Recalling Anchokey

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

I had to beg off from an invitation to attend next week’s Kapihan with the Benguet Electric Cooperative for earlier schedules set on the same day. Still, I can always be there in spirit.

Being one among the towns in Benguet that practiced mummification in preserving their dead, how can a tourism town such as Kabayan be removed from one’s memory? Out of more than a hundred ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines, the Ibaloy tribe of Benguet has been declared by archaeologists and anthropologists under the National Museum of the Philippines as the only tribe that carried out mummification processes.

Kabayan is known as the center of Ibaloy Culture. The other towns that traditionally performed the process through days of rituals were Tuba and pre-Spanish Kafagway (Baguio area), as evidenced by mummy caves found on the rocky slopes of Santo Tomas and the promontory found on the Northwestern side of Quezon Hill above San Carlos Heights.   

Thus, the Kabayan mummy burial caves were officially decreed as national treasures by the Philippine National Cultural Treasures under PD 374 that have to be “preserved, protected and maintained for future generation as a manifestation of the skills and ingenuity associated with religious belief of the Ibaloi culture and tradition.” The more than a hundred burial caves, including five of them identified as Timbac, Opdas, Tinungchul, Bangao and Naapay have been declared as endangered sites by UNESCO.

Anthropologists in the 70s who were guided by farmers found more than 15 caves that contained smoked human mummies in them. Around 150 natural and man-made burial caves strategically carved in rocky mountain slopes were identified during the mission. Apparently, the practice of mummification and cave burial died down during the Spanish period.

As one travels along the roadline from Gurel in Bokod to Abatan that was recently paved with concrete, you will not fail to notice the mountainsides of barangays Bila, Adaoay and Anchokey that are practically covered with wild yellow sunflower, especially after the rainy season in the last quarter of the year until the early months of the coming year.

Below the sunflower slopes are rice paddies planted to Kintoman (brown rice) that is an indispensable rice variety in Ibaloy settlements, especially for those who see to it that they have an overflowing supply of tapey (rice wine) and difeg (the rice soaked in wine).

Upon zig-zagging up to Barangay Anchokey (meaning, long), one spots deep ravines that guide the mighty Agno River below at approximately 600 meters below. In 1997, a team of Baguio-based newsmen, including this writer, rode across this part of Agno on a five ft. by six ft. metal basket suspended by a tram line and powered by a C240 diesel engine.

The metal basket that resembled a large baby crib was installed to transport at least 500 kilos of vegetables from the mountain slope 400 meters across the other side of the river to the main road. The sensible invention of the transport system practically saved time and effort for the farmers who no longer carried their harvest for eight long hours, as conveyance through the tram line only took them 15 to 20 minutes.

The last time I dropped by Anchokey, the tram line was no longer there. I thought maybe the farmers could turn into something tourist-oriented like installing a 400-meter zip line at 600 meters above the Agno, and across it.

Another prospect that Kabayan can offer is its natural capacity to run mini hydro electric plants. Five years ago or so, Beneco started building its own three-megawatt hydroelectric power plant at Man-asok, Buguias, just above the Kabayan road boundary. At the same time, the detailed engineering design for two more plants that are expected to generate at least 30 megawatts is now on the drawing board.

On a trip to Buguias sometime after the 1990 earthquake, I learned that the Napocor earlier sought to construct more than 10 mini electric plants along the Agno River down to Itogon. For unknown reasons, the plans did not push through.

I was also told by Kabayan residents that the proposed hydro plants were opposed by them because there were plans to relocate communities to other sites. Recently, Kabayan councilors passed a resolution that would now allow Beneco to start the process of developing a mini-hydro plant along the Agno River under a joint partnership.

Certainly, the completion of these hydroelectric power plants is anticipated to reduce the cost of electricity for Kabayan residents and for power consumers in Benguet.

In comparison, Hedcor’s 11 run-of-river hydropower plants in Benguet has already produced more than 30 million kilowatt hours of clean, renewable and reliable energy. The generation was delivered to Beneco, Napocor and the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market or WESM which in turn sells these to power consumers nationwide.

Hydropower plants rely on the natural flow of the rivers. Instead of allowing the power companies to directly construct the power plants along the rivers, partnership schemes could have been the better option. Today, it appears like Benguet no longer owns its rivers. It is owned by other entities.