Sunday, April 20, 2008 Estremera: Walking in their footsteps By Stella A. Estremera Spider's Web
"SA PILIPINAS pa ba tayo, ma'am," my reporter Rhoda asked as she clung to my shoulders while we were riding the habal-habal to Barangay Datu Ladayon in Arakan Valley.
I just laughed off her comment while thinking, "Hey, this is very good road compared to other roads in this part of the world." The road may be winding and unpaved, and there's a stream that the motorcycle had to cross, but it was wide and newly bulldozed. What more can we ask for?
We were going to visit the barangay to check out a very interesting story about a schoolhouse and what you may call the scourge of bureaucracy, how this can rear its head in the most pitiful places. That one is another long story though, which we will reserve for later.
*****
A day after the habal-habal ride, meeting up with diver-friends, one commented on my very summery tan.
"You've been diving a lot, it seems," he said.
"No, this is mountain tan," I replied.
Saturday before the habal-habal ride, I was walking down with several students and staff of the Kinaiyahan Foundation Inc. to sitio Upian in barangay Marilog also in Marilog district under the sweltering heat of the sun for more than an hour on very hot and dry road such that the gravels and pebbles made the whole trek more like a perpetual skid. This was followed by my first-ever horseback ride on my way back to the highway.
To think that we were in Marilog, the city's coldest district. This is summer at its hottest, so far. And still Goerge W. Bush doesn't believe in irreversible climate change, how dumb can one get?
The scorching sun of both trips underscored all these talks and fears about climate change, that seem to still be just talks and nothing else so far. For one, our city council still couldn't see the wisdom of preserving our marine resources. And then, of course, just over yonder, chainsaws are still whirring as people still see the remnants of the forests as trees that can still be cut and sold as wood. Just ask your friendly neighborhood cop whose name was also dragged into downtown videok karera how harvesting hardwood is a profitable undertaking for as long as you have friends in the environment department.
It's frustrating, sometimes, how today's scorching heat, including that of the hottest Christmas I've yet experienced, can just slide off the skins of these people deputized to enforce laws. Sad.
Back to our Upian trip, we were hanging out with the leaders of the Matigsalug tribe there when one put forward their wish: for the story of their people to be documented.
It's just this year, they said, that the Matigsalugs were finally recognized as a distinct tribe in Davao City, and they have been rejoicing ever since. For so many years, since City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte, he gave importance to the lumads by appointing a deputy mayor to lead the consultations with them. But the Matigsalugs were not among these tribal groups with an deputy mayor, until this year.
That's not surprising, as very few present-day resident know of the Matigsalugs; there's the very visible Mandaya, then the Bagobo and Manobo and the Ata, but the Matigsalug?
A look-see into the profile of Matigsalugs in the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, however, will show that the Matigsalugs are in fact among the original residents of Davao City.
"Oral tradition has said that their original settlement was at the mouth of Salug River, which is now Davao City." Wow... And we didn't know that. How sad.
But that's just a small part of the vast knowledge awaiting us in this equally vast city. There's a lot to be explored, way beyond the city lights and restobars. There's a lot to know. But very few get to know them. How sad that while the first world is now talking about trading carbon credits and worrying about global carbon emissions, we are still trying to find our roots and gobbling on tons of barbecue. Maybe we can hurry things up a bit...
Going out of our comfortable aircon rooms and walking with the lumads will be a good start. There you'll realize they have a story much deeper than walking the concrete jungles of the city at Christmas, the annual walk we have relegated them to in both our consciousness and our understanding. And thus I remember how one of our companions, admitting it was her first time to join such was so profuse in praising the Matigsalugs while unabashedly bashing the Badjaos... How sad.
