THIS end of the year, I was able to travel back to visit the Maeng of Sabnangan, Luba, Abra. This was to attend the wedding of Andrey and Claire Buyagan. Claire is a nurse who used to work in Dubai and Andrey is a seaman from Tamboan, Besao.
I met Andrey during my second trip to Tamboan when he met me in Kin-iway and we hiked up and down the mountains until we reached their hometown sometime in the 1990s. He was then in high school, his father was the barangay captain and the mother the principal of the mission school.
When he graduated from high school he came to Baguio and studied two years Electronic Servicing in BSBT College where he was one of the Bibaknets scholars and he passed with honors. He started to practice his skill and he studied in San Fernando at the Maritime Academy. It was during those times that he met Claire.
It was in July during the 2019 Cordillera Day celebration in Tabuk, Kalinga when I met Elizabeth Buyagan and asked me to be one of the sponsors during the wedding in Sabnangan.
I said yes I will be there, not knowing that I will be missing three weddings in Baguio this end of year, two of which I was also a ninang, invited by PB Nemesio O. Huag of Gibraltar and PB AnselmoTaoing of West Quirino Hill.
Likewise, the blessing of the marriage of the Rulivas in Guisad. But since Mng Beth invited me first and I confirmed five months ago, I have to go to Sabnangan to reconnect with the people.
Mrs. Buyagan has retired and she is now on her second term as a municipal Councilor of the Municipality of Besao. It was also another chance to reconnect with our people from Besao as more than 12 vehicles full of Ibesao who travelled through the mountains and attended the wedding in Sabnangan.
The whole community was alive as homes were opened for the visitors from Besao, Baguio, Abra and other places. The people of Luba were given assignments from cooking, to parking attendants to cooks and ushers and other assignments.
But years ago in 2000, the place was a small community reached by a road trail, a drive through the river bed the crossing the waters over the balsa and finally crossing a bamboo bridge over troubled waters.
It was one of the communities where a participatory research was conducted by the Social Action Center (SAC) of the Diocese of Bangued, Abra with the Upland Development Institute, Inc (UDI) National Secrretariat for Social Action (NASSA) and Caritas Australia.
One of the results of that research was a publication entitled “PEDEN: peace pact as practiced by the Maeng Tinguian of Abra in Northern Philippines”`
At that time UDI was based in Tuding, Itogon and I would commute to Bangued where we will meet the other members of the research team.
We would ride with Director Fr. Emil Pati to Sabnangan in his reliable boxed type Land Cruiser during the duration of the time we had to conduct the consultations and validation of findings and prepublication activities.
One thing I remember was the commitment of the school and the church to continue teaching the indigenous practices, the dance and music.
I will write more about the project and the people some other time, for it is in meeting and in sharing that the stories continue to be remembered.