Desiree of the Mountains
By Jenny Santiago/Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—Looking at 15-year-old Desiree Sokoken, one would not guess she is a full-blooded Igorot from the Mountain Province. She could easily pass for a Chinese-Filipino mestiza.

“I’ve spent all my life in the Mountain Province. This is my first time to be in Manila,” Sokoken said when she was in town recently for the 5th Ramon Magsaysay Student Essay Writing Competition. Sokoken was one of four finalists in the high school category.

Although it did not win the top prize, Sokoken’s essay stands out because of the writer’s first-hand involvement as a volunteer with the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) since 2006.

The experience inspired her to write about PNRC governor and 1999 Magsaysay Award winner for Public Service Rosa Rosal for the RM essay contest.

No boundaries
“My fascination with her started when I became a PNRC volunteer, and this fascination grew when I read the write-up on her as one of the RM awardees,” she said. “Rosa Rosal made me realize that public service knows no boundaries. Young or old, rich or poor, celebrity or ordinary (person)—one can be a public servant.”

She began her volunteer work when she was just a sophomore at the Mountain Province General Comprehensive High School (MPGCHS). “I was motivated to join (the PNRC) because of my desire to help others in need. I find it quite refreshing. It makes me think helping others is an accomplishment, which is truly heart-warming.”

Together with other student volunteers from her school, Sokoken actively participated in PNRC community services like cleaning streets and river banks, and looking for blood donors.

She attributed her compassionate nature to her good moral upbringing. She said her parents instilled in her and her four siblings the golden rule and to love and help other people.

Sokoken is the second of five children of Dan Evert Sokoken and Shirley Ngolab-Sokoken. She comes from a family of teachers. Her father and most of her uncles and aunts are educators.

A consistent honor student since grade school, she graduated valedictorian from All Saints Mission Elementary School (Asmes) and is now a candidate for the same top academic honor as a senior at MPGCHS.

Passion for writing
“I discovered my passion for writing in elementary school when our school paper was revived,” she recalled.

As a staff writer of Asmes Messenger and now as associate editor of her high school paper, The ATO, Sokoken wrote mostly news reports. She is not into literary writing, as one would expect of an essay contest winner.

For an Igorot who only speaks the local language at home, Sokoken is very articulate in English. She has had two awards as best in English at MPGCHS.

“English is my favorite subject, but I also love Math so I joined a regional bookkeeping contest—the Student Technologists and Entrepreneurs in the Philippines. I was third placer,” she said.

Aside from the prestigious RM essay writing contest, she has also joined about five other local essay competitions and a debate contest.

She considered her school paper adviser Glynnis Ngeteg, who also happened to be her cousin and English teacher, her writing coach. It was from Ngeteg that she learned about the RM essay contest.

Sokoken had only seen her idol in pictures and on television and did not meet her until she came to Manila for the awards. For her essay, she said she relied primarily on materials furnished by the RM Foundation.

Now back in her hometown, Sokoken is busy preparing for the University of the Philippines College Admissions Test. She plans to take up either broadcasting or tourism at UP.

But regardless of what career she eventually pursues, this Rosal fan dreams of establishing a charitable foundation for the needy.

*****
Now that that shameless, shameless plug from the Evil Bill Bilig is over and done with, let’s go back to one of one of our favorite blog topics, the Halsema Road. Because I’ve already yacked a lot about this much lamented (but nonetheless scenic) highway, I am stealing the ideas of our blogger friends (with their permission of course) and putting them here:

The Northern Philippine Times has an editorial entitled: “Why are the big fishes in the Mt. Data-Bontoc road anomalies not being relieved?” And the editorial goes thus:

When will these exposes on alleged irregularities and anomalies on implementation of road projects along the Halsema Highway (particularly the Mt. Data-Bontoc road) end? And why are regional and Mountain Province Dept. of Public Works and Highways officials suspected of complicity in the projects not being relieved as part of government standard operating procedures pending investigation on the alleged anomalies so they won’t influence outcome of the probe? Read the whole article here.

Gina Dizon also opines that the suspended engineers are not the only ones who should be made accountable for the defective Halsema project:

This lame attempt of Dept. of Public Works and Highways regional director Mariano Alquiza to suspend seven engineers from their post for six months was an incredibly desperate act for the DPWH head to do at the light of the Halsema SONA project’s irregularities.

Having turned the blame to DPWH materials and project engineers of the Halsema SONA projects, his action just showed how power play works in one of the most corrupt government agencies of the country. Read it all here.

