“Agriculture & Culture” – In 3 words, that is the extraordinary little-big story I am about to tell, given the much-restricted movements of people and objects mandated by the Luzon Coronavirus Lockdown.
As shared by SRO on Facebook with Glenda Susana Tombaga, above is a view (from Baguio City Digest) of Sadanga town in Mountain Province; my superimposed image is titled “Gong & Textile[1]” from the Throwback: Lang-ay FestivalApril 2019 (Gramho).
Looking at the images: Are the Cordillerans truly proud as people of the mountains? Read on.
In his open letter:
The Mayor of Sadanga is rejecting the free food packs for his people!
Here now is the full open letter of Sadanga Mayor Gabino P Ganggangan (249 words, with minor editing):
A Public Notice
(30 March 2020)
(30 March 2020)
Today I was informed by our MSWDO that some relief food packs sent by the DSWD region are now available at the PDRRM office in Bontoc for LGUs that might be requesting.
However, I decided and instructed our MSWDO to relay our message that our municipality will not be availing of these food packs even if the lockdown will be extended.
Its not that we don't have poor and needy families, but I believe that we as tribal communities still have and should sustain our "built-in" and homegrown or indigenous social structure, values, and practices of taking care of our respective relatives or kin, neighbors or kailyan in distress during hard times or economic crisis.
It is during these kinds of economic hardships such as "food shortages", hunger and famine that the "richer or better off" (kadangyans) among a clan or village are expected to aid their needy relatives by lending their surpluses.
Should this crisis extend longer to the extent that our needy families really run out of their rice supplies, we shall mandate the kadangyans of every barangay to open up their rice granaries (agamangs) to sustain us through to the next harvest season.
I assure that no family shall go hungry in our municipality even during these hard times.
Let the Nat’l Gov’t feed those more needy urban poor in the cities and those less fortunate in other areas who can't sustain themselves, while we sustain ourselves while we can.
Culture Nurture!
Differently from what you can read in Facebook sharings, where food packs are welcome. (I am Ilocano; if I were Mayor of my town, Asingan, Pangasinan, I would have accepted the food packs – but made sure only the starving would receive them. Another Culture Nurture.)
Mountain Province, where Sadanga is, is the only predominantly Protestant province in the Philippines (Wikipedia[2]); our Asingan is predominantly Roman Catholic – but it’s not religion, it’s culture.
Roger Sacyaten writes of a “Sadanga Lad Feted For Being The Man Of The Philippines-Ambassador[3]” (27 December 2018, ZigZag Weekly). This is Basilio Falisong Jr, who urged his people “to be a dreamer, be an achiever, and to achieve whatever you dream through the heart.”
The Sadangans are dreamers and realists.@517
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