Thursday, December 25, 2008 Sumog-oy: Fertile ground, taking roots By Ben V. Sumog-oy Issues and Views
(Second Part)
LATELY, Dieter Wladkowski, 48, an engineer by profession and a big-time businessman and who is married to a pretty village woman, Cristina, 41, established a word-class beach resort in the village, with a multi-million hotel sprawling therein and with its complete amenities, such as, swimming pool, cottages and function halls for business meetings and conferences. Mainly designed to cater to foreign guests, this modern beach resort is expected to operate by the end of year 2008.
The village people consider the establishment of this modern resort as a welcome development for this is expected, as a logical consequence, to create a positive impact on the local economy, specifically in terms of employment, money circulation, price valuation of real estate property, and its other varied peripheral impacts on the people's way of life. This investment can also serve as a key for the coming in of more domestic and foreign investments.
Of course, it cannot be denied that investments, either local or foreign, in the absence of relevant social policies, carry in them some social costs, specifically their deadly effects on the most-treasured local cultural values and beliefs, on the natural environment and on the community's control of its local resources.
Moral conservatism remains to be a precious gift that God has given to this village and, therefore, the preservation and nurturance of this valuable treasure should be considered condition cine quanon for all development endeavors -- if we are to ensure that investments, like this modern beach resort, really serve the best interest and welfare of the community.
This modern beach resort, and all other forms of investment that may come in the future, should not result to the depletion of the village's natural character. The upper portion of the resort is a vast stream of brackish waters where variety of fishes (tambalo, bagtis, ubog, puyo, gurami, ruan, tamasak, quero, ibis, awa, bangrus, ugdok, etc.), family of crabs (alimango, kuday, uson, kalampay, gyakap, katang, bangi-bangi, etc.), prawns (lukun, pasayan), shrimps (urang, etc.) and shells (tuway, egi, iwis, etc.) are in inexhaustible abundance.
The vitality of this stream should be preserved not only because a large segment of the population in the village depends on it for livelihood, but also because mingling with the living creatures found therein is already an important element of local culture and is, in fact, revealing of the inhabitants' distinctive identity as a race.
In fact, the Antiqueño's powerful drive to come home - as articulated in the Kiniray-a song, Mag-uli Gid Ako Sa Antique, which is one among the long list of songs dubbed as Original Kiniray-a Music (OKM) popularized by two local artists and have now become almost a craze in Antique is simply attributable to the thrill and sensation of eating different exotic water creatures that thrive in Antique's vast brackish water enclaves.
In sum, therefore, the death of this stream is not only an economic question but also a social question, with a largely political and cultural character. Thus, there could be no greatest wrath that God can bestow upon a village than ushering this stream, with all its natural bounties, to its eventual demise!
The name of our village is Barangay Amparo, a seashore barangay within the Municipality of Patnongon, Province of Antique. There is really no definitive reason why our barangay is called "Amparo". Being a very small and remote village, no one really bothered to research and write the historical contexts behind the adoption of its name.
However, the contexts behind such name can be readily deduced from various exploits of people that had taken place in distant past, but are continued to be told and retold across generations.
Stories, dating back from various historical strands within the Philippine colonial epoch (333 years under Spain, 43 years under the United States and 4 years under Japan), are replete with passages of how our village served as a fortress for some Filipino revolutionaries and those who had transgressed against the oppressive laws of the ruling colonial powers.
