunners of today’s big mining corporations, the Spanish colonial government had also heard of gold guarded by “fierce natives” in the Cordillera’s pine-clad mountains.
Collaboration
Written accounts showed that Spaniards had organized gold expedition teams that reached Benguet through horse trails built by the Igorot natives through forced labor.
The historical and mining museum will incorporate all these stories, according to foundation officials. In fact, there is still a wealth of unstudied pre-20th century materials about Baguio in museums around the world, which can be reproduced and stored here, says Roces.
She cites 19th-century maps of Baguio and archives of tourist photos that can help tell how Baguio evolved into a metropolis.
Among the key sources of museum materials are the Philippine National Archive, University of Chicago, Michigan State University, US Army Archives in Maryland, Leiden University, Smithsonian Institution, Museum fur Volkenkunde in Vienna, the British Museum, and Musee du Quay Branly in Paris.
In this “brave new world of museology (museum studies),” collaboration is the key word, Roces says. And how will this collaboration with the community work?
Roces and her staff will facilitate the creation of a body of local experts – from academics and elders or pioneers to a wide range of professionals – to gather historical data and artifacts and later collectively interpret and represent these in various documentation forms (video, photographs or manuscripts).
“Data gathering won’t only be done by academics; even neighborhood groups can gather old photos from other neighbors, for example,” she says. “It’s going to be an entire series of action and process that involves community participatory mechanisms from beginning to end.”
Leonora San Agustin, curator of the Baguio-Mountain Provinces Museum, agrees on the need for experts. She cites an innocent-looking rock given to her by former Baguio Mayor Francisco Paraan. “I didn’t know what the rock was for until a traditional miner told me it was where traditional miners would grind gold ore,” she says.
“We need all the experts we can mobilize, especially now that our local miners are disappearing with demise of the mining industry here,” says San Agustin.
Heritage conservation
A product of more than four years of planning and consultation, the Baguio Historical and Mining Museum is “a positive step for heritage conservation,” Maria Isabel Ongpin, the foundation president, says. It is “an idea of Baguio residents, past and present,” she says.
Albert says the project would give people who have ties with Baguio a reason “to be proud once more of this fantastic city that reared us.”
The city government, however, has yet to amend a resolution turning over the Dominican Hill property to the museum foundation. The resolution does not include the turnover of the monastery ruins.
“We need the building first,” says Albert. The 33-room Dominican monastery was the city’s most expansive stone structure before 1920, according to the book, “City of Pines.”
The people behind the museum project have already ironed out plans to beat a very tight deadline, as the city counts down to its centennial on Sept. 1 next year.
Roces says the new museum would employ state-of-the-art technology in helping the local community gather and interpret data. “It’s going to be high-tech, but congenial,” she says, noting how technology sometimes alienates, if not intimidates, some people. “So we have to create a special encounter for people to dialogue and communicate with one another.”
The secret is building it with a “delightful yet elegant” ambience, she says.
Some old-timers are enthusiastic about the project and its site, which overlooks the city. “I live there and it’s a perfect, beautiful place for us to chat, dialogue and meditate as we watch the sunset,” Paraan says.
The museum intends to become a repository for the memorabilia of residents and tourists, a science center that is at the same time a crucible for art, a high-tech learning facility, a tourist destination and national and international crowd draw, and a space for encounter, dialogue, meditation, and festivity.
It will be divided into five spaces: a study center on urbanization, oral history and family memorabilia trust, a Philippine center for geology, an international center for jewelry design, and a study center for Cordillera-lowland cultures encounter.
Museum is biggest currency collector
Reprint
Museum is biggest currency collector
Source: Inquirer Author: Maurice Malanes Date: 2000-02-15
BENGUET'S provincial museum is the
most unique in the country, not only
because it houses, among other
things, a human mummy returned by a
thief but also because it is probably the country's biggest
collector of currencies worldwide.
The museum at a building beside the provincial capitol in La
Trinidad town has collected currencies from at least 100
countries, says Amando Furunda, the museum's assistant
officer in charge.
The collection includes old and new coins and paper bills from
the Philippines and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region,
South America, North America, Europe and Africa.
