Destined Benguet Officials against Crisis?

An elder suggested that by some destiny or some weird design, an elected Governor in Benguet will always have to face a great crisis that is very close to his/her heart or being, example:

1. Former Governor Nestor Fongwan , from Barangay Puguis, La Trinidad had to confront the deadliest landslide brought by Typhoon Pepeng in 2009 near his own backyard out of all places at (Little Kibungan village), Puguis, La Trinidad, which claimed about 200 of his constituents.

2. Former Gov. Crescencio Pacalso also had to do the same: respond to a very tragic landslide two years ago brought by Typhoon Ompong, in his very own hometown in Itogon, which also claimed close to a hundred lives.

3. Our present governor,  Gov. Melchor Diclas, a medical doctor, has to face this global "Public Health Crisis" (Covid19 Situation) which is a challenge related to his area of inclination --a Doctor-Governor in a Heath Emergency.

Despite said challenging crisis, it seems that there will always be glimmers of hope in Benguet: that the 'Right People' seem to be in the 'Right Place, at the Right Time'. 

This coincidence may be comforting for some, but frightening for others. Anyway, let us all pray for our beloved province!

"This is Benguet rose of the northern mountains,

May God keep her safe and forever free.

Land of the brave where no evil foot could wander,

Home of the free where brotherhood is sown.

Hail to thee! Province of Benguet…my own!"

Benguet Association of Tourism Officers (BATO)

BATO

The Benguet Association of Tourism Officers (BATO) has turned over a new leaf with the election (or appointment) of its new officials last week (yes, this is not the ‘bato’ that gets you executed these days). The organization wishes the best in life for Engr. Nicomides Caliguing the association’s outgoing president, who held the position for seven bountiful years. We also wish the same for Ma’am Claire Prudencio, the Benguet Tourism Officer head and pioneer who has also retired recently this year. They say that the most awaited adventures of ‘apo-stolic’ duties are much more interesting than the world of travel and tourism.

Since the other twelve Municipal Tourism Action Officers conspired to get me into such trouble (or maybe just to compel me to attend the regular meetings, hehe), I don’t really much have choice but to accept the responsibilities of heading the association after the outgoing officials. As the youngest among the Benguet tourism and cultural workers, I acknowledge that my abilities and knowledge are way too limited for such obligations. But since my fellow tourism workers believed in me, it would only be just and proper to believe in myself too. I thank them with a humble appeal for them to work with me, guide me, and even admonish me should I stray away from our goals.

Benguet agri-products ffind their way to the capital trading post

Our first organizational meeting as new officers explored our status as an organization, our direction, and our future activities, which includes our participation on the upcoming Benguet Adivay celebrations of 2018. As an additional activity, we proposed for a Benguet Tourism Conference (which I suspect to be a first) that will gather tourism workers and stakeholders in the whole province.  As the first order of business in our care, we intend to make the community know about our organization that mainly serves as a tourism partner of the Benguet Provincial Government and its Municipalities. This includes conferences, seminars, and tourism-orientation activities since tourism can be a tool for environmental protection, culture and heritage preservation, and community development.

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I write this article from the beautiful queen city of the south where tourism is flourishing to a very swift extent. ‘Suroy-suroy sa Sugbo’ (Going around Cebu), their gems or attractions traditionally employs the best tourism elements in the country – great tourism products and natural resources, the rich sea and its beautiful shores, culture and heritage, innovations, and substantial tourism investments. It has that unique beauty of its own that attracts foreign and local visitors alike – that unique inviting town soul which makes travelers stop with awe and admiration.

***

Just how quickly the summer days have passed, we will soon feel that familiar air of September – the memories and longing through the years etched in the lines around our eyes from both laughter and tears. And, like most of the young romances which are born only to fade away, we try to shy away from the convenient numbness in attempt to start feeling again. The future, albeit scary, is always fascinating.

La Trinidad History Conference

An event is truly successful when it inspires a future action. Hence, the 1st La Trinidad History Conference has succeeded in rousing appreciation and interest in La Trinidad’s and whole Benguet’s History and Heritage. The event not only saw renewed passion for local human stories, it also enthused our decision-makers and officials to give their active and positive support on future historical researches / write shops, and programs for the preservation of heritage, including the needed institutional support.

 The activity, which was organized by the Tourism Development Services of the Local Government and in celebration of the National Heritage month, is also a prelude to La Trinidad’s 68^th Foundation Day celebrations on June 16, 2018. While economic programs and regular services nourish the physical aspect of a town, appreciation for arts, culture, and heritage nourishes its soul. A town which does not have a “story to tell” is a lifeless town.

