SO DID THE DAVIDS WIN OVER GOLIATH?Community folks stopped Benguet Corporation from resuming its mining operation in Barangay Virac, Itogon (photo above, courtesy of Nordis Blog). Former miner and resident Mariano Lango: “The only ore body left here are the mine pillars. We know this because we worked the mines for the company before the 1990 earthquake forced it to close and allow us to live and make a living on the surface. Mining the pillars, this close to the surface will make the ground collapse. We cannot allow that to happen.” We hope that the victory is not just a temporary one.[Nordis Blog]
I am not really into e-bay but I ocassionally visit the site for the Cordillera-related items being sold online. It’s a good site if you are into memorabilia and if you have the money to spare for old postcards, Igorot weapons, Ifugao bulols, and all that kind of stuff.
I have mixed feelings about our culture becoming objects of commerce (or, to put it more bluntly, people making money out of it) but its not as if this is happening without our tacit participation. In other words, those Igorot antiques won’t end up on e-bay being sold by some guy from Iowa if we didn’t give it to the guy in the first place.
Since the May elections is fast approaching, I think it is apt if we give some space to people who will be running after you to beg for your votes. Let us start with Cordillera Congressmen, since we already featured them earlier (here) and we have readily available pictures of them to run through myheritage.com, a website which allows you to look for your celebrity look-alike. That is, if you are so inclined.
I know, I know, Igorots are not into celebrities but this is kinda fun and From the Boondocks, as you all know, is also about the fun stuff.
Let’s continue welcoming the new year and let’s be somewhat literal about it 🙂 Here are pictures of the welcome arches that are usually the first things you see when you enter the Cordillera provinces. Unfortunately, we can’t find photos for Benguet and Kalinga; I know they have welcome arches but no one took the trouble of photographing them and uploading them to the web. Well, we will include said missing welcome arches once we come across pictures of them in the future.