Meanwhile, Pagano reports that the Open Letter to All i-Mountain Province was aired at the Radyo ng Bayan in Bontoc (Yay!) and explains why he decided not to sign said letter in his blog here. He also has a very interesting suggestion/challenge to Igorot OFWs particularly the BIBAK folks:

So while waiting for a Jesse, how about if we tap on the organization whose membership covers the whole Cordillera? I’m talking about BIBAK. Can’t we harness this organization from a group which is culture–centered into a body that engages in business? Or even politics? And whose area of operation/influence will be the whole of Igorotlandia? Can’t the BIBAK members abroad create a corporation to compete with those greedy contractors? Most of these people (BIBAK OFWs) should have the resources to start the ball rolling.

To understand what he means by “waiting for a Jesse”, read the entire post here. That’s it for now. We’re signing off for the night to dream about that web domain which we hope to win with your help. Oops, that’s Evil Bill Bilig at work again.

UPDATE: More discussions on the Halsema Road, the Halsema improvement project, and the petition letter can be found at the mountainprovince yahoogroup.

RELATED POSTS ON HALSEMA: Click here. INFO SOURCE: Northern Philippine Times (here) and (here) and Pagano’s Gadit.

Here’s an interesting video that you should watch. The first part contains footages taken at the Bontoc Museum and its artifacts of the past. The second part contains some footages of present-day Bontoc with its tricycles and all. It makes an interesting comparison between “then” and “now”. [UPDATE: Oops, as two of you pointed out, this really is not present-day Bontoc since the video must have been taken 20 to 25 years ago. Thanks for the correction Anonymouses Our mistake, we should have known better. Cheers.]

Although we like the video, we hope that the footage of the old woman is removed because she clearly didn’t want to be videoed. Unless you are a public figure or are participating in a public event where video and photo shoots are expected, it IS invasion of privacy when someone takes your photo/video without your consent.

This is becoming a critical issue for us as a people because of the ease with which one can now secretly take videos/photos, the ease these can be published in blogs or web sites, and the proprietary attitude (i.e., this photo is exclusively mine, mine, mine) of some people who takes videos/photos of our people.

We can be rightfully accused of being hypocritical about this because we are using the above video anyway (and have previously used photos which we suspect were taken without the subject’s consent) but, in our defense, we uploaded it to start a discussion on the issue. Some questions:

1. What do you think of the video footage above where the old woman (our alapo) was covering her face? If it was up to you, would you still have included it in this video?

2. What do you think of the photos and videos of our people (particularly of old people and young children) that we see on the web? Do you think these were taken with the subject’s informed consent (meaning that they know that these will be uploaded for public viewing)?

3. What do you think about the way these photos/videos are presented? Are we being presented in the way that all people should be presented (i.e., with respect) or are we being presented more as objects of curiosity?

Just asking, folks We do have other questions related to this issue but we’ll do it in another post before we totally become like a 1990s grim and determined activist hehehe.

Now, about the Bontoc Museum, we should give kudos to the Catholic Church for putting it up. And because we don’t think they get enough money from the entrance fees to keep the museum going, we should again give them kudos for subsidizing the museum’s continuing operation.

Hmm, now that we think of it, maybe we should give our friends in the Catholic Church a Boon Award which, if you remember, is our award for our kailiyans who are doing good things for our “ili”. I think we will all agree that collecting and preserving things of the past for the future is a good thing. [Exception siyempre yung ninakaw na mummies sa Egypt or sa Benguet, at dinala sa US.]

So we are giving a Boon “thank you for building a museum for our people” Award to the people behind the Bontoc Museum. Now, those of you who have not visited the museum should visit it when you are in Bontoc.

For more Boondock awardees, both the good ones and the bad ones, click here.

VIDEO CREDIT: waltwide.

As we noted in an earlier post, one of our visitors found this blog by googling “Who is the singer of Layad, one of the greatest song in Cordillera Administrative Region in the Philippines?”

We said that, to our knowledge, the song was popularized by Lourdes Gomeyac-Fangki who, if we’re not mistaken, has a blog here.

In the comments, Cheryl Daytec-Yangot, added this information about the song which we found to be very interesting and so we decided to upload it here:

The one who wrote it is a Mr. Oakes from Bontoc Central but it was first sang and popularized by Pedro Chinalpan.

According to Aunt Salma Martin (who prodded me to let everyone know the truth about the song), Mr. Oakes was so in love with a fair Bontoc maiden. However, the relationship did not prosper because the woman married a Mr. Claver.

