Two women of substance

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

Even in death. two women are keeping me alive. Their unusual  rage against the dying of the light is keeping me and many other dialysis patients alive. Looking back at how these two women struggled to live to the fullest tell us how beautiful and precious life is, however insurmountable the odds maybe.

                I recently went to the wake of one of them. Amor Inacay Orpilla who succumbed to pneumonia, at 39. Pneumonia is a fatal illness we who are undergoing regular dialysis dread and are prone to develop. Thrice I’ve been lucky it was detected early, while I was confined for another ailment less serious.

Amor had to be in Manila recently, to bring a group of patients to offices of politicians where they could be given a portion of the medical fund of the senators and congressmen.

               She made the trip despite feeling weak, as she badly needed the extra fund for the trip organizer to temporarily sustain her life-time dialysis and medication. So she came home in pain and was rushed to the Baguio General Hospital where she was later pronounced dead.

In a country where millions are poor, it’s normal for legions to pursue dreams of instant financial relief. They queue up daily , hoping to be part of the audience and then be chosen at random by the master of ceremonies to play, dance or do whatever for cash rewards dangled in those noon-time game and variety television shows.

               “Pumila at nakapasok ako at nagbakasakali, ngunit di aki natawag ni Mr. Willie Revillame (I lined up and was let in but I was never called by (host) Willie Revillame.)”

“Still, I keep trying,” she admitted when I interviewed her three years back, before I would also start my four-times-a-week dialysis for life.

Over lunch at the city hall canteen she and fellow dialysis patient Mary Grace Binay-an, then 23, 0f Irisan Barangay , continued to day-dream. They had just hiked to the City Hall to work out the release of two vans to bring 20 patients to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office on June 12, a day after Independence Day.

A college scholar who had to quit school to concentrate on her work as barangay secretary of Irisan Barangay here, Mary Grace was less outward than Amor, who was straight-forward in telling you she needed financially support to make it for another day.

Amor and Mary Grace found strength in each other. Amor was devastated when she learned Mary Grace earlier succumbed to pneumonia. She never gave up, continuing her fight for survival that earned her the respect of fellow patients whose resources to go on – material and otherwise – were far beyond her means.

               Some people introduced to Amor were surprised by her openness in seeking support, as she knew it was the only way her straightforwardness would eventually be seen as part of her undying rage for life.

Eventually, they learn she was orphaned and living in the care of her two aunts and that she must tell people she needed their help to survive. Eventually, those who had reached out to her would understand, and give inspiration to fellow patients who, despite their resources, initially feel they were in conditions far worse than Amor’s.

               “Sulatan kaya naming ang “Wish Ko Lang”, Amor wondered aloud , referring to the Saturday show over GMA 7 that turns wishes of some of the poor into reality.

The two women’s wish was, is and will always be a long shot.  At that time, Amor estimated there were 130 patients reporting twice a week for their blood-cleansing sessions at the renal room of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center . At P2200 per patient per session, the wish would require P572,000.

The only child of Moreno Orpilla, then a 70-year old widower who retired as an engineer and was also then on maintenance medication for heart ailment, Amor had been on dialysis since January, 2010. Father and child were both jobless, yet defied reality by trying to survive on his P3,000 monthly SSS pension.

               Amor reached this far in a relentless fight for life, a feat fellow patients almost couldn’t believe, given the meager resources she had and the will to sacrifice self-restraint for the sake of life.

Looking back at what she had undergone, one can’t help but realize that she was right in her rage against the dying of the light and that no matter how difficult it had become, life is and will always be beautiful. That’s why she did her best to live fully, even beyond the circumstances and dictates of  circumstances.

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A reminder from God

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

 “Children are a reminder from God that the world must go on.”

The quote is from Baguio boy and thinker Jose “Peppot” Lambinicio Ilagan, a fellow newsman who went ahead due to kidney failure. It’s a life-time medical inconvenience I’m coping with, making me realize life is beautiful, despite your having to now and then throw up unanswered questions to the sky.

In-between shots of gin, we were discussing “Eco-walk”, a basic and simple environmental program of having kids trace their source of water, from the faucet to the pipes and ending at the Busol Watershed. There, they drink water from the source and then plant a tree seedling to the foliage.

 Eco-walk gave me, Peppot and other fellow Baguio journalists, together with Baguio barangay captains, a refreshing respite from the daily grind. We simply could not refuse guiding kids excited to trace where their tap water comes from. The hikes were our mandatory exercise, allowing Peppot and I to sweat and to delay the eventual impact of diabetes, which is kidney failure.

Peppot, my brother, mentor, immediately saw the power of kids in convincing tree-cutters and fire-bugs from destroying Baguio’s remaining pinestands and water sources. The kids’ daily presence in Busol somehow reduced the number of illegal logging and fire incidents in what remains as one of the few water sources of Baguio.

The program galvanized the city’s barangay captains to action, initially by building the lecture shed and then training themselves as guides under Manny Flores, who committed what remained of his life to the program.

