Isinay Rainbow Says Hi to Isinay Friends

 IT MAY NOT yet have the appeal of the red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet colors of the real rainbow, yes. But with its maiden appearance here, Isinay Rainbow takes a bow to users of social media who have an appetite for matters that have to do mostly with Isinay as a language or the Isinay as a people.

Hosted by an Isinay who was born and raised in Isinay country, Isinay Rainbow is a blog created for "Isinay bloods" living far away from home (particularly the towns of Aritao, Bambang, and Dupax). But it may also be of interest to those who fall in any combination of these categories:

·                     friends or colleagues of Isinays

·                     wife, husband or partner of Isinays

·                     children or grandchildren of Isinays

·                     classmates or co-workers of Isinays

·                     students who want to learn more Isinay

·                     advocates or supporters of the Isinay language 

·                     lovers of Isinay birds, forests, rivers, nature areas

·                     researchers of Isinay history, culture or ethnography

·                     development workers in Isinay lands or communities

·                     people interested in stories about Isinay people or places.

Naturally, the posts in this blog will not only dwell largely on Isinay as a language, as a culture, and as a people. They will also touch on recent developments that many an abeveyoyan (townmate or countrymate), especially those living abroad, may not yet have heard. 

The posts will also include photos or images that may be of interest to Isinay Rainbow readers, such as the rendition below of how Isinay country looked like in the early days as perceived by my environmental-artist friend Dante N. Pecson of Agno, Pangasinan.

As you will also see in the succeeding posts, there would also be a generous sprinkling of Isinay texts, including lists of Isinay words and phrases plus tips and examples on their proper uses.  

In cases where the posts' topics or circumstances would mostly call for the use of English, I shall endeavor to insert words in Isinay that would help enrich or improve the vocabulary of learners.

For instance, the rainbow-colored picture above contains a lot of things the Isinay names of which may not yet be in your vocabulary. Here are some of them:

·                     forest .............................eyas

·                     waterfall ........................peyasapas

·                     tree.................................ayu

·                     vine................................waah

·                     leaves.............................dawun

·                     deer ...............................laman

·                     wild boar........................bavuy si eyas

·                     monkey..........................araw

·                     snake .............................iraw

·                     crab................................ahasit

·                     monitor lizard ...............baniyas

·                     dragonfly.......................atittino'

·                     butterfly ........................kukkuyappon

·                     grass ..............................botlong 

·                     loin cloth (G-string) ......indong

·                     machete (bolo)...............ota'

·                     spear...............................gayang  

Salamat podda toy bineleng yu tiyen blog. Thank you very much for paying attention to this blog.

NOTE: In Isinay, the apostrophe ( ' ) indicates a glottal sound. Thus, Isinay words with vowels followed by an apostrophe mean or are pronounced differently compared to those without such mark. (For example, ota' means the big knife called "bolo or machete," while ota means "unhusked grain of rice mixed with milled or cooked rice." 

In this blog also, the italicized vowel in an Isinay word indicates a stressed sound. (For example, gayang means the hunting or fighting weapon called "spear", but if you don't put a stress on the second a, then the word gayang would mean the black bird called "crow.") 

Pray once more, forester, for your childhood playgrounds (Part 4)

WHEN I WENT for a walk-through of the project area, I was in the company of two cousins, a nephew, and two foresters that DENR assigned to oversee the on-going preparation of terraced nursery beds and nursery bunkhouse at the time. Like what happened during the general meeting, I could not help but wax nostalgic again as we passed by sites that I last set foot on decades, nay, half a century ago... and which I never thought I would be with again.

A key takeaway from that hiking tour was that my grandfather’s pasto has become open ground for the entry of whoever was bold and tough enough to clear whatever area caught their interest.

For instance, I was surprised to see a hectare or so of beautiful rice terraces where there was none when I was young. Even as I was delighted to find the source of their irrigation was a gurgling creek with good prospects for a mini dam where water could be piped for the Project’s nursery and bunkhouse, and for the increasing number of households farther down the hills, I remembered the term “tragedy of the commons.”