How the collection began was no accident. It was started by
residents who have a strong historical and anthropological
sense, Furunda said.
One of the first items in the collection is a legal tender printed in
the jungles of Apayao during World War II.
Then provincial administrator Francisco Tiotioen donated the
bill and two Mt. Province emergency notes, which were as good
as cash during the war, said Loly Moises, provincial librarian.
The notes were among the first items to be displayed when the
museum was inaugurated in June 1979.
Moises, who initially supervised the museum, said she did not
expect that the notes would encourage other people to expand
the currency collection.
The book, ''Japanese Occupation of the Philippines,'' by
historian A.V. H. Hartendorp reveals how the emergency notes
evolved.
Hartendorp wrote that the notes, totalling P1,000, were printed
by US Army Maj. Ralph Frager in his Apayao jungle retreat
during the war.
Frager, a West Pointer with the 26th Cavalry, was authorized by
the American government to print the notes to be used in areas
unoccupied by the Japanese.
The major was assigned to do reconnaissance and intelligence
work in far north Luzon. There, American soldiers installed a
clandestine radio communication network directly linked to San
Francisco in the US mainland.
The Apayao notes (from five centavos to P10) were produced
by a makeshift printery from plates cut from battery boxes made
of hard rubber. All notes bore serial numbers. The plates were
destroyed immediately after printing.
The Mt. Province emergency notes, on the other hand, were
printed after the government ordered the payment of salaries of
local officials and employees from December 1941 to 1946 when
the war ended.
After Tiotioen's donated notes were exhibited, local and foreign
tourists started contributing coins and paper bills. Thus, most
of the additions are not relics but modern currencies.
But some residents continue to give old coins and paper bills.
Among the latest addition to the collection is a 1.69-gram
irregularly shaped silver coin believed to be used during the
Spanish galleon trade in the 1700s. The coin has a cross on one
side and the Spanish royal seal on the other.
The coin is similar to the macuquinas or cobs
(Spanish-American dollars) used in Irish and British colonies in
the earlier centuries.
The only incentive of coin or paper bill donors is that their
names are duly acknowledged and displayed with their
donations. But some would prefer to be anonymous.
Cultural repository
Another interesting attraction of the Benguet museum is a
human mummy returned by a thief after he reportedly suffered
from mysterious ailments.
The thief probably got sick because he stole the mummy, said
Furunda. Rats have also eaten parts of the preserved corpse so
the thief's negligence might have angered the mummy's spirit, he
added.
Unlike the most celebrated Apo Anno, a mummy which was
returned in May 1999 to Buguias town, the mummy at the
museum is still unknown. Once identified and once the place
where it was stolen is traced, the mummy will be finally returned.
This will entail elaborate rituals to appease the mummy's spirit.
Other items on display are cultural artifacts, such as old
porcelain Chinese jars, wooden plates and bowls, rain gear made
of grass, gold panning equipment made of stones, gongs and
drums, bark cloth, tapis or wrap-around skirt and g-strings and
old furniture.
The old Chinese jars reveal that Benguet and other parts of the
country had a flourishing trade with China and other Asian
neighbors even before the Spanish colonizers came.
From the bark cloth--a wide bark from a certain tree made soft
through pounding and beating--to the tapis and g-string, the
museum can give the visitor an idea about how the Igorots of
old protected their bodies from the elements.
Like history, which continues to be written, the museum can
continue to be enriched by adding more previously hidden
artifacts.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Igorot dances in pure form
(Note: I am reprinting this on this blog as part of my online compilation of articles written before. I'll be reprinting later other articles, which were written ages ago.)
Igorot dances in pure form
Source: Inquirer Author: Maurice Malanes Date: 2000-10-03
WHAT differentiates Igorot dances, or any other indigenous
folk dances, from waltz, tango and other ballroom dances? A lot
of things.
One can learn ballroom dances from an instructor but learning
Igorot dances is not simply knowing the steps and
synchronizing these with the rhythm of gongs and drums.
To really learn Igorot dances, with all their cultural trimmings
and meanings, one must go to the village where these are
performed for religious or spiritual purposes.
