BENCHWARMER
Ramon
Dacawi
Presidential Peace
Adviser Jesus Dureza was right in urging us, Cordillerans, to “continue making
noise” in order to get the attention we desperately need from the national
leadership for the creation of a Cordillera Autonomous Region.
“Let your
presence be known and I am sure you will not be ignored because it is your
right under the Constitution to have your own Autonomous Region of the
Cordilleras, “ Dureza said during a Cordillera Autonomy Leaders Forum with
Senators recently.
Well, for
sometime now, we have been making noise. Each time we mark the
anniversary of the establishment of the Cordillera as a separate
administrative region - so installed to prepare us for autonomy =, we bring out
the gongs.
Each time, we
bring around each province of the Cordillera a gong that sounds
“gong-gong-gong”. Yet, aside from saying what it says in the vernacular, the
gong does not at all make a noise for Cordillera autonomy. Since it began as a
highlighting feature of the annual observance of our creation as an
administrative region, and given the funding for it, the gong-beating has yet
to ring its purpose of convincing our people to go for autonomy.
The
fund for the “Cordillera Gong-gong Run” can well go to hiring three Dangwa
buses and filling them up with Cordillerans in their indigenous attire on their
way to Congress. With their banners for autonomy, the said Cordillera
delegation can play their gongs to get the attention of the President along his
way to his annual State-of-the-Nation Address.
Inside
Congress, our Cordillera representatives can well greet the President in their
G-strings and “tapis” and waving signs for their region’s autonomy. Their
costume and billboards would get the attention and focus of the television
cameras better than the “ternos” and “barongs” of the other delegations.
With Congress
as venue and the annual SONA as backdrop, the pealing of Cordillera gongs would
sound clearer, and our message for autonomy heard by those who, we swear,
should listen to our clamor for self-rule, This strategy would be a
hundred-fold more effective than the remote, lonely sound of “gong-gong” that
we annually beat ineffectively around the region.
It would do
well, too, to review the terms of the peace-pact signed by the late Fr. Conrado
Balweg and then President Corazon Aquino in their peace accord in Mt. Data on
September 13, 1986.
It would do
us good to have our Cordillera leaders remind President Rodrigo Duterte
that this region kept its vow for peace after it was signed by “Ka Ambo”( as
Fr. Balweg was also known) and then President Aquino. The
Cordillera, the President should be reminded, kept its word of keeping the
peace after that accord. Unlike in Mindanao where pacts were broken.
This fact
would and should give the Cordillera an entitlement equal to, if not ahead of
Muslim Mindanao which continued to be wracked by war despite having signed
several peace pacts with the government.
With this
region now salivating for attention equal to that being given to
Mindanao, a Cordilleran wished Fr. Balweg did not forge the peace pact at Mt.
Data. His Cordillera People’s Liberation Army would still be intact and ready
to fight if government does not address the region’s clamor for autonomy.
And now,
aside from the repetitive “gong’gong”, what’s this we hear about the advocates
organizing folk concerts-cum-speeches on advantages of self-rule to rally the
people for autonomy? For us who love country music, it’s a curious, irritating
blend to listen to both country music and a lecture on autonomy in the same
venue. That’s why audiences are irked when folk musicians intersperse their
renditions with speeches. “Kansyon ketdi, saan nga sao,” audiences would
admonish the performers.
Money is also
now and then spent to hire Manila people who, despite their lack of
understanding about Cordillera autonomy, come and teach us how to advocate
Cordillera autonomy. Like the purpose of the roving gong, this is also
difficult to comprehend. (e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for
comments.)
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