Our Town: Mankayan, Benguet

One would think that Mankayan, home of Lepanto Mines, would have better roads than the rest of the Cordilleras. But, no, this is what we’ve got — an unpaved road and sinking homes. According to Baguiocity.com the houses we see in the picture used to be at the same level as the road but they have now sank. Residents blame all that tunneling by Lepanto to get at the gold.

But where did all the gold go? The bulk of it went to the pockets of American and Makati-based stock holders, a teeny bit was given to the government in the form of taxes, and a teeny weeny bit was paid to our kailiyans who worked in the mines.

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Dear John in Heaven


Dear John Denver,
Thank you for your gift of music. I remember listening to you while riding the Skyland Bus from Sagada to Baguio. The bus conductor kept playing your songs over and over and yet over again. Maybe he didn’t have any other cassette tape to play. But maybe, and I think this is the more likely reason, he is a big fan of yours.

The interesting thing is that no passenger complained about it. No one got up to tell the conductor to shut you down after we heard Rocky Mountain High for the uptenth time. Maybe we were all too tired to care. After all, the Halsema trip is a tiresome ride, then, as it is now. But maybe, and this is the more likely reason, we too were all big fans of yours.

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