Ike Picpican, Saint Louis University museum curator, is anxious
about how theater performers are uprooting indigenous Igorot
dances from their ''cultural base'' because ''the dance tradition is
deeply rooted in the upland folk's day-to-day life.''
He stresses the need to ''preserve the indigenous spirit and
context'' of Igorot dances when these are performed by artists.
He notes how stage or theater performers have ''stylized'' and
introduced innovations, which, he fears, will ruin the essence
and spirit of the traditional dances.
Igorot professionals themselves must show how the dances
''should'' be performed, he suggests.
Picpican cites Baguio City Mayor Mauricio Domogan, an Igorot
of the Bago tribe, who can really perform Igorot dances, beat
gongs and drums, and sing and chant Igorot songs and poems.
Picpican also cites how Domogan chastised young Igorot
performers for wearing ba-ag or g-string over their underwear
while performing traditional Cordillera dances.
For Picpican, Domogan--who often dons nothing but a g-string,
Igorot necklace, a traditional head gear and a sangi or native
rattan backpack during special occasions such as meetings of
local officials--is a model ambassador of Igorot culture.
Picpican also lauds the Ifugao provincial board for passing a
resolution which requires the ''appropriate and corresponding
attire, music and cultural background'' of Ifugao rites, dances
and songs or chants when these are performed on stage.
Even if performed with the ''appropriate and proper'' attire and
cultural backdrop, Igorot dances or any other rituals done on
stage or at Baguio's Burnham Park are still not in their pure form
as sought by cultural purists or preservationists like Picpican.
Once presented on stage, Igorot dances become adulterated.
Cultural reality
But these cultural shows, like other performing arts, must at
least mirror cultural reality to meet the standards of cultural
guardians like Picpican.
To the Igorots, their dances and other cultural rites are as
sacred as Christian church rites. Guardians of Cordillera culture
consider it ''sacrilegious'' when cultural rites are done for other
purposes, such as to attract tourists.
For example, the attempt of the tourism ministry in the early
1980s under the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos to lure
tourists by showcasing Igorot culture through what was called
the Grand Cañao had invited protests from Igorot professionals
and student activists.
The Grand Cañao, they cried, did not only mock Igorot culture
but also commercialized it.
Over the years, some Igorot dances have taken a new twist. To
the dismay of their fellow Igorots, some mountain folk during
the Christmas season would go from house to house in cities as
far as Manila, bang their gongs and perform Bontok dances as
their way of soliciting gifts.
Also in recent years, some Igorot dances have been
transformed as a medium of protest. Igorot folk protesting the
entry into their communities of big mining companies, for
example, would intersperse their pickets with Igorot dances and
gong beats at the gates of the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources.
No matter what the purists say, Igorot dances through time will
assume various forms, simply because unlike cultural artifacts,
traditional dances cannot be preserved in museums.
And as the original reasons for performing Igorot dances, such
as the elaborate cañao feasts, continue to disappear, the
Cordillera needs culturally sensitive stage or theater artists
(who, according to Picpican, know the cultural base and context
of dances) to continue to breathe life into the Igorot dances.
The dances can die unless continually performed.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
91-yr-old vet recalls Bataan nightmare
91-yr-old vet recalls Bataan nightmare
91-yr-old vet recalls Bataan nightmare
By Maurice Malanes
Northern Luzon Bureau First Posted 06:23:00 04/09/2008
BAGUIO CITY—Before rising to become a police chief, a Benguet Corp. vice president and mayor of this city in the mid-1980s, Francisco Paraan lived through starvation, disease and the daily threat of being stabbed with a Japanese bayonet.
Paraan would now refer to the ordeal as his "nightmare," his "Valley of Death." In history books, though, Filipinos have come to know it as the Death March.
At 91, Paraan needs a hearing aid and takes 11 pills a day for his heart and urinary problems, and for other ailments traceable to the horrors he endured serving with the Allied forces during World War II.
Yet the battle-scarred veteran could still vividly remember the indignities and suffering which he and his comrades experienced during the infamous Death March of April 1942, the forcible transfer of some 90,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps in Central Luzon.