Truly, why deny a child the right to know where his water comes from? For Busol, we adopted the “muyong” system of forest management effectively done for centuries by the Ifugaos to ensure year-round water for their rice terraces.

More often than not, a child who grew up in Baguio after the 1990 earthquake has experienced “Ecowalk”. So did thousands of visitors from all over the country who adopted their own kids’ programs patterned after that of Baguio’s.

As seen in the program and in recent events, the power of kids cannot be over-emphasized. When that pine stand beside the Baguio Convention Center was threatened to be destroyed and turned into four high-rise commercial buildings called “Baguio Air Residences”, kids of Baguio Pines Family Learning Center wrote then President Glorai Arroyo, asking her to save the trees.

To permanently save the pinestand, city mayor Mauricio Domogan offered to have the city buy it, together with the Baguio Convention Center that the Government Service Insurance System initially agreed to sell to the city.

Recently, however, GSIS had a change of mind, saying the area’s land value has appreciated and offered the lot at a higher price.

Kids rom Baguio Pines Family Learning Center went into letter-writing, this time asking President Rodrigo Duterte to convince GSIS to save the pine lot so the “City of Pines” won’t turn into a misnomer.

First to respond to the pupils of school principal Leonila Bayla was GSIS president Jesus Clint Aranas who said the GSIS property “will remain the home of these beautiful trees”.

As Peppot had reminded us: Children are a reminder that the world must go on.” – e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.

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In memoriam: The power of presence

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

{We must not forget the date –January 25, 2015 -, a day of tragedy when 15 Cordillera warriors under the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police fell in the Mamasapano Massacre. This piece revisited was written after the remains of the SAF heroes were returned home through Camp Dangwa. The final homecoming haunts us still, as it should, for the gallantry and heroism of the native Cordillerans and other Filipino police officers who perished in the massacre should be part of Cordillera memory. – RD)

 Many in the early morning  crowd  a-forming at Camp Dangwa felt no  need for them to say a word. All they needed to do-and did after getting wind of the arrival of the heroes - was to be there in silence - in and around  the chapel of the regional police headquarters. All they wanted was to witness,  in their  anonymity, the  solemn, final arrival home of the fallen warriors of the Cordillera. They believed their presence would somehow ease the pain of the fallen warriors’ kin.

Less is more, we, verbose journalists  are reminded now and then. The less words  there are, the clearer and stronger the message becomes. So the  silence of the  crowd gathered  became a fitting and most powerful expression of the common grief, sense of loss and community  of Cordillerans over the violent deaths of  15 of their  young warriors. Representing all walks and hardly knowing each other, they kept coming that morning into Camp Dangwa and, in silence,  witnessed the dignity of the  slow, unhurried, respectful pace with which the mortal remains were borne on the shoulders of the heroes’ fellow officers of the peace.

There were 15, not 13, sons of the Cordillera among the 44 members of the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police who fell in that ambush in Mamapasano, Maguindano. The biggest number came from this region of warriors, joining the growing roster of Cordillerans who, over the years, made the ultimate sacrifice in the protracted struggle for peace in the troubled Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. They were warriors, and, as such, they volunteered to join SAF, as can be borne out of the growing roster of police graduates from the Cordillera joining that force because that’s where the warrior is supposed to be.

From their ranks as junior officers (Police Officer 1 to Chief Inspector) and photographs,    we presume most – if not all – were in their 20s or early 30s, born  after Sept. 13, 1986. That was the month, day and year when rebel priest Conrado Balweg of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army signed the “sipat” (cessation of hostilities”) with then Philippine revolutionary government President Corazon Aquino. 

True to that truce,  the Cordillera Administrative Region that was formed stood faithful to the pact for peace forged in Mt. Data. Still, the date, despite being termed “historic” then, now hardly comes to memory. (The only and most feeble attempt I remember to mark its significance was when retired regional director Henry Aliten of the Department of Agrarian Reform mounted a “sipat” anniversary chess tournament a few years ago.)   

               Given our wanting of a sense of history, chances are  the gallantry and heroism of the 15 SAF members from the Cordillera and those of the rest from various parts of the archipelago, would soon be forgotten, slowly erased, yet as brutally as some of their identities were mangled by the overkill with which they were peppered with bullets after they had fallen.

What happened was a “pintakasi”, as an ARMM official  said it, with several rebel forces coming in to fight a common enemy, in this case the SAF officers and men.

The prayer, the hope is that the sense of community at Camp Dangwa that week-end when the heroes’ remains were brought home would transform into action so that this part of the history of this region of warriors, gory as it was, would be told our children. The fear is that it would be lost and unlamented,  as many of us lost, or  never knew of the heroism of our forebears against foreign intrusion and domination. For one, only a few of the succeeding generations are aware of the first resistance of our Ibaloy ancestors in the un-remembered Battle of Tonglo, Tuba, the exact site of which remains unknown today.    

 Two of the 15 Cordillera heroes who fell in Mamapasano were not officially listed as from the Cordillera as  their addresses were in Region 2: P03 Rodrigo F. Acob Jr. of Kalinga whose address  was in Isabela, and P02 Joel B. Dulnuan of Kiangan,  Ifugao  who was a resident of Barangay Ocapon, Villaverde, Nueva Vizcaya where he was laid to rest.

