LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza
Mt. Mongew at MSEAC meet

Through this corner, our local musicians are again appealing for your assistance to a benefit show to help sustain the medication of 10-yr old Mark Anthony Viray, now under chemotherapy treatment for Hodgeskin Lymphoma (cancer).

The young boy who wishes to be a pilot someday was scheduled for six cycles of chemotherapy but his father Ernie, a taxi driver in the city can not afford the treatment. He stopped driving for awhile to attend to his son’s condition. Our local musicians who have been volunteering their God-given talents free for indigent patients in and around Baguio are doing it again in October.

Tickets for the purpose will soon be distributed around. For those of us who wish to help Mark Anthony in any manner, please dial or text his father Ernie Viray at mobile phone no. 09102437707.
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Last weekend’s Baguio-Benguet meet of the Multi-Sectoral Electrification Advisory Council or MSEAC was quite dull but other matters turned it into an interesting Saturday.

As you travel to Baguio along Halsema highway somewhere between Acop and Camp Dangwa , look to your right towards the direction of Sablan and you will see a mountain peak that rises to about 5000 feet.I pass that section of Halsema and everytime I do, I always ask myself “on whose municipality is it located and what do people call it?”

Kagawad Robert Valentin of Barangay Banengbeng in Sablan, my seatmate at the MSEAC meet, gave me the answer to the question that has kept me wondering for the longest time. My acquaintance from Lepanto who is now retired said the imposing cone is called Mt. Mongew . Mt. Mongew sits on Barangay Banegbeng and straddles the boundary of Sablan and La Trinidad. It can be seen from behind Justice Hill above the Benguet Capitol or from the top of the mountain above the Buyagan cemetery in La Trinidad.

It can be reached by boarding a jeepney from T. Alonzo street in Baguio, pass behind the Benguet Capitol or through Barangay Wangal, La Trinidad, get off at the Ebbes Elementary School in Banengbeng and hike along a two-kilometer dirt road until you reach its dead-end that is 100 meters below the mountain peak.

As chairman of the tourism committee in Banengbeng, Kagawad Valentin opened a proposal to the council for Mt. Mongew to be registered in the municipal books as an eco-tourism park.With the eventual approval by the Sablan municipal council through the tourism committee of Councilor Romulo Polon, the same could easily be recognized as an eco-park by other tourism offices in the province as well as the tourism regional office under Dir. Pura Molintas.

As compared to three more popular hiking sites, namely Mt. Pulag in Bokod and Kabayan, Mt. Ugu in Itogon and Mt. Santo Tomas in Tuba; Mt. Mongew is a “moderate” mission for nature explorers. Mt. Pulag is a long hike from Ambangeg or Palansa and will take you two to three days to enjoy, while Mt. Ugu is a long and steep climb from Tinongdan Central to Domolpos that will also need three days to enjoy utmost. Mt. Santo Tomas is “too near civilization,” you will be overlooking the City of Pines as if you never left it. That makes Mt. Mongew the best choice for one-day adventurers.

Manong Robert said that on top of Mt. Mongew , one will enjoy the sight of China Sea , both day and night. “The beam of a cargo ship sailing towards the La Union coastline at night is so bright that it lights up the foot trails of farmers,” he said.

I have not been on top of Mt. Mongew but I know that with its peak elevation it provides a vantage point overlooking the rolling hills of Kapangan, southwestern part of Kibungan and La Union areas adjacent to Benguet. If Kagawad Valentin’s proposal pushes through, Mt. Mongew as the latest addition to the list of tourist destinations in Benguet and the world could prove to be an income-generating project for Barangay Banengbeng, the neighboring barangays of Baluay and Bagong and the municipality as a whole.

In Sagada, the LGU collects very affordable registration fees from all visitors for the maintenance of their tourist sites. Their pattern may be copied and may be applied by Banengbeng. Reaching the top and being one with Kabunyan, towering over a wicked world below in a 360-degree viewpoint, or experiencing physical exercise under the sun, wind and rain may not be the ultimate attractions to Mt. Mongew .

The LGU barangay can designate camping sites for backpackers and for anyone who would wish to spend a night or two on Mt. Mongew . I for one would love to once again hoist my old yellow tent on Mt. Mongew.Perhaps, that can come to life if a camping trip composed of tourism promoters in the media is organized someday, in coordination with Banengbeng Barangay. If the activity is for the benefit of Sablan, I am quite sure Mayor Bony Tacio and his council will be amenable to this.

It is ironic that others wished for tourism spots in their areas, while here is Sablan that has the abundance of that sort. The sites do not have to be commercially developed as these are most attractive in their virginity – they only have to be promoted. *** I received some comments regarding the MSEAC meet held last week. Some members said it was their first time to know new information about the Benguet Electric Coop. while others said the meeting provided a venue for them to learn about Beneco facts that they did not know before.

With that, I had the suspicion that for the longest time since it was organized in 1973, not so much management-client interaction happened until this was realized by the new administration. It looks like Beneco should conduct more information-education campaigns in every barangay that it serves. A continuing IEC will benefit both the management and the member-consumers.

Those who attended were the respective officers representing the MSEAC of each of the 13 Benguet towns and the EC districts in Baguio . Many of them expected the meeting to present the relationship between MSEAC and the Beneco board.

While the key words in the title are “Advisory Council,” its functions were not presented, as far as Sablan MSEAC chair Steve Busoy was concerned. Indeed, the meeting presented matters about the electric cooperative, the EPIRA and NEA, as shown in the parts of the program.

This prompted some members who were still around after the meeting was adjourned, to discuss about future activities for the MSEAC as a true “advisory council” to the Beneco BOD, not merely organized in compliance with a NEA directive. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com