Sunday, December 21, 2008 Sumog-oy: Fertile ground, taking roots By Ben V. Sumog-oy Issues and Views
(First Part)
LAST December, I journeyed back to the village where I was born and where I spent a larger portion of my teenage life to witness my father's penultimate sojourn -- his burial. It was penultimate because, in accordance with our Catholic belief, the way towards the grave is not the person's final pathway as a worldly pilgrim, and the tomb is not his or her ultimate destiny.
After death, as such belief preordains, a person is destined to enjoy eternal rest in heaven or suffer eternal damnation in hell, depending, of course, on how the Omnipotent Judge foots his or her spiritual balance sheet.
My father peacefully died at dawn of December 9, 2007, few hours after the town's parish priest bestowed upon him the sacrament of extreme unction. He was 87 years old. I am sure that my father, because he had not committed any grievous sin to suffer eternal damnation, is now in heaven and is living in God's divine grace.
When my father's health began to fall few months before his death, I prayed sincerely hard, unmindful of my sinfulness, for God to prevent the coming of the day I long dreaded for -- that day when my father's spirit would separate from his physical self. I was yet to give him a comfortable life that he had probably yearned for long, but had not asked me for it at all.
However, it was not within my power to prevent death in order to withhold life. Marcos himself, despite his quite absolute power and his billions, passed away few months after he publicly declared that he refused to die.
Then, as death finally did its part, I rested my case and bowed down before the magnificent power of the impossible, but, before my father was finally laid to rest, I wholeheartedly appealed to him to help us pray for God to shower His divine blessings of good health upon my 85-year-old mother, now 87 years old, so that I, together with my brothers and sisters, may be able to enjoy her comforting presence for many, many more years.
My recent journey back home was an opportunity for me to mark the metamorphosis of my place from a once sleepy village into an economically bustling community. Although my recent visit took place in such unlikely moment, when I was grieving for the death of my father, I cannot help but notice the radical changes that are now occurring in the village from whose womb I was birthed.
In the political scene, the Sumog-oy Clan dominates the political life of our barangay. Ours is a very small clan but the total number of its members happens to comprise the larger section of the population in the village, with only a little over 150 households.
The incumbent Barangay Captain is our first cousin, Eddie Sumog-oy; while two of his brothers, Edgar Sumog-oy and Ferdinand Sumog-oy, serve as elected barangay councilors. Dodong Sumog-oy, our first cousin by another uncle, also serves as a barangay councilor, together with our second cousin, Roy Sumog-oy Lagunday, the village's former barangay captain. The other elected barangay councilors are our distant relatives. Most of those who failed to make it in the last barangay elections were also our cousins and distant relatives.
The local economy in the village, with only one household living above the poverty threshold a decade ago, is now negotiating along steeply ascending economic spiral. Unlike before (mind you, I am the first bonafide bachelor's degree holder in our place), so many village inhabitants are already sending their children to school, up to tertiary levels in fact.
Concrete houses have sprouted in the village, courtesy of those who were able to obtain various college degrees and were able to eventually land a job abroad or in other parts of the country. With the support of their spouses and children working abroad and elsewhere, a larger section of the population is now capacitated to respond to the basic needs of their respective families and live a quite comfortable life.
Commercialization is also beginning to take place in the village, which is now a host of one gigantic foreign investment. This economic trend is expected to influence and shape the contours of the village's economic landscape in the years to come, but this is now beginning to threaten the control of the village over their natural resources.
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