What I learned from our main Speaker, former NCIP-Commissioner chairperson and co-author of the book “A People’s History of Benguet”, Ma’am Zenaida Brigida Hamada-Pawid, is the term “composite history” – where researchers compile the different versions of stories, since all of them are still genuine stories of the past. Hence, Barangay Pico’s origin “Piho” or the native term for the small houses, and the other version, “Piko” for the agricultural tool, can be placed together to co-exist in one story book. Same with Buyagan’s, “Buya-an” (a place for spectators), or the other version’s “Boyagan”, or the name of the hunter which was devoured by a huge snake in that area as narrated by our IPMR, Pendon Thompson. And of course, the origin of the name La Trinidad; some say it was inspired by the “three prominent hills” (overlooking Poblacion where the seat of Cabecera was established), and others maintain the older version that it was a namesake of Donya Trinidad (allegedly the wife of Spanish soldier Guillermo Galvey).

The Conference reminded the participants one important thing, that La Trinidad (even before Baguio City as an American city) was the recognized “Cabecera” – a center that attracted people, and where even animals gathered to drink in its lake’s clear waters (Laguna de Benguet) hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. It was the capital in administrating a large part of the Cordilleras during the Spanish period, even before its present role as the capital of Benguet Province. It was a prominent town and has been a subject of flattering stories where conquistadors describe as, “a very large town situated in a broad and fertile valley the inhabitants of which were very rich and brave people….” (Espedicion al Valle de Benguet en Enero del año de 1829).

Since the past generally affects the events and courses of action for the future, what does our history tell us? Perhaps, La Trinidad should stop thinking that it is only a second-rate Cordillera town after Baguio City. That its residents should drill in their consciousness to have stake on all issues involving the place as their own home, and contribute to its betterment. That perhaps, La Trinidad should strive to become the best town, not only in the Cordilleras, but the whole country.

The Trinity

By Valred Olsim

The cross-carrying armored conquerors came with ordained swords – purging the pagan relics and substituting them with the Christian religious icons. Then, the paths were named after the Saints, and villages were named after Christian doctrines, events and symbols. The unification of lands at the foot of Montanosa was named “La Union” (The Union), and the valley town where the Cabacera (Capitol) overlooks “three prominent hills” was named “La Trinidad” (The Trinity).

The skeptic may insist that La Trinidad was named after Spanish Soldier Guillermo Galvey’s wife, Donya Trinidad, but Galvey’s military records show no wife, and the name “La Trinidad” was actually recorded to have been given by Galvey’s successor Commandante Manuel Scheidnagel, decades after Galvey’s death. As an imperative, Conquistadors dedicate a subjugated place to their Christian faith, or to the Royal crown…not to their wives or girlfriends.

Before the Trinity of Benguet, there was the island of “Trinidad (and Tobago)” which was encountered by Christopher Columbus in his “third” voyage. It was named similarly to the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity which holds that God is three consubstantial persons or hypostases—the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit— or as "one God in three Divine Persons".

The number three is popular in the context of symbolism and spirituality. It can refer to the harmony of “Mind, Body, and Spirit”, the “3^rd Dimension”, the “three wishes”, the resurrection on the “3^rd day”, the “three stages” of birth, life, and death, the “three timelines” of past, present, and future. Hence, the number “three” is said to mean “completion”.

An i-La Trinidad friend reminded me that for a successful life, one must have the three essentials of friends, family, and faith. A day should be fun, fruitful and fair. And we should always have the three values of love, hope, and joy. Three is indeed, a special number. Just the same, the Trinity (La Trinidad), is a very special place to me.

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With newfound vigor, I’m back to the job of telling good stories about the Trinity (La Trinidad). Despite the mounting number of meetings and paper works, we made sure that we will have a year-ender event which is related to tourism. Hence, we have organized the 2^nd La Trinidad Tourism Conference on December 20, 2017 at the beautiful Mt. Kalugong Eco-park. We imagine it to be a meeting of tourism stakeholders and tourism-interested members of the community, and at the same time an avenue to appreciate the gems of our town (since the yearly conferences will be held on the different tourist spots of La Trinidad). We will also have an afternoon music jam to further add value to the event experience while offering coffee and wine to the attendees! Due to the limited capacity of the mountain park and the unique condition of the access road, we only produced 200 tickets to effectively manage the activity. Interested persons may visit the Mayor’s Office for the registration forms and tickets! Asen taha shiman da! Men-iila tako isdi! Kitakits!

