That's Mt. Santo Tomas with its two somber eyes, the twin 'radars', which oversee Baguio and its surrounding municipalities. Even when you look up and all you see are low-lying clouds or stubborn fog, you know Mt. Santo Tomas is there, daring you to ascend it and scrutinize Baguio through its eyes.
For us young people of Cordillera, the Cordillera Contemporary Literature is like Mt. Sto. Tomas. It's just there, waiting to be climbed. However, this mountain that we shall call Mt. CCL is yet to be formed; or, rather, it's still being formed.
A browse through the latest anthology of contemporary Philippine literature would show you that under the subcategory Cordillera Literature you would find mostly legends, myths, epics, riddles, and proverbs.
It is lamentable that there are too few and far between contemporary writings to complement the cornucopia of Cordillera oral literature.
Nonetheless, our oral tradition is the firm base upon which Mt. CCL must be formed. To build upon this base is a task our generation must resolve to carry out. It is undeniably a daunting task, one that can't be completed by our generation alone.
Those who would come behind us would have to build upon what we have, and those behind them would do the same, and so on. Mountains, after all are formed over time.
Now, how do we go about forming a mountain? First, we must remove roadblocks that keep us from getting to the building site -- for example, thinking that literature is just for the bespectacled and grey-headed scholars from obscure universities, or that literature should be English.
Burn these misconstructions.
Literature is for and about real people with real experience who use real languages, including Cordillera languages.
Next, follow this advice from a wise writer: "Look into your heart, and write." Write of the Cordillera in your heart, write through the Cordillera in your heart, write for the Cordillera in your heart.
Don't worry that what you've written may not be Pulitzer caliber. Write anyway. The fine dusts on mountains were once crude rocks, or parts of crude rocks.
At the summit of Mt. Santo Tomas one could have a panoramic of vista of the entire Baguio City and the places that surround it.
In the same manner, when there is a Mt. Contemporary Cordillera Literature to be climbed, then there will be a point from which Cordillera could be scrutinized.
When Mt. CCL is formed and its apexes reached, one could better see what Cordillera is and what a Cordilleran is, and where they have been and what they are heading for.
