WHILE we are under the community quarantine by the Government of the Philippines, some countryside folks relayed a story to me regarding the same experiences they heard from their grandparents before being influenced by formal education. They were very eager to tell that our old Ibaloi ancestors had been doing such community quarantine long before our generation. They refer to it as "Kolentinas."
According to their story, people then have no permanent property, unlike today where every land has its owner. Every time their place is struck by a disease, they need to move and look for another one, far away -- this struck me eventually. This should be true as evidenced by clan reunion stories that our great grandparents have been moving to many places, making families, from one place to another?
Anyway, to avoid too much movement for them later on, they adopted "Kolentinas" as a solution. When there is a disease, they isolate the place where it originated, and at the same time, isolate their place and the entire community -- they need not to go away anymore.
When I researched to check the origin of the word "Kolentinas," it sounds similar to the Spanish word for Quarantine which is "cuarentena." Of course, to make it shorter, the "ua" was replaced with "o," and the "r" with "l." So I conclude, maybe, the practice was taught to them by the Spaniards, as other cultures we adopted. And perhaps, they adopted it because it may have been very effective. It may have saved lives.
There was a Spanish Flu in 1918 with 500 million confirmed cases and 50 million deaths (estimates), in 15 months. So there must have been a Spanish solution. Cuarentena for the Spaniards, Kolentinas for the Ibalois. Quarantine for the English.
As time passed by, when there were no infectious diseases in the past decades, perhaps the kolentinas has been placed aside for a while. We were busy with our daily lives, and including acquiring properties and riches instead. But when the Covid-19 reached us, kolentinas has to be re-practiced. The difference, however, is that there's no other place to go and it's the whole nation that has to be quarantined. Nobody is displaced because there is not much space already on earth to move on to. (Unless planet Mars sends us a letter of acceptance, maybe?) We are now placed under the modified general community quarantine (MGCQ). After this, we will be living in the "New Normal." By that time, I should be hearing our elders saying "pan kolentinas kayo ladta" (stay quarantined). Maybe not as a community, but as a home, which I think is a must. The coronavirus has not vanished. It's out there somewhere.
Advantageous communities are those in rural areas, where they can fully implement the traditional Kolentinas, as a community.
The message is clear with it: Be safe! We should not just be doing kolentinas because the government told us to do so. We must do it to isolate ourselves from the disease. Of course, it will affect our source of income and way of living, but, we cannot sacrifice our being.
Man kolentinas ketajo et ladta!