The Allied surrender leading to the march is being commemorated by the nation on Wednesday as "Araw ng Kagitingan" (Day of Valor), also known as The Fall of Bataan.
"Physically exhausted, psychologically devastated and without food and water, we only had 10 percent left of our strength and will to fight," Paraan said, describing the Allied troops' condition on the eve of their capitulation.
"During the surrender, a great wave of jumbled, confused and emaciated (Filipino and American soldiers) was pushed towards the south in Corregidor and Mariveles, Bataan," he said. "Units of the USAFFE (United States Armed Forces in the Far East) just melted away."
Paraan was a tactical officer of the University of the Philippines ROTC (Reserved Officers Training Corps) when the war broke out. He enlisted as a third lieutenant in the USAFFE and led 30 men, all ROTC cadets, to Bataan. (Six of his men were later sent home after it was discovered that they were under 18.)
Final stand
When American supreme commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered all Filipino and American troops to move to Bataan and make what would become their final stand, Paraan helped establish a main line of resistance on Mt. Natib.
The main Japanese offensive on Bataan actually began on Jan. 9 (a week after the fall of Manila and three months before the surrender). By mid-February, the USAFFE lines have been pushed to the Pilar-Bagac area, past Balanga.
There was a lull in the battle from Feb. 15 to April 2, Paraan recalled in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer. "Both sides suffered great losses, and many of us were sick and exhausted." "But the morale of Filipino-American troops was very high because we were able to frustrate the target of the Japanese, (which was) to capture Bataan immediately. The morale of the Japanese, we learned, was low," he said.
Word also spread that the Japanese forces led by Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma had their share of massive losses and that many of the remaining soldiers were down with malaria and dysentery, the veteran added.
But when reinforcements fresh from Japan arrived, the offensive resumed on April 3, "unleashing their full military might, using air bombs, artillery shells and superior firepower," he said.
Paraan noted that many of the Filipino and American troops were so poorly armed that some were even carrying rifles of "World War I vintage."
On the eve of the surrender, the cornered troops even felt a strong "earthquake" hitting Bataan that day. "After sleeping a few hours on the night of April 8, we ... destroyed all our firearms. And from our jungle hideouts we, as ordered, went down to the highway to surrender the next morning."
Death March starts
Paraan and his contingent were first herded into a rice field in Barangay Cabcaben in Mariveles, where they stayed for a day without sleep and food. From Mariveles, the Death March commenced, covering an initial 80 kilometer to San Fernando, Pampanga.
"We formed a long line of hungry, sick and wounded Filipino and American soldiers," he said. "Those who were too weak or too sick to walk, those straying from line were beaten up, clubbed and bayoneted to death. We were denied food and water."
At one point, Paraan said, he got very thirsty and gambled with his life: He dashed to a nearby rice paddy and filled his canteen with water, completely eluding the attention of Japanese sentries. He slaked his thirst upon rejoining the line.
The next day, Paraan was ill with dysentery.
"It was literally a walk through the Valley of Death," he said. "All along the way, we saw corpses strewn about, some of them decapitated."
When the POWs reached Hermosa and Dinalupihan in Bataan, and later Lubao in Pampanga on April 10, residents came out to see them.
"Many of them wept as they took pity on us," Paraan said. Some of the locals tossed them food as the prisoners walked by.
"(They) gave us panocha (sugarcane molasses), fried chicken and steamed rice wrapped in banana leaves. (We ate them so quickly) it was as though we were just gulping down water."
Paraan said he later learned that many civilians who had given food to the soldiers were tortured and killed by the Japanese.
Reaching San Fernando, his group was met by truckloads of Japanese soldiers, "who taunted us and spat on our faces."
After spending the night at a warehouse at the San Fernando rail terminal, the POWs were then moved by train to Capas, Tarlac, the veteran said.
Packed in box cars
"We were packed like sardines in the box cars. Several (prisoners) died of suffocation," he said, recalling that at least three soldiers died in the car he was in.
From Capas, they marched for another 13 km to finally get to a concentration camp. After surviving Death March, however, Paraan was still down with dysentery. Prison food – a handful of steamed rice sprinkled with salt, served at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. daily – hardly helped in nursing himself back to health.