Baguio Mayor Mauricio Domogan found it only proper their inclusion in that week-end’s news obituary page tribute of the city government to the fallen Cordillera warriors.

At the honor rites inside the chapel in Camp Dangwa (named after Maj. Bado Dangwa, the Igorot warrior and guerrilla fighter from Kapangan, Benguet ), Cordilleran regional police chief, Chief Supt. Isagani Neres called out the names of his fallen comrades: Chief Inspector Gednat Garambas Tabdi of La Trinidad, Benguet; Senior Inspector Cyrus Paleyan Anniban of Tabuk, Kalinga; ; PO3 Robert Domollog Allaga of Banaue, Ifugao; PO3 Noel Onangey Golocan of Baguio City; P02 Peter Indongsan Carap  of Kabayan, Benguet; PO2 Walner Faustino Danao of Baguio City; P02 Franklin Canap Danao of Tinoc, Ifugao; P02 Jerry Dailay Kayob of La Trinidad, Benguet; P02 Noble Sungay Kiangan of Mankayan, Benguet; P02 Nicky de Castro Nacino Jr. of Baguio City; P01 Russel Bawaan Bilog of Baguio City; P01 Gringo Charag Cayang-o of Sadanga, Mt. Province; and P01 Angel Chocowen Kodiamat of Mankayan, Benguet. 

Fighting off tears, Benguet Gov. Nestor Fongwan narrated how Chief Insp. Tabdi was brought home to La Trinidad, Benguet for an overnight vigil, after which his remains were  transported to Zamboanga where his wife,  Leah Mefranum, a nurse from Basilan who was  six months pregnant, waited for him to finally come home.

Three other sons of Ibaloy couple Garcia and Edna Tabdi are in the police force.  One is assigned in Laguna, another in Pampanga, and still another is under training with the SAF.   

The firefight was termed a “mis-encounter”. It could have been,  if only it had  lasted far short of  the 10 hours that it actually raged,  against combined forces of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, its break-away  Bangsamoro Islamic  Freedom Fighters   and other forces only known to but repeatedly disowned in the aftermath by the  MILF rebels.

Also termed as a “carnage”, the firefight drew lingering suggestions, demands and questions needing answers. On top of these is the cry for justice from the relatives and fellow officers of the slain police officers that ranking SAF officer, Superintendent Jonathan Calixto pointed out at the honor rites in Camp Dangwa.

In the wake of this latest carnage in Maguindanao, Mayor Domogan,  a leading advocate of autonomy for the  Cordillera who admits the bill seeking self-rule here pales compared to the new one being pushed by the national leadership and the MILF in the ARMM , strongly suggested a review of the Bangsamoro Basic Law being rushed for passage in Congress.

Baguio Rep. Nicasio Aliping Jr. had enough reason to say he and Benguet Rep. Ronald Cosalan wouldn’t push for the passage of the BBL until justice for the fallen soldiers is served.

Noting  the huge crowd of mourners, then  La Trinidad Mayor Edna Tabanda found consolation in the sense of community of Cordillerans who  feel the need to be there in  wakes and funerals, even  for “kailians” they had never met until the final rites.

Such is the soothing, consoling and healing power of presence, of ordinary people being there when grief strikes a fellow Cordilleran’s family and kin.  As someone once observed, there are moments when a sudden connection is made somewhere in this world, powerful and undeniable.

This was one of those moments.  (e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com)

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City wants buyers out from GSIS lot over pine stand

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

No business enterprise would have its name smeared for having destroyed Baguio’s pine forest beside the Baguio Convention Center for the sake of profit.

This emerging view may yet save the man-made pine stand amidst renewed apprehension of city  residents and visitors over the refusal of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to sell the lot to the city so that it be preserved for posterity.

Instead of accepting the city’s offer, GSIS upped the purchase price, prompting mayor Mauricio Domogan to seek intervention of President Rodrigo Duterte to save the pine-stand as part of Baguio’s legacy.

“Instead of maintaining its previous offer of Php 433,517,400, the GSIS increased it to Php 682,201,800 per its latest letter dated 23 April 2018 which or office received today, and is hereby attached as Annex “C”,” the mayor wrote the President.

“The city sent its reply containing its latest offer in the amount of P433,517,400 which is the exact amount that GSIS offered in its letter, Annex “A” hereof. The latest offer of GSIS increasing its previous offer from P433,517,400 to P682,201,800 is respectfully submitted as too high,” the mayor told the President.

City officials and residents were alarmed over the increasing price of the pine forest despite its being acquired for free by GSIS through the signature of then President Marcos.

Marcos, in an order, sliced off the present site of the Baguio Convention Center, the pine forest and adjoining areas with an approximate size of 33,606 square meters and transferred it in the name of GSIS.

The order mandated GSIS to build the Convention Center as site of the World Chess Championship series between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi.