Valle de Benguet

“I have heard some Igorot say that beyond the great mountain called “Tonglo” which overlooks Santo Tomas and Agoo, and is one of the noteworthy mountains of Luzon, there was a very large town situated in a broad and fertile valley the inhabitants of which were very rich and brave people and made war upon the pagans of the foothills.” (Espedicion al Valle de Benguet en Enero del año de 1829)

The expedition diary of Lt. Col. Guilermo de Galvey in 1829 is a fourteen-day account of his voyage to “Valle de Benguet” (present day ‘La Trinidad Valley’). Galvey is without a doubt, “the greatest despoiler of the Igorots Spain ever sent to the Cordilleras”.

Seventy years after the punitive expedition of Tonglo by Pangasinan Governor Arza, Galvey marched to the mountains with his Igorot friend, Pingue, about a dozen officers and a troop of  fifty,  and some 200 ‘Polistas’ (Filipinos forced into labor). They crossed wild rivers and climbed steep rocks. For days they shielded themselves from the traps of ‘pagans’ and heavy rains, until the eight day where they finally ‘came upon the pine trees’.

 

At 4 am that day, they finally arrived at the valley where Galvey wrote: “…we discovered from the heights the beautiful valley of Benguet, the lovely sight of which surprised us all, so that even the soldiers gave vent to their admiration by joyous shouts”.

Galvey’s troops were advancing when two drunk Igorots with spears planted themselves and confronted them furiously. They were later bound after a brief scuffle and another group of Igorots were brought to Galvey for interrogation. He set them free and told them to go back and tell the headmen to see him the following day and assured them that no harm would be done to them, but that if they attacked, he would burn their village.

That afternoon he described Valle de Benguet as: “…a valley of a league and a half or more in circumference; it is surrounded with springs and forms a basin. The soil was very well cultivated, with immense fields of sweet potatoes, gabe and sugar cane, but no paddy in this tract of land. All was irrigated and fenced in by dividing lines of earth after the manner of Spain, and provided with wells. The houses which had numbered some 500, were of broad pine boards and very dirty. He finally decided that it is in the valley that he will establish the capital of the district.

At 8 pm however, their camp was attacked by Igorots, and Galvey, in response, killed a number of natives and captured twelve Igorots – all of whom were drunk and were shouting savagely.

On the next day, Galvey found himself surrounded by more natives who were angrier than the night before. It is at this tipping point that Galvey decided to “give them a lesson”. He and his troops stormed the village firing at the natives and burning down some 180 houses.

After that unforgettable violence, Galvey and his troops went southwest with twenty-eight Igorot prisoners. They continually descended towards the west for days until they arrived at Aringay in the fourteenth day.

As a final reflection, Galvey wrote: “…the expedition, though short , served well for those I made later, as the Igorot of Benguet shortly afterwards asked me for peace and have since been my friends. On different expeditions I have passed eight or ten times through their valley, and far from attacking me, they have treated me with kindness, providing me with rice, cows, and other food. Still, as a consequence of this expedition and of smallpox, this town has been reduced to about a hundred houses. I am, however, doing everything to make it flourish again, and my highroad reaches there”.

Ten years later after the expedition, Don Guillermo de Galvey died in 1839. Despite popular tradition that La Trinidad was named after his supposed wife Dona Trinidad de Galvey, his military records in Madrid revealed that he is in fact unmarried (soltero).

In 1875, one of Galvey’s successors, Commandante Manuel Scheidnagel renamed “Valle de Benguet” to La Trinidad.

***

In my ridiculous moments, I wonder why our Igorot ancestors had to get drunk before they took any action against the foreigners (or just about anything). Maybe it has something to do with the “shy mangu” and “agbainbain, ngem nu nabartek ket mang-ibabain” stereotype. Just maybe. But then, we have a history of even defending our “right to get drunk”, just read the case of People vs. Cayat.

Tradition sucks sometimes

“A ten-year old was almost raped by a construction worker in Kapangan were it not for the playmate who quickly called a neighbor…” My friend, who just visited her hometown, told me the news as if to consult me.

“They said there was no penetration according to the medical examination that’s why the parents only asked the molester to butcher a pig…” She continued.

“Her parents are ignorant!” I yelled like any thinking individual who finds the case alarming and imagining the supect’s grin when he had found out that a girl’s price is a mere pig, the raping spree will undoubtedly continue.

The shocking surge of rape cases and sexual abuse to children in Benguet Province in the last two or three years may be attributed to many causes from a deteriorating sense of morality, drugs, intoxication from alcohol, and even to a loose and unreliable justice system. In the hundreds of cases reported, most fear that the numbers are just fractions of what is really happening in our place. As put up by a social-worker friend, “a girl is being raped every day in our province…the sad thing is , there is even a fifty percent chance that the rapists are their very own fathers or close relatives.”