Heartbroken, Mr. Oakes wrote the song. No wonder it is about a love that went wrong somewhere. I wonder why it is sung at weddings when its mood is so somber it could actually move you to sadness and tears.

Yun lang. This is just to give credit where credit is due.

Thanks, Cheryl. Cheryl also added that the melody is actually from an American song called “When There’s Love at Home”.

We must say that we’re a bit disappointed to hear that the song is not entirely “ours”.

But, true enough, when we googled “When There’s Love at Home”, we found out that the song was composed by John Hugh McNaughton. You can read more about the composer and his song here. And you can listen to or download recordings of the song here.

So now that we have established that we actually borrowed Layad nan Likhatan’s melody, we think that the title, “Greatest Song of the Cordillera Administrative Region” is still up for grabs. What song do you think deserves the title?

Anyways, the above video is a another version of the song, this time with an “upbeaty” sound, by the Pe’tune band. You can read more about this new version at Bontoc Ikholot.

RELATED POST: Blog Visitors: Your Questions. VIDEO CREDIT: wgacusana.

More Chris and Charlie: Remember our kailiyans who are in contention to become the “King of Filipino Migrant Workers in Korea? We blogged about them here. We hope that you followed Layad’s example and voted for either of the two here.

We have more information about Chris and Charlie courtesy of Grace Fikingas of Cordilove:

Crisanto ‘Chris’ Longey is a CBO (Cordillera Brotherhood Organization) member from Tadian, Mountain Province and Baguio City. His motto is, “Aim high and hit the bull’s eye.”

Charlie Pawilen is from Baguio City. And his motto is, “Never be afraid to try things that you will fail. Learn from your failures than your successes.

This is the first time that CBO is fielding an FBI (Full Blooded Igorot) candidate in searches like this.

Please vote 24 hours everyday and pass the request around.

Thanks Grace for the additional information. So keep voting folks!

Another Cordi Province?: Bago Igorots are advocating for the creation of a new province comprised of municipalities populated by Bagos in Ilocos Sur, La-Union, and Abra. We think this is a good idea but it will be quite a challenge to convince the three provinces to let go of their towns. Read the report by Dexter See here.

This will be a test of Baguio Rep. Mauricio Domogan’s political influence beyond the Cordilleras. If he can convince his lowland colleagues to pass a law creating a Bago province, we will put him back to our “list of good politicians” rather than in the “Gloria factotum list” we have sadly placed him in.

More Harassment: The harassment of human rights workers and activists continues in the Cordilleras. Joe Cawiding has been arrested for “alleged involvement in an ambush against army forces in 2003.” More at Northern Dispatch.

More Dump: Really Baguio folks, how hard is it to segregate your waste? Are Baguio residents really that hard-headed that they won’t segregate their garbage or did this garbage crisis arise because of lack of information and coordination? And do we need Japanese folks to teach us how to clean our city? For shame! More here.

More Murders: Will the Abra killings ever stop? Eight deaths in six days? We don’t know what to say anymore about this continuing violence. More at Abrenian.com.

More Good Works: UP-Gimpong is celebrating its anniversary by organizing activities like quiz bees, film showings, etc for the Tabuk City youth. Kasta man nga u-ubbing. These UP-Gimpong students have a lot to teach to those Baguio youth gangs who are into grenade throwing. More on the UP-Gimpong activities at Kalinga Tambayan.

Meanwhile, Bontoc OFWs in Hongkong are supporting the programs of the Bontoc local government by sending home books, video cameras, laser printers, as well as “boots, gloves, and respiratory masks for the protection of the untiring garbage collectors”. Kasta man nga kailiyan. More at Mt Province.net.

More for the Youth: Ifugao establishes a center for youth offenders and draws up a comprehensive youth program geared towards “making the youth effective and pro-active in the over-all efforts for development”. Details at PIA-Cordillera.

More Mines: Apayao Governor Elias Bulut welcomes likely mining investors. Read the report at the Baguio Midland Courier. Governor, don’t wash your hands like Pontius if some of your communities eventually turn out to be like Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya.

Less BLIST: Looks like our kailiyans in Sablan and Tuba are not convinced that this BLIST idea is good for them. Maybe it will turn out to be BLI (or bleh) rather than BLIST. More at Northern Dispatch.
*****
About the Photo: The above picture of one of Baguio City’s current main attractions was taken byAndy Zapata. And then we stole it from baguiocity.com.

To have maintained a long political career — spanning from the 70s (?) to the 2ks — speaks of his ability to harness whatever political tools there are that one needs to remain in power or to win in the game of politics.

