TRAILS UP NORTH

Abusing the Chico River
GLO A. TUAZON

SABANGAN, Mountain Province -- Rivers have beauties of their own, another kind of beauty, the kind that enchants people. It seduces not with a shout, but with constant whispers, echoing the wildness flowing with the current, stealing the hearts of men since time started.

Chico River is one of the longest rivers in the Philippines, stretching from its source somewhere in Sabangan and snaking all the way to Kalinga where it is utilized fully in an assortment of ways. To some, it is a way of life, to some it is life itself. As the river rumbles and sings through mountains and tamed lands, it gives life to those it touches along the way. It provides water for domestic, livestock and agricultural use.

It gives definition to a rather plain panorama in the landscape. It gives people, especially the children a natural playground to run and flop around in. A place for picnicking when the weather permits, and lovers’ favorite rendezvous when given the chance to stray away from the pack.

Moving further from the source in Sabangan to Kalinga, that portion of the river enhanced by crags and sudden angular drifts, the river has become a lucrative business for kayaking and white water rafting. The dangerous river maneuvers exciting the risk takers who often go back seeking the lure of the river, like an itch that need some scratching every now and then. In a more larger scale, the Chico River generates power that supplies electric current to millions of people.

It is sad that people often forget the saying, "What goes around, comes around". The river has so much to give, and yet more often than not it is never enough for us until we deplete the gifts to extinction. Along the river banks are human refuse and garbage.

Pollution started to seep into the waters, killing the aquatic residents we call sustenance. The fish species that used to thrive in profusion have dwindled, unable to survive the environment. Take also the case of dynamite fishing and water poisoning.

These two processes are done the most often by the locals, unmindful of the fact that they live a day but won't have anything left tomorrow. Dynamite fishing and poisoning kills even the fingerlings that are supposed to grow and mature, supposed to spawn again and continue the cycle of life in the river. The japanese eel (jojo), the river carps, the wading, the big river eels, the rock crabs, the wild river shrimps. They are now rare, most are gone.

And so the Chico River screams through Sabangan to Bontoc to Saclit and shouts into a crescendo by the time it reaches Kalinga, crashing out in full force especially with the coming of the rains. Like a living entity agonizing over the wounds created by people and nature over the span of time since it first started oozing out from the source.