Still on Autonomous Region of Asin (ARA)

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

ASIN, Tuba, Benguet - The birth of the term Asin Republic, later reworded Autonomous Republic, then  now, ARA- Autonomous Region of Asin was due to the Ibaloi term "Ara!"

It is an expression that one would say when he is hard up traveling on a certain condition of a road. Say, "Ara iyay ja kalsara!"(forcefully worded) meaning “What kind of road of a road is this?” A tourist once said, "Asin is a tourist place I can’t live without!" This suggests Asin road was then a road less traveled.

In the recent Media Autonomy Powwow in Asin, I was convinced that part of the two failures of bids for Autonomy were lack of information and education campaign and partly due to ineffective speakers. I also ascertained that the previous IECs failed to touch base with the grassroots.

Just for my heart’s content, I went to NCIP-CAR office along Magsaysay Avenue to research on the term Native Title, is it the same with Naked Title? I did not get the right answer except from a mambunong or an elderly “medicine man.” 

I had a discussion with a cousin March Fianza, a full grown and full-blooded Ibaloi and a neighbor in this paper, and he uttered his simple definition of Native Title. He said, "Genuine Autonomy is when government really recognizes the Native Titles of the Ibalois!" The natives of Baguio have existed in Baguio even before laws were written.

There is no doubt about it. The Ibaloi Natives are the indigenous peoples of Baguio and Benguet, and they have roamed this place and have benefitted from its resources long before they were maliciously designed to be taken into custody by government and distributed to migrants and speculators for tax purposes and profit.

               

In seminars I have attended on autonomy, the word Self-Rule is over emphasized. It is the authority given to the ruler who governs a place. The word flashes on the back of my memory when Kings and Queens ruled their kingdoms.

It is possible that an Ampatuan style of Autonomous ruler can happen here just like in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). But, on one side of the coin, it could also be better if autonomy is geared towards Self-Reliance.

While surfing the internet, I came to read about Self-Reliance. According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, he said, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at his conviction that envy is ignorance, that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or for worse as his portion."

It is a beautiful classic philosophy that embodies American way of living up to now. It is just relevant today as it was a century ago.The right question stakeholders of autonomy may answer is, "What if . . . another Ampatuan?" Emerson said, "A man Caesar is born, and for ages after, we have a Roman Empire. A man Christ is born, and millions so grow and cleave to his genius, that he is confounded with virtue, the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man." The question is, "What if . . .?

Who are you, Sir? Can the Regional Governor of soon to be Cordillera Autonomous Region be trusted? Old ones say, "Lead a simple life. The society we live in is all about getting more houses, cars, luxury and credit cards. The law of worry says, the more you have, the more you need to worry.

You get a house, then you need an insurance, then you need to take care of the yard, and the list goes on. Next, you may want a bigger house with a bigger yard which cost you more in insurance. Along with the accumulation of materialism, are other "Gifts". Soon you become a slave and the materialism owns you."

To my fellow Ibalois, "Let us lead simple lives and be spiritual in words and in deeds. Let  us be strong when we are weak. Let us be brave when we are scared. And let us be humble when we are victorious!" These are words from our elders. Indiginous peoples, like Ibalois, have to regain self-confidence, our self-reliance, our self-trust, our self-dependence, but not so much on self-rule. Our character should teach us above our wills. 

To be great is to be misunderstood. Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, Copernicus and Galileo, then Newton. Every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh were misunderstood.

Happy Trails to all Cordillerans. Onwards to real autonomy, onwards to self-governance and onwards to Native Titling.