Baguio residents of all ages took turns planting and caring for the pine trees that turned the once-barren area into a mini-forest that showcases Baguio’s past when it was called the country’s “City of Pines”.

Protests over the cutting down of the pine trees to give way to a commercial building may yet deter business enterprises from bidding for the pine stand  

“The pine trees growing in the area have become the best deterrent to investors who now have to think twice before bidding for the lot, knowing they would  meet stiff opposition the moment they start clearing the area of trees so they can build their commercial buildings,” a Baguio resident observed.

“If this happens, there would be an uproar among foresters, government officials and employees, students and laborers took turns planting and caring for pine over the years until the otherwise  barren area became the patch that it is today – a forest where we can still smell the scent of pine.”

In a letter to the mayor last May 25, GSIS president and general manager Jesus Clint Aranas said the price had been upped to Php 8682,201, to which the city agreed.

“We reiterate our motivation to purchase the said property, that is to preserve and maintain the area as a green space,” the mayor wrote Aranas. “This is part of the City’s environment policy to recover  public spaces and green areas for the benefit of our citizenry and also to contribute to sustaining our ecosystem and develop buffer areas for emerging environmental impacts in our urban setting’” the mayor noted.

The rapid urbanization of Baguio has led some citizens to suggest that the city, also known as the country’s “Summer Capital”,  be considered as another “Boracay” where environmental projects and actions can be set into motion to slow down its deterioration.

Upon learning the threat on the pine forest  has been resurrected, school children and teachers of the Baguio Pines Family Learning Center last Tuesday began hatching moves supporting the city’s bid for the two adjoining lots.

“Our kids plan to write President Duterte asking him to look into the possibility of his rescinding the order of then President Marcos assigning the two lost to GSIS,” school principal Leonila Dumawa Bayla said.

Former kids of the school began the campaign to save the trees years back, writing  then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to save the green patch. The kids enlarged their letters in tarpaulin which they hanged on the threatened trees.

Responding, then Presidnt Arroyo promised the trees would be spared from private development plans.  Eventually, mall chain Shoemart cancelled its plan to build a four-building condotel on the pinestand called “Baguio A Residences.

As they did in the past, Baguio residents are again asking expatriates and people who care for Baguio to write letters appealing to GSIS to let the city buy the choice lot it obtained for free.. – Ramon Dacawi.

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Pine stand threatened by refusal of GSIS to sell it

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

Baguio needs you.

              This call is urgent. It is for anyone who has a heart for Baguio and believes he/she can help save the city for what it is – as the  City of (dwindling) Pines. 

It’s about the plan of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) to sell that small but choice lot beside the Baguio Convention Center where pine trees, some which were balled and transferred there by Baguio rsidents, are growing, providing a refreshing patch of green to the city’ s urban landscape.

Years back, the GSIS got the lot free, assigned to it by a signature of then President Ferdinand Marcos. That enabled the GSIS to build what is now the Baguio Convention Center as site of the World Chess Championship series between title-holder Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi. Trailing all the way, Karpov did the impossible, winning 6-5 in the series despite complaining parapsychologists were used by his adversary to distract his game.

Recently, city officials and residents were alarmed by plans of the GSIS to sell the pine stand. Would-be buyer Shoemart, the mall chain, had planned to build four multi-story buildings called “Baguio Air Residences” and link it to the SM Mall where the burned Pines Hotel, a Baguio landmark then, used to be.

To save the trees and the open space they provide in a city fast overcrowding, city hall,  through Mayor Mauricio Domogan offered to buy the Convention Center and the tree patch beside it that GSIS obtained  without paying a centavo.

In earlier talks, GSIS agreed to sell the property totaling 33,606 square meters for P433,517,400. The city, Domogan recalled, made a counter-proposal of P340 million as per his letter dated March 20, 2018.

“Instead of maintaining its previous offer of P433,537,400, the GSIS has increased it to P682,201,800 per its latest letter dated 23 April 20018 which our office received today, and is hereby attached as annex “C”,” the mayor said in a letter asking President Rodrigo Duterte to help convince GSIS to sell at tbe lower price and help Baguio save th pine forest, aside from obtaining the Convention Center.

Residents led by teachers and students of the University of the Philippines near the Convention Center expressed residents’ common worry over the destruction of the pine forest by a business enterprise.

Years back, when GSIS planned to sell the tree stand to SM,  grade schoolers  wrote individual letters to then President Gloriar Arroyo, asking her to have GSIS save the tree stand by turning it over to the city. 

Even Igorot expatriates, in a resolution during a forum of the Igorot Global Organization in Ifugao, adopted a resolution asking President Arroyo to spare the tree park for the sake of  Baguio.

In a speech here, the President assured the pine forest would remain and be under the care of the city. 

The recent posture of the GSIS leadership, however, restored the fear of residents that the pine stand would be lost should it be sold to a private enterprise at a price the city could not afford.

Explaining its stand, GSIS president and general manager Jesus Clint Aranas said GSIS is guided by Republic Act 8291’ which provides in part that it may not sell its acquired properties not lower than their current market value.