But Paraan surmised that, still, "God was good" because the Japanese failed to uncover his precious secret: He kept bills amounting to P300 (a substantial amount at the time) hidden in his underwear. With the money, he managed to smuggle food and medicine into the camp, not only for him but also for his younger brother and fellow POW, Ricardo, who was stricken with malaria.
Released on parole
"Without that money, my brother and I would have died at the camp," says Paraan. After six months at the camp, Paraan was released "on parole" and even had some money left for a train ride from Capas to Damortis, La Union, and then a bus ride to Baguio.
He was then contacted by officers of the 66th Infantry, USAF-Northern Luzon. After being treated for his dysentery by Dr. Ernesto Abellera, Paraan engaged in espionage, monitoring enemy movements and suppliers.
He eventually went back into combat, taking part in an assault on Bad-ayan Hill, a Japanese base in Buguias, Benguet, on Aug. 14, 1945.
Six decades later, Paraan said the Death March may have been a nightmare, but surviving it helped steel his will and character.
Leadership positions
"The experience gave me a lot of self-confidence, which prepared me for various leadership positions later," he said.
Paraan became Baguio City's chief of police in 1959 and earned an award as the country's most outstanding police chief during his term.
Paraan later moved to the private sector as security chief and later vice president of Benguet Corp. He served as Baguio City mayor during the Aquino administration.
Paraan, father of eight successful professionals and lolo of 22 grandchildren, is currently editing an autobiography that he finished writing last year. The book, he said, will contain his eyewitness account of the war.
Igorot discovers instant way to enjoy brewed coffee
http://business.inquirer.net/money/topstories/view/20080405-128628/Igorot-discovers-instant-way-to-enjoy-brewed-coffee
Igorot discovers instant way to enjoy brewed coffee |
BAGUIO CITY—A budding Igorot entrepreneur has found out that a revolutionary business idea comes in unexpected places. The challenge was translating the idea—a novel way for consumers to enjoy instant brewed coffee—into a profitable venture. During a break while exhibiting antique crafts at the World Trade Center in Manila in 2005, Peter Yangki (not his real name), a former antique craft trader, and a British client, took time out to sip coffee at the center’s cafe. Yangki saw that the coffee the waiter served them came from a reheated brew. He complained and told the waiter that ground coffee should not be reused and reheated. After an argument with the waiter, Yangki chose not to order coffee. The client settled for instant tea. As the Briton squeezed with a spoon his tea in filter bag in a cup with hot water, Yangki toyed with an idea and told him: If we can put tea leaves in a bag and we can have instant tea, why can’t we do the same with coffee? “That’s a revolutionary multimillion-peso business idea,” the Briton replied. “If you have coffee in your place, you can venture into that.” Buoyed by the Briton’s affirmation, Yangki thought hard about it and in no time embarked on what he said was quite an expensive trial-and-error experiment. The experiment paid off, and he went on to become the first Filipino to ever produce pure organic Arabica coffee in a tea bag. For the experiment, he availed of a P300,000 loan from the Department of Agriculture Young Farmers’ Program. He also rented coffee processing machines and packaging equipment of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) for his experiment until he perfected packaging pure Arabica coffee in bags for an instant brew. Arabica, which grows well in high elevations such as the Cordillera, is the world’s most sought after coffee variety because of its distinct aroma and antioxidant qualities. As he was experimenting on and perfecting his product, Yangki, in 2005, established Cordillera Blend, his company based in Tuba, Benguet. He perfected his product in 2006 and registered it with the DOST and with the Intellectual Property Office in 2007. He also registered his product with the Bureau of Food and Drugs and is awaiting the bureau’s approval. He has begun marketing the product with the brand name Hagiyo! Brew. Yangki, who asked the Inquirer not to publish his real name, preferred that his product’s name be known rather than his identity. The brand name was derived from an Ifugao greeting, which means, Have a happy, long life! So what’s new with Hagiyo! Brew? It’s instant, but not the kind one dissolves in hot water. It’s instant but it is brewed coffee. Instant soluble coffee has undergone many processes and has a lot of what are called emulsifiers and artificial flavors. But Hagiyo! Brew instant coffee in filter bags comes from specially ground and minimally processed Arabica