PITCHING IN

A forgotten village
GLORIA A. TUAZON

TINGLAYAN, Kalinga -- Traversing the long, winding road from Poblacion, Bontoc past Sadanga to Bugnay, Tinglayan in the early morning is exhilarating. Everything is fresh and green, too vivid that it makes the mountains come alive. It seemed too peaceful that those who knew the past would cringe and shudder at the thought. It is serenely beautiful, everything like postcard pictures.

We came to a bend where the old lookout nook was perched. Just a small galvanized iron sheet square of a hut with a door and a small window, maybe good enough for three people to stand in. This used to be the place where they stood guard to watch for intruders, during the days when tribal
wars were everyday concerns, late 70s to its dwindling days in the dawn of the 90s.

It is hard to believe that such serene places like these used to be battlegrounds of sorts. But today I delved in it, I fell in love with the mountains and the silence of the land, it screamed freedom.

Beside the lookout is the welcome sign to Kalinga, with invitations to visit the splendid place. The signage is almost invisible, the paint all warped up and washed out by the weather. Nevertheless it did not dampen my spirit, I came alive with anticipation and gratitude that I was able to set foot in this place.

From up high on the main road we were looking down a small village perched at the bossom of the mountain across us. Just a small village safely located above the mighty Chico River. It was the only spot with a change of color and scenery from the green of the mountains. We trooped down the mountain floor to cross the hanging bridge connecting the main road to the village then took the pathways though the scattered rice fields up to their homestead, a steep climb up.

My fascination grew and my slit, squinting eyes sparkled and darted about at the scene. This I say is rugged territory -- everything raw and simple. Small traditional thatched houses, most out of bamboo slats and cogon grass roofs, some though have improved to include GI sheets and concrete walls.

The place is achingly raw and basic that the whole community only shares two common bathrooms and toilets. The water supply is abundant, coming from a deep well manually pumped way beside the bathrooms. The houses are built close to each other that if you open a window you are looking into the interior of the next house, leaving only a narrow pathway for “road rights”.

What fascinated me the most were the tiny black, pot-bellied pigs. Almost every household has them, and they prowl the village like dogs, snorting at people with their tummies scraping the ground. Comes evening and they go home to “roost” and be fed.

The sight is comforting in a certain kind of way, down home I say. A far off thing from the city where convenience is at my feet.

This is a place where you could live off on two pairs of shirt and not worry about your looks. Aesthetics has no place here, as beauty gleams off from the rough, thick hands of people who work the earth, from the toothy, genuine smile of sharp eyes silently probing you.

Contrary to stories I’ve heard these people are hospitable. And I learned to only eat a little portion when offered food or drinks to be able to accommodate all the food and coffee offers handed to us. Declining an offer would mean an insult to them I was explained, so visitors have to adjust to that. But their coffee is one of the best I’ve tasted yet.

Home-roast coffee beans pounded daily (as with their daily rice supply), the aroma reaching you before the tin cups were ever filled with the steaming concoction. Since city comfort is a world away, they grow their own rice and stock it in granaries. They also grow corn, sweet potatoes, coffee and some vegetables.

They raise swine and dogs and chickens too. The surrounding mountains still provide them with a once in awhile supply of hunted, wild animals. As also a steady supply of dried wood for cooking and lumber for house repairs and constructions. The Chico River down below is an amazing provider of silted sand and stones. And a great recreation site for swimming and picnicking along the banks.

Bugnay is devastatingly warm, or hot if I may say so because the heat sears the skin -- reason why most of the people here with a few exceptions have tanned skin. Exposure to the sun and the river takes its toll. The villagers are not as tall as their neighboring brothers in the other Kalinga municipalities but they still have the same sharp eyes and prominent cheekbones.

The ridge of their noses as sharp as the mountains surrounding them sometimes curving down like a hawk bill. The people here used to be warriors, and fierce ones at that. History does not lie because they really were headhunters of sorts back then. Then Christianity entered the village nineteen years ago, a group of missionaries from the YWAM community painstakingly converted the people into what they are now.

The small multipurpose hall and church is filled to the brim every worship day. They sing their praises, their voices reaching up, beyond the arid lands up to the skies. So who says people cannot be changed especially with a good and worthy reason?

Treading up and down the village I sat on a small clearing evened out and thinly concreted, my foot tracing some kind of embedded letterings only to read that I was sitting right on the grave of their local hero, Dulag Macliing.

The person who along with his town mates openly opposed the then project of Ferdinand Marcos to dam the Chico River. History has it that his group were hunted down and killed. They opposed the damming for reasons that Bugnay would be obliterated from the map if the project pushed through.

Looking at the grave now, the hero lies silent, right in the middle of the village he helped save. Looking up to the mountains and basking in the glory of the river whistling below.

I just realized that however people tried to measure the pride and prejudice of its people, they have never conquered the soul of the land. It has always thrived in freedom, uncalculated and immeasurable as the daily coming of dawn and hope.