by Maria Eleanor E. Valeros, #CebuBloggingCommunity
caption: DUAL SIM (School for Indigenous Minorities). This structure serves two purposes: as community chapel and as learners’ center to children who can’t travel 13 kilometers a day to the nearest regular school facility.
BUKIDNON, NORTHERN MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES — Maayad masulom!
This is a chant carried by the morning breeze across gurgling Bobonawan River, past a squeaking footbridge that leads to a community of Higaonons, a group of indigenous people.
On the mountains of Tamusan (some two hours away from Mindanao’s gateway in the north: Cagayan de Oro City), I become Bukidnon – maayad masulom (good day greeting or good morning). I become as good as the hearts of the settlers there: naive but enriched with the wisdom of the old earth, pastoral but ever-embracing to migrants.
I have this adulation for tribes. In fact, my online chatting handle is tribal wisdom. I consider it mortal sin to stop learning more on that thing you are passionate about. So when the invitation to visit Bukidnon for an outreach program cranked up my email inbox, I replied by being right here where I’m most needed.
The “outreach” tackled on documenting the concerns of the tribe, most importantly ancestral domain, schoolbuilding, decent farm-to-market roads, unified position against joining revolutionary groups that purportedly recruit members.
Maayad masulom!
This is a trill conveyed by the mid-morning sun across tall grasses before they were cut, roots pulled out, to give way to a patch for sweet potatoes. I am a tall grass pulled out of my comfort zone, my conventions, my convictions. I am replanted in Tamusan to learn that children report to “school” under the roof of an unfinished community chapel. The river spillway was destroyed by Typhoon Sendong and has not been replaced yet. The kids would rather gather in a makeshift classroom rather than travel 13 kilometers by foot to the real schoolbuilding.
Maayad masulom! This is a warble lugged by the approaching high noon across the richness of Bukidnon’s plateau marked by towering Kitanglad range. The potential to continue feeding a nation is promising here. The fruits of the earth, the rewards of agriculture are awesome. Name it, Bukidnon can cultivate it — agrinanas, pineapples, grapefruits, papayas, tomatoes, durians, lanzones, marangs, aubergines, bell peppers, rambutans, cayennes. I could only gosh forever!
Bukidnon is so blessed that even libgus (uncultured mushroom) grows just about anywhere the fungus can get a hold of.
Among the hands that toil for our food basket are those mayad (beautiful) and mayad tungkay (handomse) lumads (natives). I think that’s big, maayad reason to further take care of them, being essential in reinvigorating our granary, as we hew a path to sustain sustainability.
But some of them are already leaving their lands behind them as they seek overseas contractual jobs. Now, quite losing the battle for ancestral domain as they are recognized for stewardship only, and no legal holds to individual land titles.###
TRAVELEANORISM 