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Monday, October 27, 2003
Sagada children revive cultural wisdom for watershed enhancement
SAGADA, Mt. Province -- Children in this upland indigenous community are tracing their cultural and environmental roots, literally and otherwise. In so doing, they are being given a voice and empowered to help conserve and promote such heritage.
Villagers in the six northern barangays of this scenic Cordillera town have tapped the kids as key players in a two-year watershed project anchored on traditional resource conservation practices of Sagada's pine and mossy forests.
Supported by the Small Grants Program of the United National Development Program, the project has been dubbed "Headwaters Enhancement Project". This is to stress the vital role of the barangays serving as watershed of the Amlusong River, a major tributary of the Chico River that feeds the rice lands downstream, into the Cagayan Valley.
Although a world-renowned haven for tourists and where western missionary education, through the Episcopal Church, took a foothold in the 1920s, Sagada has kept its cultural values intact compared to other indigenous villages of the Cordillera.
Elders, however, feel a fraying of the cultural fabric. This prompted Sagada natives now residing in Baguio to propose the culture-based environmental project to be implemented by the community and its children.
"The village elders hope it would help pass on the time-tested natural resource management practices of northern Sagada," explained forester Manny Pogeyed who helped draft the project proposal.
In an effort to help their native communities, members of the Bangaan-Fidelisan-Tanulong-Aguid-Madungo-Pide Association of Baguio and Suburbs (BFTAMPABS) headed by Thomas Doga-ong submitted the project proposal to the UNDP.
Following its approval, the villagers organized the Barangay Association of Northern Sagada (Bansa) for the implementation, with Bangaan Barangay Chairman Osenio Lay-os on the helm.
Features include biodiversity conversation, nursery establishment, forest protection and expansion, and preservation of traditional forest policies.
During the project launching earlier this year, Sagada Mayor Thomas Killip noted its potential to succeed because it will be directly implemented by the villagers themselves in accordance with their traditional practices.
"You have been doing similar projects on your own and this is no different, except that the project content as initially presented, is in English, but which you can translate to out own dialect," Killip said during a briefing on the project's features.
As planned, the children will soon be walking through the pine and mossy forests and hunting grounds in an experimental learning patterned after the indigenous practices handed down through the generations.
"With support from the elders, they will be planting and caring for trees the way our ancestors maintained these forest," said Julie Tuguinay, head of the project's education committee.
For now, the kids are learning to interview their grandparents and village elders to gain insight into and record these indigenous practices that they will validate through the forest and village walks.
"One of the common cultural practices in Northern Sagada is the maintenance of a 'saguday'," sixth grader Kristelle Ngina wrote in her initial vignette.
"This is a certain portion of land communally taken cared of by a group of families, usually of one clan, starting from their past generations up to the present," said Ngina.
Her schoolmate, Roflyne Fangayen, focused her study on the "ubaya" holiday and the "patpatayan," a ritual tree held sacred by her ancestors in Banagaan barangay.
"Ubaya is a holiday for the villagers, (when) no one is allowed to work in the fields for it is considered a rest day for the villagers," Roflyne noted in her writing book. "Patpatayan is sacred tree. It is where offerings such as chickens and pigs are butchered."
From her talks with the elders, Mary Ann Paclan of Tanulong barangay learned that her ancestors came from Bika, a place in neighboring Abra province. She retold the story of how, in their search for a new settlement, a dog led them to a big tree.
"This tree was called "tanulong" and that's how our village got its name," she said.
Mildred Bolinget of the Aguid Primary School wrote that in the olden days, a Spaniard passing through asked an old woman sharpening a piece of wood what the village's name was.
"She (misunderstood the question and) answered she was sharpening it for use in planting banana trees. And that's how Aguid got its name, after the sharply pointed piece of wood."
Godfrey, who did not write his family name on his piece, said his village of Madongo was named after a mushroom locals call "dongo". "One day, a group of men passed by and they saw many dongo growing in the place. They called my village Madongo, meaning "many dongo."
Tuguinay explained that recording folklore, traditional wisdom, culture and history will be a vital component of the children's activities "so they will learn, remember and pass on to the next generation our common heritage."
The children's feature of the headwaters enhancement project was inspired by Eco-Walk, a similar indigenous culture-based environmental program for kids in Baguio, which last year, received the Global 500 Roll of Honor from the United Nations Environmental Program.
Eco-walk volunteers are helping the villagers flesh out the children's activities as part of Baguio's inter-local government unit support program.
Noting the need for cultural sensitivity and to ensure a strong sense of ownership of their project, the kids here dubbed it "tabbogan." Ramon Dacawi
(October 27, 2003 issue)
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