When it  it bought “Parisian Life” , a painting by national artist  Juan Luna, for P42 million in 2002, the GSIS argued, in the wake of criticisms , that it does not only insure members, that it also insures national heritage like the painting. 

Using this line of argument, some Baguio residents argue that Baguio, like the Juan Luna painting, is also national heritage and that it should be preserved as a pine city. 

“Without paying a single centavo, the GSIS obtained the lot by Presidential order. Having spent not a single centavo, it should accept the city’s purchase price that GSIS can have without,” a resident said. “After all, GSIS obtained the property without any capial”

“After all, Baguio is not only for residents; it is for millons of Filipines all over the country, thousands of whom are GSIS members who, we’re sure, have fond memories of and attachments to and would feel good to have the tree park preserved as such.”

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The need to pool medical support

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi 

BAGUIO CITY -- Like previous columns on the issue, this is a howling in the wilderness. It gives credence to the observation that nobody reads columns except the writers themselves.

1.Time and again, we suggested, through articles and letters pleading to members of Congress and the Senate of the Philippines to pool part of their annual medical funds so that sick people would no longer have to undergo the sometimes tedious and slow process of applying for financial support to enable them pay their dialysis or other medical bills.

Under the present set-up, one needing medical attention or dialysis has to personally write a congressman or senator, attaching in his request his/her social case study report, medical certificate, certificate of indigency and other papers before the legislator’s office can decide how much should be extended to him/her.

These papers are required again when the patient applies anew for support to sustain, say, his or her dialysis which, everyone knows, has to be repeatedly done twice or four times a week for a life-time;

 It would do well for our senators and congressmen to pool part of their medical support into a common fund from which would be drawn payments for dialysis and other health services, thereby saving he patient the cumbersome procedure of having to produce supporting documents each he/she needs fund support.

Under the present set-up, it is up to the congressman or senator how much he should allocate to a patient, the amount often dictated by the solon’s personally knowing the one seeking assistance.

2. What’s preventing the Department of Health from establishing dialysis centers in all provincial and city hospitals in the country to effectively address the growing number of dialysis patients?

As already seen in dialysis centers established, the government needs no funding to open these vital centers that prolong life. All the provincial hospital has to do is to provide the space for their dialysis center. The dialysis machines shall be installed by the winning bidder and hire and pay the personnel to man it.

This is the case at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center where Presenius, a private company, won the bid and installed the machines without expense on the part of the hospital or the Department of Health.

The problem is that more and more dialysis patients are coming in, yet the Department of Health is slow in responding to this life-saving need for more centers. As a result, the BGHMC dialysis center is over-crowded, with many walk-in patients coming in from other parts of Luzon as their own cities and towns do not have facilities or have centers which are privately owned and managed, charging exorbitant fees.

Only last week, two vans filled with patients from the BGHMC traveled to Metro-Manila where they submitted to various offices requests for fund assistance for their dialysis. Now, the patients have to wait, praying that their application for support would be approved. If not, then they have to think deep and seek help for their next life-saving sessions.

This continuing mental torture over where to get support for one’s life-time dialysis was reason enough for the United States, Great Britain and Canada to make dialysis a free medical service, it being a life-saving procedure. (e-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments) 

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Missing the point in the Mt.Data “Sipat”

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

There was no incoming howler, but we woke up last September 13 to be told schools and government offices were closed. Somebody had petitioned it as a holiday, supposedly to allow the Cordillera to mark the 25^th anniversary of the Mt. Data Peace Accord signed by then President Corazon Aquino and rebel priest Conrado Balweg.

               Except for its being declared a holiday, there was hardly an event to mark whatever significance the anniversary may have. Except that a press release from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process announced the holding of a Conference of Tribal Leaders (Among Di Cordillera) and an open forum at the Mt. Data Hotel, the venue of the peace signing.

Good thing they did not have that gong travelling around the Cordillera again, as they do to mark Cordillera Day, or arrange a parade down Session Rd. where there’s nothing to see but participants  in “barong”, as if you never saw anybody in that outfit before. 

Many were suddenly happy over the instant holiday they did not understand but welcomed as a respite from school and office work.

In an exchange of tokens to mark the peace pact 25 years ago, then  President Aquino handed Fr. Balweg an Armalite rifle and a rosary, while the rebel priest presented her with a wooden Igorot shield and a head ax.

“During the symbolic encounter, gongs were played and the uniformed combatants (of Balweg’s  Cordillera People’s Liberation Army) rested their rifles and mimicked wild birds dancing,” recalled newsman Joel Arthur Tibaldo of the Cordillera News Agency.

Despite the holiday, most Cordillerans do not find significance in that peace pact. It’s because beyond the holiday proclamation nobody’s telling them what the day meant and should mean for this region’s struggle for autonomy and future. Like in many ceremonials, it was enough that it was declared a holiday in the Cordilllera, with or without the substance.  

For sure, Fr. Balweg, who broke away from the New People’s Army to address the Cordillera issue from a native son’s perspective, saw it as a means to push self-rule in this mountainous region.

