TRAILS UP NORTH

Glo Abaeo Tuazon
Shangrila out of the dustbowl

There was once a tiny and sleepy village in Itogon, Benguet that would almost resemble a dead town with tumbleweeds rolling by in those old western movies, where you can hear the clackity-clacks of hooves arriving to disturb the deafening silence. But that was a few years back. Cooped in this dustbowl is a shangrila one never would have thought existed, all because a man refused the idea of the impossible.

Barangay captain Norberto Pacio is a man not prone to showing much of a smile. He looks stern and almost poker faced. But that is a deception. A warm-hearted funny man in reality, Pacio could evoke people into laughter with his simple, genuine antics, something unlikely of the traditional “shy mango” Ibalois.

In retrospect he said he started as barangay councilor before becoming barangay captain. In his days as a councilor, he could only look about and dream of a mirage. He never had much voice then. When his turn came to lead the village, he did lead. And his barangay mates attest to the fact that he is a “go-man”, somebody who does not stop until something happens.

And something big happened in Tinongdan. Barely two hours drive from Baguio City, along a tree-lined road undergoing construction, we arrived facing another scenery. It was like a sudden cut in a film and another story shot before the other one was finished.

There in front of us is the village proper. On the right is a three-storey building that is their barangay hall, the facade an imposing but welcoming sight after the dust-covered, lonely roads we passed along. This building compares better than most other municipal buildings I’ve been into during my travels.

It could actually pass as a municipal building if not for the inscription that says “Barangay Hall of Tinongdan.” This building Pacio often tells during his lectures was something he sweated out to build in his three terms as captain, the funds sourced out from different entities and companies in amiable talks and diplomacy.

Of the total fund used, only about 10 percent came from their barangay fund. The three levels are in turn divided to give the women, the youth and the senior citizens some space to work into, that he says give them importance, for in a place admittedly not endowed too much with natural and beautiful sceneries, the people are the attractions.

And the people can work altogether to make up for what was missing in a picture and make it comparable if not better than the others. With Pacio leading his pack, the unknown Tinongdan became a Shangrila in the midst of a dustbowl.

The “remaking” of Tinongdan was not easy, as the place was scarred by the early mining explorations, people then caught the gold fever, but the disease finally came to a halt with the depletion of the minerals.

The Agno River traverses on one side and the Binga Dam on another. The catch basin was put into more use by the construction of fish cages. Tilapia and some other fish specie are farmed in those lots. Along the mountainsides right across the water sources are terraces planted with rice, some plots reserved for the special kintoman variety. Tinongdan was not named such for no reason, as tinongchan actually means “planted with rice.”

Over yonder are mango groves that according to Pacio, are the sweetest of its kind, “one could forget his inlaws” with the taste of it. The mango trees bear good fruits because of the fertile land and warm climate.

Hovering above all that we see is a breast-like outline of a mountain, the peaks into the clouds. That is Mt. Ugo, the second highest mountain in Benguet. It used to be called Mt. Umag-aga but with the killing of a Spanish man Juan Cito in the early 19th century the named was changed to Mt. Ugo.

The word “ugo” is a local term for slitting the throat. This mountain was in 1987 also the crash site of a Philippine Airline plane where a number of passengers died. Since then an annual trek was organized by the relatives and friends of the victims to do a memorial on these peaks.

In Sitio Domolpos is an old hut housing the ancient mummies of the tribes. These mummies are sacred that they are not allowed to be viewed by just anyone. They are however brought out at times for purposes of canaos when something goes amiss in the community, like famines and other calamities, with the belief that something displeased them.

In Tinongdan are also eight other very old houses and are now being preserved as part of their cultural heritage. The oldest is in Lusod, constructed in 1926 and owned by an equally ancient 93 year old Terio Leon. Most of these houses are located in Sitio Kiweng, the sitio that in history performed the first ritual of peset. So much for a tiny place.

And Pacio and his people have other plans still. In the future we might get to experience their seasonal kayaking tours, or bathe and rest among the river rocks and dine on floating indigenous restaurants along the Agno or Binga catch basin. All these and more cooped in the cove of Itogon. -- Email: twilight_glo@yahoo.com