24 Hours
No, this does not refer to the TV series, just a recent quick trip to Baguio.
Wednesday at 12:15 am, I took the Victory de luxe bus from Quezon City to Baguio City. The non-stop trip on a solo reclining seat was worth the 600 pesos fare. Twenty-four hours later, on Thursday at 12:15 am, I boarded a similar bus trip from Baguio back to Quezon City.
The bus arrived at the Victory station in Baguio at 5 am. I was fetched by Renato Navata, regional director of DAR-CAR, the Department of Agrarian Reform in the Cordillera Administrative Region. He had invited me to speak at a “write shop” for a program on developing community-based leaders in agrarian reform communities (ARC) and indigenous peoples’ communities.
I was a young SVD priest when I first met “Boy” Navata. I think he had just left his seminary studies, and was a volunteer worker with the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF); we did some work together. We lost touch during the years of martial law, but I heard that he was also active in the resistance movement.
I don’t know how he got into DAR, but it makes sense, since agrarian reform was his original passion. He narrates with a wry smile: “When we have a meeting of DAR regional directors and I strike a conversation with Benjie de Vera (another former rebel), my fellow directors would tease us as a caucus of the New People’s Army.”
It has been a while since I visited the Cordilleras, and I was happy to accept his invitation. I also learned quite a bit at the write shop.
The DAR-CAR workshop is in line with the resolution of the Regional Development Council of CAR to launch a fresh initiative toward autonomy for the Cordilleras. This is based on a provision in the 1987 Constitution for autonomy both for Muslim Mindanao and the Cordillera. But two previous plebiscites to pass an Organic Act were rejected.
“Your third attempt reminds me of Frank Sinatra,” I told the participants. Their quizzical expressions turned to smiles when I explained that I was thinking of his comeback song “Let Me Try Again.”
One lesson the RDC drew from the previous failures is that the campaign for autonomy should not focus immediately on politics, but on development. Another lesson, based on the people’s suspicion of politicians who previously pushed for autonomy, is the need to develop new community-based leaders who would be more credible. Hence the workshop on a program to develop these grassroots leaders.
After I finished my MA in Philosophy, I spent a year in Abra, one of the six provinces of CAR, as a “regent” at the St. Joseph Seminary in Bangued. Two of the young Tingguian high school seminary students, Cirilo Ortega and Bruno Ortega, later became guerrilla-priests, joining Conrado Balweg, also a Tingguian, and Nilo Valerio, an Ilocano, in the New People’s Army.
Boy Navata and I spent time reminiscing about the four comrades. Bruno died as a guerrilla fighter, but from sickness, rather than combat. Nilo was killed by the military; when they found out that he was a priest, they cut of his head and buried his body in separate places. Up to now, his wife Daisy and their children have not been able to give him a proper burial. Cirilo survived martial law and eventually returned to priestly service. Conrado broke away from the NPA, founded the Cordillera People’s Liberation Front (CPLA), and forged a peace agreement with the government, with the demand that an autonomous regional government should be established. He later died a tragic death, killed by the NPA. More recently, his wife Azon died of heart attack.
Their names and faces were on my mind as I listened to the assessment of the development assets and strategic potential of the Cordillera. “It has two outstanding characteristics,” according to the DAR-CAR. “it is the watershed cradle of the North, and it is predominantly populated by indigenous peoples.”
Although the Cordillera is classified as one of the three poorest regions, it is the region that hosts the headwaters of 12 major rivers that are crucial for irrigated agriculture in the Ilocos Region, the Cagayan Valley Region, and parts of Central Luzon. The same headwaters are also important for the hydroelectric power that feeds the Luzon grid.
One of the 4-point advocacy agenda of the DAR-CAR is RUPES - “rewarding upland people for the environmental services” that they provide. Through their indigenous knowledge systems and practices, they preserve the watersheds which are critical for the agri-ecological systems. These watersheds are also carbon sinks.
Unlike other regions where indigenous peoples are minorities, over 90% of the population in the Cordillera belong to 19 major indigenous tribes. But although there are 65 ARCs or agrarian reform communities in the region, only 5 out of the 110 potential CADTs or Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title have been granted. Hence the importance of implementing the two asset reform laws - CARP or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, and IPRA, or the Indigenous People’s Rights Act.
The action program that we discussed focused on the development of grassroots community leaders and advocates among the ARBS or agrarian reform beneficiaries, and the Indigenous peoples’ communities. We also looked into the need to mobilize allies and advocates among the established institutions - academe, local governments, churches, business. I suggested that they tap the potential of Cordillera inhabitants who have migrated abroad.
Before midnight, Boy Navata brought me to the bus station and gave me a bag of Cordillera vegetables plus a few bottles of local wine. I drifted off to sleep, thinking of the four young SVD priests, all students of mine, who devoted their lives to defend the rights of the communities they served in the Cordillera.
I thought of their witness and sacrifice, and those of many other Cordillera leaders, like Macli-ing Dulag and Pedro Dungoc. I hope that the program to develop new grassroots leaders will insure that their dreams will continue to be pursued even if it takes the biblical “40 years” of struggle.