I first came across that term and its meaning – “when there are no limits on use, members of a group take advantage of a shared resource until it is exhausted” – in a course I took many, many years ago under Dr. Ben S. Malayang III who was then teaching environmental science at UPLB before he became DENR Undersecretary.

Indeed, I shuddered at the thought that the open-resource status of formerly fenced-off pasture lands might embolden more people to enter and convert critical areas into pure seasonal cropping and monoculture agriculture, instead of growing trees and other perennials in sustained soil-&-water-conserving systems.

This is the reason why I’m personally thankful that the DENR and its Japan-assisted Forestland Management Project came to my hometown, especially in Palabotan, to show us how to properly and sustainably manage our hilly-land and river ecosystems, which had been my playgrounds long, long before I became a forester and also years before the barriotic me came to know that the tiny mountain streams in our little corner of the Philippines are significant tributaries of the Magat River that in turn flows down to contribute Dupax-flavored water to the mighty Cagayan River.

A tributary of the Benay River that in turn flows to Magat River and then to Cagayan River.

WHILE WRITING this (in New Jersey), I was buoyed by the prospects that my attempt at making ecological footprints in my childhood barrio would one day be appreciated – and be continued – by my grandkids. 

    I was also playing in my mind other site-enhancing activities I could still do – such as making a series of small ponds on the ephemeral creek in the upper part of the stewardship area assigned to me and my sisters. Aside from storing the oversupply of water in the creek during the monsoon season, the ponds will also catch rainwater off-season rains and thus prolong the availability of water for keeping the surrounding areas moist and favorable for raising more agroforestry crops. 

    Also a strong possibility is the conversion of  the ponds for raising tilapia, suso, native kuhol, and kangkong -- and thus attract wild ducks and/or make the area more conducive to other wildlife.

Right now I’m dreaming I’m already out there among the hills… breathing unpolluted air, saying hello to the wild guava and arosip/binayuyu trees in the area assigned to us grandkids of the late Pedro Pudiquet for stewardship... listening to the cicadas and the bulbul birds sing in the remnant forests while admiring the merry mix of trees and food plants now growing in the agroforestry demo farm put up  in our stewardship area – with the generous help of Manong Bert Tortoza and Ading Melody Marcelo Bad-e (both BS Forestry graduates of UPLB).

I’ll be home till early next year, enough time to add more plants to the narra, bignay, kalamansi, lemon, guyabano, atis, mabolo, marunggay, alukon, betel nut, cassava, okra, camote, dippig, vetiver, gabi, maladapdap, utong, patani, and a couple of malabulak (this last beautifully flowering species from retired PENRO Moises Butic) already growing in the area. 

And so, to whom it may concern, in case I can’t be “rich” by iPhone, most probably I’d be in Dupax, closer to the hills and rivers of my youth, making up for my pandemic-scared years of absence – this time doing agroforestry hands-on and no longer only via Messenger or Facebook.v

Pray once more, forester, for your childhood playgrounds (Part 3)

BY A SURPRISING turn of events, however, the grandiose plan I just described never took off. Put another way, its implementation has been postponed – indefinitely for now.

This was because the DENR’s Forestland Management Project (FMP) came to my town and included Palabotan, the village that nurtured my childhood since I was three years old up to when I finished high school and left Dupax to take up the B.S. in Forestry at UPLB. So how could I say no?

As a game-changer, the FMP made me happy because it brought bright prospects for better government and community attention, at last, to the hills needing proper management and to the rivers whose health depends much on what happens to those hills.

It was my mother who broke the news to me. One day in 2013, I had just arrived from Baguio when she said, “Inka kitaen ni Lindo ta adda kano projectyo idiay pasto.” (Go see Lindo because you have a project in the pasto.)

Lindo is my cousin Erlindo Pudiquet (his father and my mother were siblings). And by pasto (the local term for cattle ranch), I knew my mother was referring to the hilly area on the southern part of Palabotan that my apong Pedro Pudiquet, along with his Miranda nephews, fenced off in the 1950s to raise dozens of cows.

