Commercializing sacred Mount Pulag

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

KABAYAN, Benguet -- The mountains beckon as it is again the season for exploring them. There is satisfaction in spending nights under a blanket of stars, a come-on that seasonal campers from the metropolis look forward to. This, aside from staying away from bumper to bumper traffic, air pollution, city crowd and office computers.

The season brings back memories of old man Batacagan. Tears rolled down the cheeks of the 80-year old upon hearing Jackson Browne’s song from a Walkman stereo headphone that some friends who were on Pulag in 1984 placed over his ears. Apparently, the old man who became part of the natural beauty of the Babadak Lake was moved by the music and the technology that he could not grasp.

Taking a break on any mountain means simple meals cooked on open fire although regulations issued by the DENR requires campers to use modern camping gears for cooking. This is an instruction that departs from the skills that are taught to boy and girl scouts.

My apologies to the agencies that watch over Mount Pulag but mountain climbing has become commercialized and distorted. Climbers now pay a few thousands pesos that do not seem to be spent back for the reasons they were collected for in the first place.

In connection with the fees collected from climbers, many ask: how much has been collected since the start, how is it disbursed, for what and for whom?

Also, climbers are no longer drenched in their own sweat because there are porters and mountain guides who are paid. These extra arrangements in the seasonal tourism event simply go against the freedom and survival that are supposed to be experienced in mountain climbing.

Four years ago, I received information from a friend who frequented Mount Pulag that the natural grass cover of the campsite designated by the DENR for climbers has practically turned into dust. This means that the vegetation has been crushed or trampled on.

The destruction was not caused by the IPs living around Mount Pulag but by the hundreds of climbers that were allowed to enter the park with no let up. Because of that it would be best to put a moratorium on mountain climbers and let the grass grow back.

True, tourism brings money but at the same time, it destroys things that may not be repaired easily. There is need to seriously study how to preserve the mountain that straddles the tri-boundary of Nueva Viscaya, Ifugao and Benguet.

Mount Pulag is host to three types of forest ecosystems namely Dipterocarp Forest, Mossy Forest and Pine Forest that have been inhabited, protected and preserved by indigenous cultures. What remains of the endangered vegetation cover of the Ibaloy sacred mountain has to be protected from commercialization.

Government has imposed fines and penalties for “violations”. But common sense dictates that rules are better obeyed when these are self-imposed. Ironically, it looks as if mountains become more mismanaged when managers are positioned as overseers.

Friends and I have sneaked in to Mount Pulag for several times in the past and have rambled through the mossy forests around its crown. I certify that we never registered our presence at any manager’s table. It was because there was never a government manager before. Only the gods and spirits of mother earth were the overseers of the mountain.

I was there before it was declared as a national park in 1987, before PAMB came to existence, before a ranger station was built, before a government item called park superintendent started to lord over the good and bad over the mountain, and before fees were collected from climbers.

I remember reading about the International Union of Alpinist Associations (UIAA), an organization of mountain climbers in the US. In one of its statements, it said: The varied Park Service regulations are designed to “get more money” for the government by issuing citations, fines and threats of arrest to climbers who logically fail to obey the illogical regulations.

This has become known as “Taxation by Citation”. These regulations do nothing to actually protect the environment. They destroy climbing freedom and create paperwork excuses for Park Rangers to arrest and fine more climbers, “to get yet more money for the government.”

The experience of mountain climbers in the US seems to reflect what is happening with Mount Pulag. The rules that were made cannot do anything to big-scale forest degradation, whether this happened on Pulag, Mt. Data, Mt. Polis, or somewhere nearby like Mount Santo Tomas and Mount Cabuyao in Tuba.  

In China, mountaineering groups are up in arms against a wide parking lot and an elevator that will ferry people to a historical and natural limestone arch. This is yet another illustration of how government encourages tourism by constructing buildings and hotels that permanently destroy a rural community and its natural environment. Pray that this does not happen to our mountains.

I also have read news reports about mountaineers who have collected over 20 tons of garbage and frozen excrement on Mount Everest. This confirms the fact that commercialization destroys the natural environment.

If human feces is scattered around Mount Pulag and generates a threat to spread disease, this should be enough cause for alarm to people in Bokod and Kabayan who look up to the sacred mountain with significance.

For Mount Pulag, clearly it is the continuous number of hikers that causes the problems. In answer to a looming problem on human waste disposal, some knee-jerk Mount Pulag managers constructed a squat type toilet dug-out at the camp site.

What happened next is that napkins, tissue papers, dirty newspapers and even dirty underwear were scattered outside, not inside the toilet because mountain climbers no longer used the toilets when the pits were filled.

By the way, what is the update on the destruction by bulldozing and cutting of trees on Mount Santo that happened years ago? Will the culprits go free?