There are a lot of cases one may found on the web, if you doubt my numbers, there are; “army officers sexually exploiting village girls, roaming vans kidnapping students and making them sex slaves, incestuous relationship between a father and her 12-year old daughter, a neighbor raping a 6 year old little girl entrusted to him, a drunk father habitually molesting his daughters, drug-addicts beating up young women and raping them (examples are the cases in Abatan, Buguias), child prostitution in karaoke bars, etc…” The sad thing is, these cases were only a tiny representation of what is actually happening in our province, or even the whole region.

The case settled by ‘tradition’ I mentioned above is just an example of an ‘unrecorded case’ which the community has swept under the rug.  Of course some would disagree with me preferring to accept that ‘the case was at least solved and did not clog the dockets of the courts.’ But then, how many girls more would be victimized by a person who was proven to have the sexual tendency to abuse a child while he is roaming our society? Is the cost of the ‘pig’ already a deterrent for a future similar exploit?

I’ve seen this many times, even in the barangay rape cases where the Brgy. Captain ‘happily facilitated’ the settlement, and never even bothered to suggest that the party file the criminal charges since for him, what is important is that the case is ‘settled’. I cannot imagine how the little girl might have felt to be ‘paid’ with a stinking Fifty thousand pesos. With what I’ve seen so far, how many more is there?

Under R.A. 7610, Sec. 5 (b), the suspect in Kapangan case should’ve been prosecuted with Rape even if there was no penetration when the sexual abuse was done to a child who is less than 12 years old. The elements of sexual abuse under the same law are:

1.    The accused commits the act of sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct.

2.    The said act is performed with a child exploited in prostitution or subjected to sexual abuse.

3.    The child, whether male or female, is below 18 years of age.

 “Lascivious conduct” , as upheld in many cases, means the intentional touching, either directly or through clothing, of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks, or the introduction of any object into the genitalia, anus or mouth, of any person, whether of the same or opposite sex, with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person, bestiality, masturbation, lascivious exhibition of the genitals or public area of a person.

The case I mentioned strongly screams for the criminal's jail time.

Amicable Settlements may sometimes work as a double-edged sword which is either beneficial or harmful to the society and the person who was wronged. In rape cases and child abuse cases, I personally think settlements are not advisable. First, the child may get the wrong impression that her/his scars are as cheap as a pig, or maybe bought by anyone who has a few thousand. In many studies, these have proven to have a heavy and long-time psychological burden to the child. Second, the criminal gets to go free with negligible damage (and may victimize your daughters when given the chance). Third, we send a wrong message of justice - one that is 'instant', convenient, and short-termed.

Sometimes, forgiveness must not extinguish responsibility.

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* Update Info: Many would be visiting this article because it was recently featured on the news. As expected, many people ( usually from Kapangan and Buguias) reacted rather negatively. Let me just be clear that this is not against the following municipalities as I can cite the same with La Trinidad or Baguio, or even in any town. The main content of the blog is about (1) sexual abuses in Benguet and (2) traditions that settle cases rendering them 'unrecorded' (as case records are not forwarded to the police or the courts to be included in the statistics). As  confirmed by the Police, there is really a rise of these kinds of cases. Second, there is also the popular news that some cases like these have been settled traditionally wherein the families opted not to file the criminal charges as the tradition 'already' appeased the conflict (I've personally witnessed some).

In the case I mentioned which happened few months ago and was only relayed to me recently, I personally avoided as much details as not to appear singling-out a certain group. Another friend told me about the reactions of our kakailyans in Kapangan to enlighten me about the 'tradition' that I'm talking about. The pig, they say, is called "Pansingpetan" to penalize the person in the traditional process of "i-bonong" so that the victim will not be traumatized or so that everything will go well. Of course the legal recourse is still there but the parents opted not to go through it.

I'm truly thankful for such enlightening information. Such is the same with many cases I've witnessed which in most communities in the Cordillera are generally called "na-tongtong" or have undergone the process of 'Tongtongan". All is well when it ends well. This is really hard to change, especially when the practice had already taken its roots in the community. So I understand if the article may have sounded a bit disrespectful to the age-old ways.

However, as I've said these cases are not mere property rights or some cases arising from negligence. That is why forgive me if it is my opinion that the molester should be imprisoned. 'Multa ken Kulong' nu shak ah. For inquiries just look me up @ Facebook. Thanks!