coffee without artificial flavors and preservatives, says Yangki. Yangki also takes pride in having sourced his raw coffee beans from naturally or organically grown Arabica coffee plants from Benguet, Mt. Province, Ifugao and Kalinga. The budding entrepreneur knows that freshly ground coffee must be packed and sealed at once to retain its delicate flavor and antioxidant qualities. Two coffee bags, each measuring five grams, are packed in an easy-to-reseal cellophane packet, before these are packed into a sealed foil sachet. Why two coffee bags in a sachet? There are moderate and heavy coffee drinkers,” says Yangki. A coffee bag is enough for moderate drinkers, but heavy coffee drinkers can use two in one cup. Local coffee connoisseurs, who sampled his product, swear the brewed coffee in bags could compare with that brewed in a percolator. Goodbye percolator And those who love brewed coffee need not invest in a percolator or a coffeemaker. They can simply pour hot water in a mug with a five-gram or 10-gram ground coffee in a filter bag, sweeten it with muscovado (unrefined sugar) or honey, and, as an added option, mix it with nondairy creamer. Hagiyo! Brew’s instant brewed coffee comes in two packages—one comes with a separately packed sachet of five-gram muscovado (unrefined sugar) and another separately packed nondairy cream. The other package has five grams of honey in a sachet instead of muscovado. The muscovado is sourced from Abra and the honey comes from an aviary of the Saint Louis University. The product is packaged with a strong pride of place, not only of Yangki’s home region of the Cordillera, but of his country. Inscribed in the box containing a dozen of sachets of the product is the text, “proudly Philippine-made organic brewed coffee for the world to taste.” Above it is an image of the Philippine flag. The product is also labeled as a super premium native brewed coffee brand of the Philippines. Brewing do’s and don’t’s Also included in the packaging are the three do’s and don’ts of coffee brewing. One, coffee should not be boiled, as boiled coffee tastes bitter. There is no need to boil roasted coffee beans as it is enough to extract an excellent brew from a cup with hot water. Two, coffee should not be reused. Three, coffee should not be reheated or continuously heated. Reusing, reheating and continuously heating brewed coffee would destroy the coffee’s volatile antioxidant properties. Continuously heating or boiling also gives a sour and flavorless brew. That insight during that morning coffee break when Yangki was disappointed not being served freshly brewed coffee became a turning point in his life as an entrepreneur. At that time he was doing quite good in trading antique craft and distinct furniture made of roots and vines. Business shift But this type of business relies heavily on the availability of forest products, which are already being depleted, he says. As early as 2005, he predicted that the antique craft and furniture would become a sunset industry. He also had a traumatic experience when he was trading antique craft and furniture. He was held up while transporting some items in Aurora. But the budding entrepreneur, a commerce graduate in his 30s, vows to follow in the footsteps of Filipino-Chinese entrepreneurs who prefer to remain low-key while continuously making innovations for a better competitive edge in an industry still dominated by big players. It’s time we Igorots learn to become employers, not just employees knocking at the doors of already established companies, he said. |
How to starve indigenous communities
How to starve indigenous communities
By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: April 08, 2008
BAGUIO CITY – The Igorot people now acknowledge their ancestors’ long-term foresight in ensuring the food security of succeeding generations by carving rice terraces, even in tough, challenging terrain, in the Cordillera mountains.
Even during World War II and a rice crisis in the 1970s, the rice paddies have helped sustain the local folk. During the lean months, they supplemented rice with camote (sweet potato) from the nem-a or uma (upland swidden).
In recent years, however, this relative self-sufficiency has been threatened by “modern agriculture,” which the government has pushed purportedly to increase crop production through high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and, lately, genetically engineered seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
A study by the private Montañosa Research and Development Center (MRDC) tells of a farmer from the village of Dandanac in Besao, Mt. Province, who brought home a hybrid variety of corn given by a municipal agricultural technician. Concerned villagers warned that the seeds might be a strain or associated with Bt corn, but the farmer insisted on planting them because of an assurance of high yield.