The area was covered by a Pasture Lease Agreement. In the 1980s, Apong Pedro handed over its stewardship to my Uncle Atong (Liberato Pudiquet). For many years, I also had a number of my own cattle (branded C² on one hip and Dpx on the other) grazing there up to the mid-1990s. But perhaps because the lease had reached the 50 years maximum (or maybe for other reasons I have yet to know), the permit has not been renewed.

In early 2013 the DENR initiated the formation of a people’s organization as part of the first phase of the FMP’s implementation in Palobotan, and I was listed as member along with my sisters.

IT CAME OUT that Insan Lindo was elected as head of the Palabotan Agroforest Development Association Inc., one of the four people’s organizations in Dupax del Sur with whom the DENR is working closely to achieve its FMP’s goals. It initially had more than 200 members but over the years almost half shied away from the association’s activities because of difficulty with their annual dues.

 In PADAI’s first general meeting, Presidente Lindo asked me to give a talk. I introduced myself as a "playing coach" for the association and someone who was already in Palabotan when it was not yet a barangay but merely a sitio called I-iyo.

I mentioned that my father was a pioneer teacher in the local school when it was still only for a few Grades 1 and 2 pupils and, recalling my father’s stories, the classroom was a kamarin (hut bigger than a kalapaw) with thatched cogon roof, walls of tinidtid a kawayan, and bamboo benches instead of wooden desks.

I also went into an animated remembering of the Palabotan  that I knew while growing up. The big and haunted pakak (antipolo) tree and the anaw (anahaw) palm over there… the birds like the tariktik that laughed on top of the kallautit (kalumpit) tree above the Raza sisters’ house… the dadapilan (carabao-powered sugarcane crusher) on the spot where the barangay hall now stands… how my Apong Pedro didn’t have to go too far to find wood for making into carabao yoke and al-o (pestle for pounding rice)… and how I often went with my grandmother Feliza (who I called Inang) to get roots of a shrub on a hill near the pasto to use as pannig-an (prophylactic infusion) for the mothers who would seek her expertise as the only barefoot midwife in the village.

Venue of the meeting was the barangay hall the window of which offered a view of the hills in the ballasiw (other side of the river) and, luckily, I also remembered an interesting thing. So, pointing to the hills, I told the audience that when I was small the hills over there were kalbo. Why? Because they had been burned every summer to renew the pan-aw, tanglad and other grasses for cows and carabaos. But now the hills look beautiful because of the efforts of Manong Sixto Badua, a fellow forester who planted rambutan, coffee, lukban, mangga, langka. “Adda pay durian, sir!” added one of the P.O.’s officers.

I think I also mentioned that if Sixto could do that, there should be no reason why we could not also do it in our part of Palabotan. I added that when the trees would grow big and bear fruits, who else will benefit from them but the children of Palabotan?

 [CONTINUED ON PART 4]

Pray once more, forester, for your childhood playgrounds (Part 2)

So, what came out of those ruminations?

     Oh well, the one in the hospital led me to the idea of making a dictionary of my father’s mother language – Isinay.

Hitting that idea of a wordbook was a big aha! moment for me. This was because it came out that, despite Isinay’s being suppressed – like a seedling under big trees – by other languages, it has no full-blown dictionary yet. Thus, making one would not only be historic but also a helpful input in saving the Isinay tongue from extinction.

The dictionary is still a work in progress. But at least its word-hunting phase, which included several long, happy, and nostalgic story-telling sessions with Isinay-fluent senior citizens, gave me good reason to go home to Dupax more often, especially in the precious years before my mother (who learned to speak Isinay thru osmosis) went to “the more verdant forests up there.”

Incidentally, my from-woods-to-words journey also took me to destinations I never thought I would be, such as giving lectures about Isinay and Isinays to anthropology students at UP Baguio, helping a UP Diliman linguistics student do her thesis on Isinay grammar, and getting published by Academia.org with my “Let the Isinay Forest Sing Again” (a paper I presented in a seminar for teachers on mother-tongue-based education in 2015 at St. Mary’s University).

Equally exciting, the word-hunting part of my dictionary project has greatly improved my knowledge on the history and geography of Isinay country, including the names and whereabouts of my town’s native trees, birds, fish, bats, insects, and other wildlife.