His strategies have not been good for the province but, if you are a political geek, you have to give him credit for his political adroitness. We’d like to be clear though that just because we say that we respect the Congressman’s political skills, does not mean that we are taking back what we said about him here and here.

Anyway, because we don’t want to be seen as “wala ng ginawa kundi mag-criticize”, we are glad to keep our mouths shut on the latest developments in Mt. Province particularly the Congressman’s latest actions regarding “his” pork-barrel funded educational program.

However, we hope you read Pagano’s blog because he wrote a very incisive post on the matter. Mountainprovince.net also has an article on this burning issue. You should also visit Freedom Lyric, one of our newest siblings in the blogosphere, because he/she uploaded the various letters written by the Congressman on this topic.

Finally, we are reprinting an article by Dexter See originally published at the Northern Philippine Times Blog. Thanks to Gina Dizon for giving us permission to reprint said article.

Mt. Province solon halts college fund to studes
By Dexter See
BONTOC, Mountain Province – Disgusted by criticisms, Rep. Victor S. Dominguez has ordered the suspension of the full scholarship grant enjoyed by over 5,000 students at the Mountain Province State Polytechnic College here due to issues being raised by disgruntled individuals.

The controversy led to the filing of charges against the congressman and school officials with the Commission on Higher Education and the Commission on Human Rights.

In a letter sent to Dr. Nieves A Dacyon, MPSPC president, Dominguez said the situation forced him to withdraw his sponsorship of the program of the students.

“Our voluntary desire to help everybody has been after all not appreciated by many with the conviction that even without this representation, those privileges will be forthcoming,” the lawmaker stated in a letter he sent to beneficiaries of the program.

But Dominguez called on parents and students “who believe in the true intention of the scholarship program” to submit to his office, though the office of the school president, their signed joint application for the program on or before Oct. 30.

This would allow the screening committee to determine who deserved the benefit of the full scholarship program, in the next semester.

The MPSPC’s full scholarship program, the first of its kind in the country, has been envisioned by Dominguez to provide quality education to the youth and enable them to be productive citizens of the country.

In the past two years, the lawmaker has been allocating P7 million from his priority development assistance fund for the scholarship program.

Another P3 million was provided by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples for the program.

Dominguez challenged the parents and students “who believe in the lies of the leaders of oppositors to the programs” to go to the critics and demand for funds for the educational assistance to them.

He said this semester, they can no longer avail themselves of the program because he has already withdrawn his sponsorship.

Dacyon appealed to critics of the congressman to spare the scholarship program from their campaign against the lawmaker because the intention of the educational assistance was to provide a decent education to the youth.

Note: We are not being mean for using the initials of the Honorable Congressman in our title. The fact of the matter is that we are only following his example. What do we mean? If you go up the road going to either Maligcong or Guinaang and look down towards the Bontoc Plaza, you will see two buildings funded by the Congressman’s pork barrel below the plaza: one building is shaped like the letter V while the other one is shaped like the letter D. Because these buildings are beside each other, you can read them as VD.

Hey, fellow iFontoks, en-isend kayo man si photographic evidence of the V and D buildings so our friends who’ve not seen them will not say that we are making this up

RELATED: Are Your Politicians Too Powerful For Your Own Good; A Tale of Two Politicians. INFO CREDIT: Northern Philippine Times. PHOTO CREDIT: Batch 2006.

The above statement is attributed to Evelyn Taguiba, principal of Mountain High School in Bontoc. She was recently recognized by the Civil Service Commission as Cordillera’s Most Outstanding Principal in 2006.

You can read an article about her by the Sunday Inquirer Magazine at mountainprovince.net.

We think the good principal also deserves a Boon Award from us. Why? Because long before computers and the internet became all too common (although it’s still not common in the Philippines) she was already looking for ways to train her teachers and students to be adept in using them. [Read this old site for instance.]

Only a person with a vision can turn a school in the boondocks into one that is “internet-savvy”. It’s good too that she is building partnerships with different groups, like Smart and Microsoft for instance, and not cocooning herself in the classroom or the principal’s office.

Way to go ma’am. We hope your teachers and students emulate you!

RELATED POST: Boon Award: Mayor Artemio Galwan; The Boondock Awards; Smart Gets Smart But it Should Be Smarter. INFO SOURCE: mountainprovince.net. PHOTO CREDIT: Smart Schools Program.