“True enough, the new corn grew and flowered, but it did not bear ears,” said the study.
The MRDC documented how other farmers had slowly replaced their traditional rice with HYVs. In 1996, only two of 18 rice varieties that the Dandanac farmers were using were HYVs. In 2004, 11 of the 27 rice varieties inventoried were HYVs, nine were introduced by other farmers and seven were traditional types.
Eventually, more people planted larger areas with HYVs, dominating the traditional varieties and those introduced by neighboring communities, the center said. The HYVs were maturing early and could be planted twice during the rainy season in rain-fed areas.
In such a short time, the farmers had more yields than before. But there was a problem.
The HYVs narrowed the germplasm (genetic material that carries the inherited characteristics of an organism) base, the study noted. Several traditional varieties are no longer planted and are now considered lost. As a result, the farmers lost control over their seeds. They have to buy the HYVs from agro-chemical stores or dealers each cropping season.
The new varieties weakened the community’s synchronized cropping schedule. As a result, pests increased, accounting for a 20-percent crop loss.
Moreover, the community’s cooperative self-help group, through which knowledge and exemplary practices were shared among farmers, has disintegrated.
The HYVs brought along a new technology alien to the community – the use of oil-based inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, which, in the long term, degrade and contaminate the soil. Pesticide use leads to a cycle of poison, as farmers tend to use more when pests eventually develop resistance to even the most potent poison.
Thus, farmers have been forced to buy everything from seeds to fertilizers and pesticides, which often leave them heavily indebted, the MRDC study said. Before, they could select and set aside seeds from their own harvests, simply use weeds and animal dung as fertilizers, and synchronize cropping schedules to keep pests at bay.
Debt trap
The findings were presented during the Third National Conference on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Security in Quezon City on March 29, which the MRDC and other development nongovernment organizations serving indigenous peoples attended.
Sponsored by the EED Philippine Partners’ Task Force on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, the conference was held at a time when official pronouncements blamed previous typhoons and, later, rising world food prices and rice hoarders for a crisis over rice, the Filipinos’ main staple. The EED stands for Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst e.V., a church-supported donor agency in Germany.
A similar research by the Southern Christian College (SCC) in Midsayap, North Cotabato, reinforced the MRDC study. The SCC discovered that Bt corn and F1 hybrid rice had proved to be counterproductive among indigenous farmers in Sarangani.
The high cost of producing Bt corn, which requires chemical fertilizers and pesticides, has buried many farmers in debt, forcing some to sell or mortgage their land, Prof. Elma Neyra of the SCC said.
Maria Pilar Castro, senior agriculturist of the Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya (Sibat), another development organization, reported about Bt corn contamination in B’laan communities in Mindanao, raising concerns on food safety.
Hunger, blood
Indigenous peoples also felt cursed because their ancestral domains have been targeted for big-scale mining and logging. These only brought “hunger and blood” to many indigenous communities in Mindanao, according to Manobo youth leader Yatz Ambangan of Carmen, North Cotabato.
Ambangan cited how the government often responded with more military operations when indigenous folk would protest against mining and logging operations.
As a result, indigenous folk have to evacuate, abandoning their upland farms, and many accused of being rebel sympathizers have been killed, he said.
The conversion of lands into plantations of banana, palm and lately biofuel plants will lead to “food insecurity,” he said. He noted how the plantations had displaced hundreds of indigenous folk, some of whom were forced to become farm laborers with meager wages that were not enough to provide them all their needs, including food.
Policy issues
The EED Task Force on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, which is a consortium of development organizations serving indigenous communities, saw the food problem, including the current rice crisis, as an issue of policy. “Indigenous peoples’ rights to their land and resources must be secured,” it said. “This is the fundamental basis of their food security.”
Government and international policies, it said, must respect and recognize the rights of indigenous peoples to determine their own development – be it in agriculture and other industries, including mining, and other land and resource uses.
