Domoguen: Every day is a milestone
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies under Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
THE quote above was attributed to Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known simply as Seneca (or Seneca the Younger), a stoic philosopher and rhetorician, born over 2,000 years ago in Spain. His works have been studied by many of the world’s leaders and influenced historical figures such as Pascal, Francis Bacon, and Montaigne, and on down through time.
Seneca’s words influenced my decision to push on with our trip to Dacudac, Tadian, Mountain Province to participate in an important community event last week.
As it was, the month of August has been rainy throughout. It was raining hard last week and our driver had doubts about the safety of traveling along the Halsema Highway during inclement weather. Out there, the visibility, owing to the thick clouds all around is zero. And the continuous downpour has loosened the soil. Erosion and washouts are always imminent dangers to motorists.
By all indications, it was best to stay secured and warm at home and in the office when the weather is bad. I was hoping they will postpone the scheduled launching of the livelihood assistance fund to the CHARMP2 Scale-Up Project beneficiaries to a better day.
The night before our travel, I called up Engineer Beverly Tudlong Pekas. She is the Provincial Coordinator of the Department of Agriculture (DA) in Mountain Province. I asked if the activity is on.
“Of course,” she responded and added, “I will see you there tomorrow.”
On the following day, we left early at 4 A.M. What was supposedly a four-hour drive to Dacudac took us six hours and thirty minutes to complete. We were delayed by road clearing operations and the monstrous traffic caused by erosions and slides along the road.
I can understand the dangers and difficulties of mountain living and how we must live our present moment, not putting-off what we can do today for tomorrow. The things we neglected doing yesterday are making our lives and those of our children difficult these days.
A week before this trip, I had my regular medical consultation with the doctor. We are doing a close watch on my nerves, hearing, vision, and internal organs. The performances of these body organs are on a decline. My kidneys are not functioning well, for instance, is performing at about 45 percent and the other is already lost.
The quality of our lives like the earth we live in are on a decline but in spite of the weather and the conditions we live in, it does not mean we stop living. For us, it is the time when and where each day is a milestone. All, the weak and strong suffer and can yet do something in rescuing the present and future from impending debacles.
Traveling along the Halsema today in any weather is a far cry to how it was during our younger days four decades ago. It was a one-lane dirt road then but all around was green and the slopes along the road continuously drip with water all year.
Life moved slowly and travel from Baguio to anywhere in Mountain Province was expected to at least take you a day to do it.
Today, during summer and without traffic hindrances, travel from Baguio to Bontoc on the smooth and paved road would take about four to five hours.
During the rainy season, several portions of the two-lane road are reduced to a one-lane road by slides or washouts. Lives and limbs are at risk to falling rocks and debris from the mountain slopes.
Our ancestors did not waste their time to convert the mountains into food machines and sources of livelihood and income. They did well to ensure their survival and that of their children. We must employ the same urgency to study the problems that past economic and livelihood activities brought to our present living conditions and work out the needed solutions.
While in Dacudac, Engineer Pekas, asked me to fill in the time of our regional director during the program by delivering a message.
What? I said and hastened to add “no problem, it is alright by me.” I talked about the ways of the hardy and ancient Igorot; about their brand of leadership; about constructing terraces to conserve the soil; about planting forest and agroforest trees, about protecting and conserving the watersheds; and connecting it to the present by valuing the support of the CHARMP2 Scale-Up Project to sustain their livelihood and community life, and concluded it with how each and every Igorot and Cordilleran were destined to be good stewards of the Cordillera landscape.”
How we do things up here affirms our interconnectedness to each other, to our fellow Filipinos, and the whole of humanity. That is why the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and local communities must cooperate to develop the Halsema into a world-class mountain highway too, not one that shames us all.
To a hardy Igorot today, to a Cordilleran, even a PWD, each day of his existence is a milestone.