Despite his push and those of others and the declaration of the holiday, the Cordillera today remains divided over the issue of autonomy. Even the government regional directors, whose positions were created to push autonomy, are reluctant to advocate self-rule for which their lofty positions were set up

Until now, even Baguio mayor Mauricio Domogan, a staunch advocate of autonomy, said he has not seen a copy of the agreement signed by President Aquino and Balweg.

“We should take on from the points agreed during the sipat but can somebody give us a copy of the agreement signed so we could proceed from there,” the mayor had said in several forums on self-rule.

                Quoting Fernando Bahatan, a former director of the defunct Cordillera Executive Board, newsman Vincent Cabreza of the Philippine Daily Inquirer said “at the 1986 sipat, President Corazon Aquino was handed an outline of 26 demands that addressed “the Cordillera problem.”

For sure, Fr. Balweg signed the peace pact believing it would hasten his region’s quest for autonomy that would finally empower the Cordillera to develop its water, mineral,  land and other resources for its own development and progress.

Most urgent and relevant today to the issue of local empowerment through autonomy is the relocation of the surviving small-scale mine workers in that fatal landslide in Itogon, Benguet.  

The municipal government can hardly find a relocation site as most lands are still under Benguet Corp. Despite having mined out Benguet’s gold,the mining firm holds on to the land which mineral wealth sustained it for years.

Comparing how the national government treats our region’s quest for self-rule to that of Mindanao, it seems the Cordillera is now being taken for granted for keeping true to the peace pact signed by Fr. Balweg and then President Aquino.

In the wake of the armed conflicts in Mindanao, the latest of which was the occupation and siege of Marawi, the national government seems bent on pushing the new autonomy bill for Mindanao, if only to advance the peace in a region where numerous peace pacts were previously signed and then violated.

Here in the Cordillera, there was only one peace pact, the one signed by the late Fr. Balweg and then President Aquino. True to that agreement, we, Cordillerans kept the peace. That should give us the edge and the right to demand from the national government its push for the Cordillera’s self-rule.

After all, we kept the peace pact he signed with then Presient Aquino and Fr.Balweg 25 years ago in Mt. Data.

Otherwise, it might be relevant to go back to the pre-Mt. Data days for the national government to hear our plea.  – e-mail mondaxbench@yaqhoo.com for comments.

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An unlettered farmer’s legacy

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

(Author’s note: Time and again, I find refuge in this story about selflessness, this time to veer away from a controversy spawned by the misleading humanitarian purpose of some people who, we’re sorry, solicited and got the support of Samaritans who thought they were supporting those in need, but with the would-be patient-beneficiaries holding the empty bag in the end. – RD)

ONCE in a while, a story comes along which needs to be told and retold - for the human virtue it inspires. It seems easier to find it in fiction than in the real world that tends to breed cynics among us. A good man or woman is hard to find nowadays, except in paperbacks and in the movies. 

I've heard one such story, not in fiction but of one who was flesh and blood. It is about selflessness. It is about one ordinary man with deeds quite extraordinary you'd think he was a novelist’s creation. He existed –and  lived a full life. Until now, he's unknown, except in the remote Ifugao community he built and lived in.  

The story is no bull. I first heard it from then regional director Stephen Capuyan of the education department. He remembered it the moment we met, perhaps sure that my Igorot blood would trigger my interest to listen to something literally close to the Cordillera. 

Manong Steve recalled his disbelief when a farmer appeared in his office at the Teachers' Camp, to seek help in solving a serious, albeit personal, problem. It was about the man's dwindling livestock. He swore only the education department could help in saving whatever remained of his cowherd. 

"The moment I heard about cattle, I thought I knew he was barking up the wrong tree," Manong Steve said. "I advised him to direct his woes to the Department of Agriculture." 

But the man was unfazed and persistent. He admitted he was losing his cows but not his head. He insisted he went to the right office to spill out his grievance over the education department's lack of a sense of urgency regarding agricultural sustainability. 

"Dandani maibusen dagiti bakak (I’m about to lose all my cows),” the man tried to explain. Dakayo met koman apo ti agbayad kadagiti agisursuro idiay barangay mi ta awanen ti maisueldok kadakuada ( I hope you can now pay the teachers in our barangay as I can no longer shoulder their wages)." 

Manong Steve's visitor was Mongilit Ligmayo, an unlettered Ifugao farmer. His story began to unfold many years ago in Ambasa, one of the interior barangays of Lamut town in Ifugao. Lakay Ligmayo, originally from Banaue, resettled there as a pioneer farmer. He plowed the remote Ambasa wasteland into a farmland. Gradually, the isolated place drew more farmers and slowly developed into a barangay.  

As the farmers produced more rice and more children, Mongilit clearly saw the need for an elementary school. He offered over a hectare of his land for the school site. He knocked on government offices for help. He went on to help build the school with his personal resources, to the extent of fashioning out some of the desks and fixtures. 

In no time, the first batch of kids were in the sixth grade.  Soon, they would need a high school, but the nearest was in the poblacion and there was hardly a road linking Ambasa to the town proper. Mongilit, then the barangay chief – a position he would hold for 20 years -, had to decide again.  

