Revisiting Daga Apayao

FIRST PERSON ACCOUNT
Ramon Pacyaya Doyayag

My determination to be a soldier of the soil and my eagerness to step on our target propelled me to walk under the heat of a summer sun towards the jungles of Apayao.

Being then the end of the Baguio-Kalinga road via Bontoc, it was the starting point of a memorable two-day single file march. We were a squad of two females and six males armed with newly received high school diplomas. These documents were our passports to a contact person, chieftain Bakidan Mamba. It was March 1958. As of this moment, it was more than 52 years ago.

Daga, Apayao was our destination. We were to plow, plant and produce anything for man’s survival. But rice was the first and foremost in our menu. Truly, our sole mission was food production. We were to be aided by the Monday Club of Baguio in collaboration with the Mountain National Agricultural School (now Benguet State University) our alma mater.

As programmed. we were to be given for free five hectares each by the Philippine Government to independently toil after the area will have been surveyed and subdivided by a surveyor. But as per decision and declaration of Ama Mamba who softly and seriously said… “bingayen tayon annak ko, daga tayo daytoy, siak ti mang-ibingay kada kayo”, we readily approved it over a jar of “basi”. True to his words, we started doing the job of a surveyor with ropes and jungle bolos.

Sir Mamba was fully aware of how a hectare is, so we cleared, measured and staked our way in a greenery of varied heights and sizes. It was unanimously agreed that the lots will be numbered
and the “draw-lot” system will tell which each of us will call “this land is mine”.

The two young and beautiful girls, who were not spared of the staking activity experienced not seeing the sun on the days when we entered the underbrush of the forest. As we worked on, we realized that the proposed settlement was of rolling hills with creeks (yes, not rivers) aplenty of fishes, crabs and edible frogs. It was a habitat of different wild animals, the delicious winged rats included. Thus, it was “go to where the flavor is” whenever our hungry stomachs called for lunch.

Pending the arrival of the supplies from our benefactors, we stayed with our hospitable host, the village chief and his wife who welcomed us with… “dakayon ah ti annak mi”. they were childless and were in their senior years. They had a number of granaries with “ground floors” which we used as a sleeping quarters. Their house served as general headquarters and mess hall. Ina Mamba, who refused not to do kitchen chores, was the daily chef helped by her instant children – we, the settlers under initiation.

It was an adventure and there was joy to live in the couples’ fertile farm of wide upland ricefields and of different fruit trees. But regretfully, I didn’t wait to receive my share of the supposed bounty. Barely a month from day one, I extended my resignation handshake to my seemingly unbelieving comrades. With dried monkey meat in my backpack I walked back to Tabuk accompanied by Ama Mamba.

I was afraid of the various and enormous trees. I bowed and surrendered to them. Truthfully, they were too big and tall for my four feet eleven inches height. I was physically healthy but rather small to turn the jungle into a farm. Lord God, I thank Thee for my size and Thy guidance in the realization of my past career which is the source of my subsistence and my one and only wife for 50 years as of this writing.

Through this newspaper it would be good news to hear a voice/voices from that wilderness decades ago. To my comrades, ay WADA KAYO’S SA?