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.]
The “then” photo is believed to have been taken by Eduardo Masferre while the “now” photo was taken by Daniel Ziegler, an ex-Peace Corps volunteer who was based in Sagada. Thanks to Kent Sinkey for sharing these photos with us.
Although things have calmed down a bit, the situation remains volatile. If the mining company pursues its plan to build a mine in the area, there is the danger that succeeding news reports from Kasibu will not only be about clashes but about deaths and bloodshed.
We hope you already read our post about “those gallant Igorots” during World War II. And that you also watched the video documentary about some of these Igorot heroes. We plead guilty to prematurely judging the video but we don’t feel too bad (maybe just a bit hehe) because our critique prompted its producers to come to its defense and so we got to learn that the documentary is really more about the 66th Infantry Battalion.
Now, why are we digging back those old posts? Well it’s because they are related to this story about Major Dennis Molintas, Sr. — an Igorot World War II hero and the man who headed the 66th Infantry Battalion. Thanks to our good friend, Danilova Molintas for sharing this article with us.