It stressed the right of indigenous peoples to free and prior informed consent (FPIC), which is guaranteed by the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Uprightness, Honesty as Way of Life
Uprightness, Honesty as Way of Life
Inquirer Headlines / Regions [Photo] http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/regions/view/20080227-121617/Uprightness-honesty-way-of-life-in-Ibaloi-village Uprightness, honesty way of life in Ibaloi village
By Maurice Malanes
Northern Luzon Bureau Posted date: February 27, 2008
BAGUIO CITY – There’s something that simple probinsiyano (rural folk) can strongly take pride in – a culture of uprightness and honesty.
So the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines is not actually starting from scratch in its call for “communal action” against a “web of corruption” and dishonesty or an “ecosystem of dysfunction” said to be pervading government. It can take off from what may be called an “ecosystem of goodness,” which remains rooted in many rural and indigenous peoples’ communities.
For example, in the Ibaloi upland village of Dalupirip in Itogon, Benguet, one can leave the house door and windows open without fear of thieves. Or a carabao (water buffalo) in the fields because no rustlers will take it in the dead of night.
A paradise
“Our village is a paradise indeed,” said the late elder Tomas Pocding of Dalupirip. “You can see how we don’t have to fence off our homes because each one trusts everybody.”
Pocding was describing his village to reporters one time in the 1990s, stressing how he could not give up the place for a resettlement site being offered by the government in order to give way to a dam project. He and his village mates had feared that the dam would submerge their community.
Until he died in 2000, Pocding, a survivor and veteran of World War II, had fought hard to defend his village by the Agno River. As the “seat of Ibaloi culture” in Itogon, Dalupirip, with its age-old rice terraces and precious culture of uprightness, could not simply go down the drain, Pocding said.
Cultural heritage
Dalupirip and its rich cultural heritage must be inherited by future Ibaloi generations, he said.Offers of money and other compensation failed to blind Pocding from defending the village.
He insisted that not all that was precious in life could be translated into money terms.There are other Dalupirips elsewhere. The other rural upland towns either have zero or very low crime rate.
In fact, some jails are empty and are being used as a bodega (warehouse).In these towns, stealing is a no-no; the community castigates those who do.
Elders always hammer into the heads of the young that it is better to be rich in character, honesty and integrity than in material wealth from questionable sources.Such cultural psyche, to a high degree, has permeated even local politics.
In Kibungan (pop.: 17,000), an elected official who would be reported to have engaged in anomalous transactions will surely not win another term. But another who is transparent and honest in all his dealings will.
Still, even a well-loved political leader cannot go beyond three terms. The Kankanaey folk believe that even political power must be shared so other equally qualified community members can serve as mayor, councilor or barangay chair.
The only long-staying mayor ruled during the martial law regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s, when no elections were held.
Recent political events were not so perfect as complaints of vote buying were reported. But the mayoral candidate who allegedly tried to buy his way to victory lost.
Morality, values
Even without religion, which the colonialists introduced, the Kankanaey society has been highly moralist since time immemorial. This could be seen in a value system and an unwritten moral law, which are part of the upland folk’s collective character and way of life.
The Kankanaey morality or sense of right and wrong generally revolves around four major elements:
*Paniyew (fear of the unseen or the creator of humankind). A breach may spell eternal suffering for the offender. But it also connotes holiness.One cannot just pick a ripe pineapple from a neighbor’s swidden farm or catch a neighbor’s chicken and cook it because while no one may have seen the offender, a perceived someone knows everything that happens.
*Inayan (fear of a perceived someone). Its attacks focus more on one’s conscience. The perceived someone may not impose the sanction, but the offender’s conscience hurts the person most, and this may mean sleepless nights for the person.
*Bain (shame). The Kankanaey society is a reproachful community. To live in such a community after one has been known to commit a grave wrongdoing is intolerable. Shame can become too heavy for a person to take that it becomes enough punishment in itself.
*Ta-an (respect). It can also mean being considerate. Due respect is given to which or to whom it is due.
Despite the inroads of Christianity, these values, which have their counterparts in communities elsewhere, remain in the minds of the upland folk. It is thus common to hear elders remark, “Oray no pagano kami ngem ammo mi di inayan (Others may regard us as pagans, but we know about inayan),” referring to a strong sense of right and wrong.