BEHIND
THE SCENES
Alfred
P. Dizon
(Daniel Paul Valdez of Lower Magsaysay.,
Baguio City writes this week’s piece. We invite our readers to send their
reactions or articles on the matter through our email: northphiltimes@yahoo.com
)
The month of October is celebrated yearly as Indigenous
People’s Month. In
celebration of October
12 as tribal
liturgical Sunday, I
was riveted by the article of
Fr. Andres
Cosalan on Igorotness
in his regular
column in another paper. Having
invited anybody to say a piece or
two on Igorotness,
I was tempted to write
this piece.
To
start with, it is utterly
deplorable that the term
“Igorot” carries with
it a lot
of negative and shabby connotations. Vile
connotations as being foul
or filthy, barbarian or
savage, homely or ugly,
narrow-minded or stupid, rustic, laggard, base, surly,
intractable and others
are attributed to Igorots
as a people.
These
contemptuous attributes were first
raised by the
pillaging Spanish conquistadores sometime in the
18th and 19th centuries
when they suffered constant
failures to conquer
Igorot territories for gold.
These
debacles baffled them no
end as Igorot
braves ferociously fought
for their invaluable freedom, uncompromising independence and cultural integrity. Broadcast far
and wide among
their complaisant and abject
lowland subjects who were then truckling up
to the sordid Spanish authorities, these negative traits consequently stuck
to the former’s
consciousness.
Nevertheless, it is baffling that
such grim profiling
is still stuck in lowlanders’
consciousness up to
the present even
if they are
already mingling with Igorots in endeavors either at
work, church, political structures/institutions or
in school anywhere
in the Cordillera,
notably in Baguio
City.
It
is because of such unfavorable
profiling of Igorots
that here in
Baguio City (no less
an Igorot city),
either in a subtle
or manifest manner, their
prejudice is being shown
in countless ways. You
can sense it
when lowlanders regard an Igoy
or ethnic-looking individual
in a curious manner
like a quaint
object when an Igoy enters
a tad swanky eatery
at Session Road or
anywhere where business
establishments are mostly
frequented by lowlanders. You also
sense the patronizing
attitude when a lowlander allows
a highlander to be attended first in a queue
in a business
establishment. In most instances,
a transaction between
a lowlander and highlander is always
accompanied by condescending
attitude, especially in Baguio
City, on the
part of the lowlanders. In contrast
to Manila, as it is a
large city, Igoys aren’t much prejudiced
when they hustle and bustle with inhabitants
there as they are regarded as
equals.
I
declare this due to
personal experiences I have had in Baguio
and Manila. I lived in
Manila for eight
years when I
took my high
school and college
studies there in the ‘80s. I experienced firsthand the prejudice
and condescension here in Baguio. Nonetheless,
there are several good-natured lowlanders who are perceptive
enough to know the
true nature of
the Igorots and
thus consider them
as equals and not as inferior
beings.
It
is worth considering
that because of undue
prejudices and biases
against Igoys some
illustrious Igorot
congressmen filed a bill in
congress in the 1950s
wherein they called
for the change
of the name
of Igorots as a
distinct group of tribal Filipinos
in the boondocks and
highlands of the
Cordilleras to “mountaineers.”
It
was an attempt
to erase the
negative connotations ascribed
to being an Igorot.
The bill never managed to
get into plenary
deliberation, though.
Contemporary
Igorot congressmen, who have well-meaning
intentions and incisive minds among
the present crop
of Igoy congressmen
could file a bill
to replace the
term Igorot with
Cordilleran. This is to
align it with bills filed to promote
Cordilleran autonomy. This is
to neutralize negative
connotations associated with being
an Igoy.
In
my view, I
think it is
unwarranted that one
letter writer in another paper (who
identified himself as a
BontokIgoy) excoriated the IPRA Law for
promoting cultural preservation and other issues. This
is not to
twit him nor
to vituperate against his
opposition to the
IPRA Law but for all its
worth and merit,
the law is unambiguously convenient and
fitting for indigenous
peoples like the
Igoys. This being so
as it intends to
safeguard the rights
of IPs especially
on their providential
right to utilize
their ancestral domain
for their own welfare
without undue interference from the
extraneous peoples, notably the
mainstream spectrum.
It
is the law
that allows the IPs to
have their land
reserved for them to
be optimized for
their own good.
As for cultural
integrity, one of
the fundamental causes
why ancient Igoys
faced the gunfire
of the Spaniards, I
think the IPRA is
only encouraging the
preservation of those age-old
customary practices and
traditions that have proved vital
to the ethos
and identity of
the Igoys as
a whole but
categorically not the barbaric
aspects like headhunting and
other abominable practices of the
Igoys of
yore.
Such have been eradicated
during the American
pacification campaigns in the
Cordillera. To put it bluntly, the savage practice of
headhunting is an
anachronism in today’s
world as we are now in a time
of cutting-edge and state-of-the-art computer technology.
Besides,
the Igoys of
today proved just the
very opposite of negative
attributes ascribed to
ancient Igoys by
Spanish colonizers. Igoys have
invaded and virtually succeeded
in almost all professions, except perhaps
astronautics in which no Filipino has achieved
so far.
As
for same writer’s
advocacy that Igoys
should be assimilated
into the lowlanders’ ethos,
that is beyond
question. Today’s Igoy generation
(and even past recent ones), have
indeterminately imbibed a
lot of
lowland ways. Infact, young, punky Igoys of
today dress hip and cool, talk
saucily and sprightly and
act like lowlanders
that oftentimes they are mistaken as lowlanders
themselves.
But
there is one
big, vital difference between
the Igoys and the
lowlanders ( even with well-known
actors like the late Marky Cielo and
Paulo Avelino who
have Igoy blood in
their veins notwithstang): Igoys, in
my perspective, are generally more concerned with
substance rather than
form while it
is the opposite
with the mainstream.
Besides,
even how much
the Igoys will
dress, talk and act like
lowlanders, their physical
make-up and intonation will inevitably betray their
ethnicity. Succinctly put, there
are several vital
differences between Igoys
and lowlanders.
It
is thus that
Igoys will never
be like the
lowlander except perhaps
in the intellectual/professional and moral spheres, those most equalizing democratic spaces for IPs and
lowlanders. In the physical aspect,
it is no
question that lowlanders
outshine highlanders
especially the dainty, stringy, rangy and petite physical
builds of lowland
women as compared to the
squat figures of
most highland women. In
view of this
and the abovestated reasons, there
is an urgent need for
autonomy in the
Cordillera. I don’t
think there will
be isolation on the
part of the
Cordillerans when we
become autonomous as
Igoys are much exposed
to and even practice a lot of lowland
culture whether we are autonomous
or not, considering interracial marriages.
But,
for all intents
and purposes, we
have to be autonomous in order
to exercise our natural
and human rights
as indigenous Filipinos in
our very own enclave
and to determine
our destiny as
a people deeply
anchored on the
deep-seated,though, ethnic moral
and socio-cultural values which
invariably are our
ballasts and crutches
as a distinct
group of Filipinos.
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