Thursday, April 17, 2008 Wenceslao: Ravaged mountain By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
UNTIL flood waters hit Sitio Dakit in Barangay Guadalupe last Monday, I never thought the mountain looming over Banawa is being destroyed for a residential project.
Pardon my ignorance, but my hunch was that this was for some road project of Cebu City Hall. What disturbed me then was the peeling of the green off that “beloved” mountain.
The verandah of our old house in Sitio Kawayan, Barangay Sambag 2 used to have a view of that mountain, so I grew up imagining what life was up there.
Some nights flames would sketch some strange designs on its side---kaingin, old folks would explain. It was only years later that I would understand the meaning of that word to the farmers.
I used to associate that mountain with people who supplied charcoal to the family sari-sari store. They were the ones who walked around with tall baskets on their backs.
I was wrong, of course, because charcoal makers were from villages near areas with denser foliage, like Baksan, Pamutan, etc. The mountain up Banawa was largely bald.
The setup would be reversed years later, when I got older. On one of the ridges of that mountain, near some coconut palms visible from afar, was a hut owned by a farmer.
I reckon that, with the land development, the hut is no longer there. But I used to sit on its yard and enjoy the view of the lowlands, mapping out where Sitio Kawayan was.
The land is owned by the Villalons, I was told, and I thought they were absentee landlords. There were many lowlanders like that in those days, leaving their lands to caretakers and allowing farmers to make the soil productive while they were mulling over what to do with their property. So the Villalons have finally chosen change.
I agree the value of that land would not have shot up had property developer Landco Pacific Corp. not started work on an upscale subdivision within the 210-hectare Villalon property that straddles parts of Barangays Guadalupe, Tisa, Labangon, Sapangdaku and Buhisan. Kaingin farming is easy picking for the profit motivated.
But I squirm every time I see the exposed mountaintop, ravaged by bulldozers day in and day out. The flooding in Sitio Dakit partly gave credence to the squirming.
Beyond that peak is linsa, the man-made forest that ensures supply of water to the Buhisan Dam. There too is Baksan and Pamutan, where a community of farmers is thriving, surviving.
With Monterrazas de Cebu in place, will land speculators go after them next?