He sliced off another two hectares of his land for the high school site. Again, he directly oversaw the construction and, with his sons, again built desks and tables. 

But even with an unfinished classroom, there were no teachers. There was no provision in the education budget to hire additional teachers. Again, he offered to bankroll the initial teachers' initial salaries and the first high school class opened. 

More students meant more teachers to pay. To keep them and the students in class, the old man started selling some of his cows. One day, when he could hardly count any of his herd, he decided to travel to Baguio.. 

Manong Steve’s story sank in. I was gripped with a yearning to meet and interview the old man. I needed to write a feature, to attempt to do justice to his story that needed to be told and retold. The article would be my deliverance from a newsman's state of jadedness. 

My yearning was akin to or bordering on the urge for spiritual purging and renewal of my sense of the sacred. That must be the feeling of those going to spiritual retreat where they cry a river and come out with the purest of intentions Like those coming out of the  cursillo or a so-called Values Orientation Workshop for those in government. 

"Talaga mit a, makapasangit dayta istolyam, Manong (Truly, your story is a tear-jerker)," I told director Capuyan in flawless Ifugao diction. He laughed. The story hit me like when folksinger Conrad Marzan dished out Gordon Lightfoot's “Second Cup of Coffee” or that time I was reading Maeve Binchy's “The Glass Lake”. 

And then, fulfillment was at hand. Director Capuyan promised to have me tag along in one of his official visits to Ifugao. Somehow, I forgot about the self-proclaimed mission as fast as dry paper burns. It came back when some of us Baguio journalists were asked to serve as resource speakers in the regional schools press conference in Kiangan. 

From Kiangan, my buddy Peewee Agustin and I tried but failed to reach Ambasa. Blocked by the current of the river dividing the village from the rest of Lamut, we detoured to the municipal hall. Lady lawyer and then Lamut mayor Linda Bongyo-Chaguile received us and validated what director Capuyan narrated.  

"He's here now; let me introduce you to him," she said. After some photographs, we repaired to a carinderia for lunch with Kapitan Mongilit and his wife. I was at a loss for words, unable to figure out the questions. The diminutive fellow was reluctant to talk about his achievements and I did not pursue. Still, I was content, feeling fulfilled and honored having met him in his quiet dignity.  

I struggled to shrug off the lurking vanity we newsmen enjoy when rubbing elbows with conventionally greater mortals such as traditional politicians. I basked in his glory when Manong Juan Dacawe, a non-trapo, made it as vice-governor of Ifugao. "Is he your relative?" somebody asked me after the elections. "Did he win?" I asked back. "Yes." "Then he's my relative." 

I lost the photographs and again forgot to write. A few years ago, I learned Lakay Mongilit had gone to the farmland of his Maker Kabunian. In 2003, Lamut officials led by Mayor Angelito Guinid renamed the Ambasa Elementary School after the farmer who never learned to read and write. The enabling ordinance, which local legislative secretary Dominador Valenciano took pains to fax me, cited Lakay Mongilit's unwavering doggedness in building the school. 

In 2004, Ifugao Rep. Solomon Chungalao filed House Bill 01043 that separated the Ambasa annex of the Lawig National High School. The bill renamed it the Mongilit Ligmayo Memorial National High. 

The unschooled Kapitan Mongilit never ever thought of recognition, much less aspired for renown. Monuments can never measure true greatness. Yet we need to remember heroes whose sacrifices we need to pass on to our kids, to inspire and nurture in them the sense of community that Lakay Mongilit lived by.

Too late in the day, I thought the unlettered farmer’s legacy would give him enormous potential as nominee for a posthumous  “Lingkod Bayan” national award under the honor awards program of  the Civil Service Commission. The rules, however, disqualify him: Nominations should be made for those who died while in the government service and within 12 months after the death of the nominee.  

Still, as novelist Richard Pauil Evans observed, “the greatest acts are done without plaque, audience or ceremony.” . So was Mark Twain right: “It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.” (e-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments

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The truth about the Run

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi 

We were taken aback by the temerity of the organizers to explain through the Baguio Midland Courier last Sunday their failure to give a share to the would-be beneficiaries of their "Kalayaan Run" last June 9 which they proudly advertised to be "for the benefit of the Baguio General Hospital Dialysis Center".

The news item said: "In a dialogue between the beneficiaries and the organizers last month, the latter said that even if they want to give more, the cannot for they incurred more expenses and had to shell out from their personal funds to cover the deficit."

Surprisingly, if not understandably, the news item did not reflect among the expenses the amount of P31,800 the organizers paid themselves as ' salaries and P16,000 for "talent fees".

We saw these figures in the organizers’ report which they reluctantly provided us, saying it was “confidential” during a meeting with City Mayor Mauricio Domogan.

That the organizers had to be paid they did not tell us beforehand, betraying their advertised intention of easing our suffering and plight of undergoing dialysis for a lifetime.

In the dialogue, Mayor Domogan, had to remind "Kalayaan" representatives   Bong Reyes, Eric Coronacion and Omeng Fallarme that it was their duty to give us the financial report..

