In Dumingag’s ridges

December 21, 2007

I was with Konsehal Roger Pacalioga one morning in November for a hurried climb to the towering peak of Upper Landing, Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur. It was literally hurried because we were both conscious of the meetings each of us had to attend to when office hours first opened that day. That hike was a response to Konsehal Roger’s long-standing proposal that we would climb the peak for me to have a vantage view of Dumingag for my ongoing video documentation of the town’s scenic spots.

The Upper Landing peak holds a magnificent view from below. Anywhere in the plains, one could see its sharp pointed cone displayed prominently beside the other peaks.

Agreeing on an estimated two-hour trek starting past 5:00 in the morning, we rode Konsehal Roger’s motorbike upward until sitio Dila, and from there set foot ascending the moderately steep terrain under the bursting early morning sunlight.

After about 30 minutes of hiking, we reached a considerable elevation wherein we could see on our right the sun’s golden rays spreading through the Dilud ridges. The morning rays created in the ridges a contrast of dark green and golden yellow. The constant rains that poured the past few weeks enabled the cogon grasses to grow abundantly and provided the bald mountains a green covering. A little higher we began to notice the Guitran river that glowed like a silver cutting across the cogon-covered hills which sides held a few of Gemilina and coconut trees.

We reached the Upper Landing peak at 9:30 in the morning. Konsehal Roger immediately waded through the thick cogon grass as if looking for a lost coin. Later he explained that the concrete marker buried on the peak was completely lost. He thought somebody got it, removed the steel bars and had them sold . What was left was a hole. Konsehal Roger said that the peak served as a boundary of Upper Landing, Mahayahay and Dapiwak.

The extreme exhaustion that we experienced in that more than three-hour climb was gradually washed away by the breathtaking scenery we got at the top. On the western part of our location we saw Barangay Dapiwak. On the southern part, Barangays Saad and Sinonok were visible, and on the eastern part Dumingag town center shone like a gem. Although hazy due to our distance, we could see the shining rice fields that mirrored the morning sun, the smoke hovering above Dumingag’s houses, and trees sporadically growing around.

From where we stood what we saw were ridges that looked like waves of a raging green ocean that rushed to the plains. From the other vantage, the ridges’ contours formed like wrinkles of a severely crumpled piece of paper.

We rarely saw farms around. Cogon grass dominated the vegetation in almost all the fields. Where there was a corn field, we saw a small hut in the middle or nearby. Occasional barking of dogs that were left in the huts echoed the mountain ranges to warn their owners that strangers set foot on their abode.

Konsehal Roger and I rested for a few minutes, conscious of the schedules we both just missed back at the municipal hall. The few minutes rest provided me some precious moments of recalling how have these ridges before me now witnessed the bloody encounters between the New People’s Army and combined forces of the para-military “4 K” members and regular government fighters in the 1980’s.

Twenty years ago, these ridges served as trails of the red fighters belonging to the Front 1 of the Communist Party of the Philippines, otherwise known as the Big Beautiful Country (BBC). It was where the supposed “new people’s government” in Western Mindanao first assumed a face according to the communist mold.

Twenty years ago, Dumingag’s present Mayor Jun Pacalioga, then known as “Ka Alfie” established his name as a guerilla leader who was poised to lead thousands of armed fighters to grab political power in the town centers and capitals of Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Norte provinces through a bloody revolution in a Party-determined national offensive.

Twenty years have passed, Pacalioga is now at the helm of one of the local government units he sought to crush. Now these ridges have occupied a special place in his administration. Not anymore for a large-scale military project, but for a large-scale economic battle. Although with the same aim of minimizing, if not eradicating poverty, he takes up another means--that is, the implementation of his brainchild Eight -Point Agenda.

Aggressively pointing out that genuine agricultural development is Dumingagnons’ only way out from poverty, Pacalioga seeks to transform this cogon-covered hills and ridges into vast plantation of rubber, abaca and cassava.

Believing in the power of the masses, he mobilized the main propellers of his economic development program—the more than 200 casual and regular employees of the municipal hall. Massive education campaign at the barrio-level has been underway too to rally the widest support of Dumingagnons behind the town’s economic program.

His fiercest enemies from the “4 K’s” during his guerilla life then are now among his closest buddies and trustees. These barangay officials and ordinary folks are ensuring that the Eight-Point Agenda is implemented in their respective communities.

And he leads by example. For those who think that Dumingag lands are all barren and agricultural development is a wishful thinking, he has his own integrated upland farm in Sitio Dila to show. Here, the seemingly lifeless fields five years ago, he transforms into ecologically diverse and productive upland farms today.

When I was at the peak, I wished I could stay there longer but the10 o’clock sun began biting our skin. We hurriedly slid down, hoping to reach part of the agenda of our respective meeting. And indeed, when I entered the room few minutes before 12:00 that day the group was ready to disperse.

I hope I could climb again the Upper Landing peak someday. Five to 10 years from now, the ridges that we saw in November will surely have another covering on their bodies. The grown-up abaca, cassava and the ready-for-tapping rubber trees will surely veil the barren fields. Farmers’ huts will no longer be surrounded by cogon grasses but by vegetables and staple crops. The bark of dogs will then blend with the crowing of fowls that will resound all over the farms.

When this time comes, I will not be looking for the scenic spots of Dumingag just like what I did in November, and I would not be in a hurry for a meeting at the municipal hall. If time allows, I will be in this place to shoot the images of farmers hauling their farm products to the people’s buying stations in the barrios or in the town center. When the sun buries itself in the horizon on that day I wish to share a dinner with a Duminganon family.

As the night deepens by then, the ridges must be cold and the fireflies will adorn the canopies of the rubber trees that will be sprinkling lights on the ridges’ footpaths.

I don’t want to miss any of these images—in Dumingag’s ridges.