IN 2001, I liked hiking the 6-plus kilometer stretch of the Tucocan to Bontoc portion of the Tabuk-Bontoc National Road.
It was a form of exercise for me, after living in the city for decades. The air was fresh and the scenery that I see along the Chico River mesmerized me no end.
I lived with my parents-in-law then, for the one-year and-a-half duration of my assignment as Agricultural Programs Coordination Officer (APCO) for Mountain Province.
Early in the morning, during my hike towards Bontoc, I meet many farming folks also hiking towards their rice terraces in the mountains or near the river bank, all the way towards the border of Tucocan and Sadanga.
I get to meet these folks at dusk along the road after the day’s work is done.
I had a strange feeling hiking the Tucocan to Bontoc Road last December 25, 2018. I have not met a farmer going to some farm in the village’s territory but several cars instead, going towards Tabuk City, some to Tinglayan, and Sadanga, perhaps.
When I reached the rice terraces in the boundary and territory of Bontoc, some farmers alighted from tricycles and proceeded to their farms.
On my way back to Tucocan, I can see that the Mountain across the river is lush and blue. Some of my father-in-law’s rice terraces along that portion are now overgrown with bushes.
My father-in-law retired from the mines as an electrician. When he went home with my mother-in-law, he did not need to work anymore. But he inherited properties located in the four winds of the village. He farmed these with hired helpers from Tinglayan and Sadanga. It was still taboo to leave your inherited farms unattended.
Today, he could hardly attend to his farming duties. It is understandable. And he is not alone.
According to my mother-in-law, it is different these days. Many folks prefer pursuing other livelihoods besides farming. They buy rice instead.
“In the old days until our time, all the community folks grow their own rice and it was just too bad when a family buys rice to eat,” she explained.
She also said that “there was no shortage of rice then. We also had lots of varieties to choose from and to cook.”
I have heard several stories as to why the harvest from the rice terraces was enough from season to season, compared to today which is good only for five-six months.
The rice varieties then could grow as tall as a man, and they had long panicles with larger grains.
My mother-in-law said that, indeed, the harvest during the old days were organically grown and yet plentiful, unlike today.
She asked me if I had time, so I could go visit her eldest daughter and see for myself the “akamang or rice granary” that her daughter inherited from them. It still contained “Chinakon,” a variety of rice that can give you lots of harvests, she said.
“Chinakon is planted because it is the rice variety that could sustain the family’s energy needs, when all the other good tasting varieties are long gone, until the next harvest,” she explained.
I understand that the ancestors of my parents-in-law also have been hiring laborers from the nearby villages of Betwagan and Tinglayan to help them cultivate their rice farms.
The rice terraces have been a most important biodiversity habitat until the modern age. Chemical inputs destroyed the soil and poisoned edible fauna and flora that were additional sources of food.
If the rice terraces will yet be sustained, they can continue to serve their multi-functional roles in the conservation of the watersheds, as tourist attractions, for science and education, among others.
There is so much this generation does not understand about this legacy that is slowly being lost to modern ways.
That story of extinction actually started in the 1960s. I am seeing its end in Tucocan these days, and I could hardly do anything to stop it. So much has already been lost.