While “staff salary”, talent fee, operational expenses, transport, etc. were included in their report, not a single centavo was allotted for the announced over-all purpose that the event was for our benefit. This was the first time we experienced organizers of “humanitarian" projects allocating amounts to themselves and none for the beneficiaries.

"Instead the organizers said they had already given P100,000 worth of dialyzers,"  the news report said.

Actually, as confirmed by nurses of the dialysis center, the 38 dialyzers given were of the single-use kind. We, BGHMC patients, use dialyzers worth P1,350 each, good for seven treatment sessions.

To be of use in the fund drive they thought was kindly for them, the dialysis patients, together with their doctors, nurses and aides canceled their treatment that day. They registered for the run, bought t-shirts and helped run the event.

As we go to  press, we learned of a double, whammy. A city hall worker, upon learning of the event, solicited funds for “Kalayaan” but failed to remit the same to the organizers.

We hope the city can rein in on similar would-be humanitarian projects and keep alive the sense of fair play that Baguio boys and girls are known for.

 Respectfully yours,

 Dialysis patients, watchers, doctors, and nurses of BGHMC Dialysis Center

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A lawyer’s letter and response

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

(We share the following letter to the Courier editor by Atty. Roland Rillera Salazar in response to the letter of dialysis patients the week before. – RD):

This has to do with the letter allegedly sent by the BGH Dialysis Patients, Watchers, Doctors and Nurses, which appeared in your August 26,2018 issue.

I am also a Dialysis Patient of BGH, but I DO NOT SHARE THE SAME OPINION AS THE ONES WHO WROTE THAT LETTER that appeared in your August 26, 2018 issue. 

First of all, the generalization that all the BGH dialysis patients signed the letter is erroneous. I DID NOT GIVE MY CONSENT TO THE WRITING OF THAT LETTER.

Thus, whoever wrote that letter should not make it appear everybody (BGH dialysis patients and watchers) participated in the writing of that letter, when in truth and in fact, neither me, nor my wife's (who is also a watcher) consent were obtained, so as to generally include us as signatories to that letter. 

I am not like the other BGH Dialysis patients, especially a certain "benchwarmer", who are bitter and sore losers because they did not receive a single centavo from the proceeds of the Kalayaan Trail run organized by the P7 group."Haan ak agraraman iti kwarta nga haan ko nagrigatan".

Being a journalist, that "benchwarmer" who wrote the letter about the P7 group, should have obtained the consent of all the patients before signing his letter as "BGH DIALYSIS PATIENTS,etc."

Worse, they managed to get my wife to sign the letter by making it appear that it was a petition for free dialysis (sic). They did not tell her the truth that she was signing for a letter that was to be published in the Baguio Midland Courier! How brazenly deceitful!!!

I am saying this because I was chided by several friends who read the letter in your August 26, 2018 issue, by saying:" Apay pards, agraraman kayo la unayen iti kwarta nga haan kayo la ketdi maka move on?", which was to my embarrassment.  

For my fellow BGH dialyis patients, MOVE ON. There is no use being bitter and crying over spilled milk. The fact that you have been griping over not being able to receive any money from the proceeds of the Kalayaan Trail Run, is already a source of embarrassment because people are beginning to think that "sobra namang kapal ng mukha natin pagdating sa pagpapalimos ng pera". As I always say:"ipasa Diyos nyo na yan". Karma always balances out injustices..

As for the "benchwarmer" who generalized and made it appear that all the dialysis patients and watchers signed his letter, where is your journalism ethics? You are not supposed to include people in something, especially a letter criticizing others, without their express consent. To make things clear: NOT EVERYBODY SHARES YOUR BITTERNESS AND OPINION.

Atty. ROLAND RILLERA SALAZAR

*****

Response: Atty.  Salazar angrily confronted me regarding this while I was on dialysis, threatening to slap me with a copy of the Courier last Tuesday. 1) I am sorry that he feels alluded to, even as we tried to explain he was not included as what I wrote in that letter to the editor was: “Dialysis Patients, Watchers, Doctors, Nurses of BGHMC Dialysis Center” – without the adverbial qualifier “All”. This clearly means that NOT ALL dialysis patients, watchers, doctors and nurses were included.   I tried to present this basic grammatical rule during our exchange. 2) I discussed the  issue if only  to prevent similar instances wherein illness, pain and suffering are used to solicit funds, part of which went to the project organizers as salaries, and none to the announced beneficiaries. As Atty, Salazar pointed out, it’s not about money, even if many patients were looking forward to the Run to help them pay for the repair of their fistulas so they can continue to undergo dialysis –and live.

             It’s about hope, for the Run was offered as their hope for deliverance, albeit temporary.   It’s about being true, about being honest, transparent and human.  It’s about our continuous struggle to be alive, for life is beautiful, despite the hardships we, dialysis patients, face for life. 4) The letter to the Courier editor was attached to where the patients signed and those who did not sign are, therefore, not included. Clearly, it was not a petition for free dialysis, 

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The sound of the autonomy gong

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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