Which of the following would best describe your reaction to the photo above:

A. Oy cute.
B. What the fuck?
C. Wow legs. But why is he made to wear flowers?
D. Okay lang sana kung taga Lubon, Tadian.
E. Hah. Here comes the objectification of the Igorot/iCordillera man.
F. A warrior from the deepest part of Kaigorotan will come to hunt you ex-Senator Coseteng for doing this. [This comment is adopted from W. Gacusana's controversial video.]
G. All of the above.

You can pick as many as you want. Better yet, write your reaction in the comment section. You will find more pictures from Sinaunang Habi below.


From left to right: Models are identified to be from Maligcong, Bontoc; a Gaddang of Paracelis; and a Tingguian from Canyugan, Bangued.

No accompanying captions for these photos but I’m sure they are from Cordi.

PHOTO CREDITS: Sinaunang Habi [via Nick Wallace and uoregon].

RELATED POSTS: Itettem; Cellphone; Teachers; Manny Pacquiao of La Trinidad; Funny or Offensive; Way to Go Kiddo. VIDEO CREDIT: alberta05.

Buy and sell
By Bishop Francisco F. Claver, S.J.
When our village philosopher, a wizened Bontoc Igorot of uncertain age, heard a few weeks ago that the government was going to shell out P40 per day to hungry people (according to a report in one of the papers), he remarked: “Is that the new way of buying votes?”

A younger version of our philosopher immediately piped in: “New? It’s the same old way of disbursing funds for public projects just before elections to ‘alleviate’ the poverty of bought voters.”

Hearing their exchange, I had an image from the last election in 2004 come to mind: hordes of old and not-so-old women put to work for a pittance piling rocks on the Bontoc-Banaue road at Mount Polis for a “beautification project” of the local government — those rocks, painstakingly gathered, would be pushed out of the way the next time a scraper went by to fix the road. An odd way of poverty alleviation, that beautification project. So, too, is the present billion-peso appropriation to meet the growing hunger problem of the nation. And all for no other end but to buy votes for munificent government people running for office?

The exchange set me thinking: Elections, Philippine style, are probably best described as a time of wondrous buying and selling. And it is not only about the usual practice of candidates buying votes, voters selling theirs. The whole process is in itself a straight buying-and-selling transaction, some of it good, most of it bad. And both buying and selling are often done with superior imagination, the likes of which, if applied to our national stagnation, could work more miracles than the Chinese and the Indians seem to be doing in their unprecedented burst of economic gains.

The good kind: When candidates “sell” themselves to voters on the strength of their integrity and platforms of governance as future public servants; and the voters “buy” their candidates on what they perceive as their merits and the non-“trapo” [traditional politico] image they project. A rather rare kind of selling and buying, but practiced now and again by the more principled candidates. And voters.

The bad kind: When candidates sell a spurious bale of goods by resorting only to the usual election gimmicks (singing, dancing, mugging, by themselves or vicariously through movie stars and the like, and all the other strange things they usually do); and when voters buy the tawdry things being sold them without much serious thought given to how their candidates rate on the scale of competence and integrity. Unfortunately, this is the more common kind of election buying and selling.

Among the spurious bale of goods referred to above, I would include “dynastic” candidates whose only reason for their running for office is easy (family) “name recall.” Some time back the sentiment was voiced by a relative of a prospective family dynast: “There is nothing in the Ten Commandments forbidding ‘family dynasties’.”

Actually there is. The whole thrust of the Ten Commandments is directed against the idolatry of self. In plain language, selfishness. And if there is anything we Filipinos are only too cognizant about, it is that family dynasties, in the light of the way we play politics, are nothing but a hoarding in one family of political power (and the wealth that comes from the corrupt use of power). And that is wrong, because with the family good coming first before the public good in our Filipino hierarchy of values, the selfishness we speak of is only too real.

If our election process is a market place, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ refusal to name those selling good or bad merchandise is tantamount to simply repeating the old warning of “Caveat emptor!” (Buyer, beware!) That warning, we have often heard it said, is nothing but a copout on the part of the bishops. I rather think it is the other way around: Those who want their minds made up for them by the bishops are the ones guilty of copping out.

What the bishops are doing, when we come down to it, is simply attempting to affirm our collective intelligence as a people (most of us anyway!) and to respect our freedom in the exercise of our political will. Getting somebody to make one’s mind up without much effort on one’s part is the lazy way out. But lazy or not, we have to concede, it is an easy temptation to succumb to in our horribly confused politics.

RELATED POSTS: Igorots During EDSA Uno; Are Politicians Too Powerful For Your Own Good?.