Called lavay in Isinay, tebbeg in Ilokano, tibig in Filipino,

and Ficus nota among botanists, this fig tree's fruits were among

my organic toys while growing up in the then Sitio I-iyo.

On the other hand, my  muni-muni in 2013 resulted in something closer to my heart as a forester – to put up an agroforestry farm in my little patch of hilly land in Barangay Carolotan, a former logging community in the upstream part of Dupax.

I felt ashamed of myself then because at that time I had only been paying lip service to agroforestry. I was a graduate, long time ago, of the first ever Training on Legume-Tree-Based Agroforestry held at Minglanilla, Cebu, and conducted by Prof. Napoleon T. Vergara (my Forest Economics & Finance professor in 1971-72 and my supervisor at the East-West Center in Honolulu in 1986-87), but I have not yet applied what I learned.

My original plan was to make my farm a showcase of two systems: 1) sloping agricultural land technology (SALT) and 2) biodiversity-focused agroforestry. I envision these two systems would attract neighbors and passers-by – many of them upland farmers with hectares of hilly land – to drop by and either follow my example or make tsismis to other farmers about how beautiful an ugly place could be if it has agroforestry or if it is planted to various kinds of bird-friendly trees.

For the SALT system, I wanted to make bench terraces on the hill with the widest eastern slope, then put up camote, gabi, corn, peanut, mungo, tomato, snap beans, and ginger plots on them. For contour hedges, I wanted to grow tigi (Amorphophallus campanulatus), saluyot, alugbati, and marapait (wild sunflowers). And on the border sides would be rows of ipil-ipil, kakawate, katuray and betelnut as living fences.

On the farm’s river side, I wanted to plant galyang, tree ferns, wild bananas, and two or more baletes with alukon (himbabao) as would-be host trees. I was thinking that if the baletes turn grotesque later, the belief that they harbor white ladies, tikbalangs, sinanpadi, aswang, ansisit, etc. would discourage trespassers.

 For the biodiversity focus, I already had in mind the species I would grow in other available spaces – langka, ilang-ilang, pakak, anteng, bitnong, samak, kapasanglay, alukon, guyabano, kamias, lansones, kalamansi, kallautit, marunggay, lumboy, kasoy, lukban, abukado, kanarem, pili, narra, durian … all in a merry mix, like a true forest, not in rows like orchards.

I’ll also try to grow rattan, especially the one that bears the sweet type of littuko. I’ll follow the technique, of planting uwway along with a host tree, developed by Dopinio Mento in his agroforestry farm in the Kakilingan part of the hills above the late Forestry Director Romeo T. Acosta’s village in Vista Hills, Bayombong.

And for the birds, I’ll plant guava, aratiles, bignay, duhat, papaya, kamiring, tibig, saba ti sunggo, samak, bitnong, atbp.

I also plan to dibble branch cuttings of Erythrina variegata (called sevveng in Isinay, bagbag in Ilokano, dapdap in Tagalog). In the olden days, especially when the other group of indigenous people of Dupax – the Ilongots – were still very much around, this tree helped protect the forests and wildlife in my town. How? When its flamboyant red flowers bloomed in March-May, it served as warning for tree-cutters, kaingineros (manopsoppeng in Isinay, agum-uma in Ilokano), bird trappers, and deer hunters to just stay home and avoid going to the wilderness areas. Or else, their bodies may be brought home without their heads.

[CONTINUED ON PART 3]

 

 

Pray once more, forester, for your childhood playgrounds (Part 1)

I DON’T KNOW if it is part of growing old, but I had been feeling a sense of guilt not very long ago as to what in the world I can do to give back to the land and the people that helped me become the happy person that I am today.

You see, in my little pond as a forester, I might have created ripples as one with a bent on the ABCs of putting thoughts on paper, using passable grammar and fluency, be it in English, Filipino, Ilokano, or Isinay.

In like manner, sometime in my journey as a manggugúbat, I might have also made virtual footprints in forestry extension, upland development, social forestry, and community-based natural resources management. 

And so it came to pass that, insofar as my anting-anting on writing & editing is concerned, I got assignments as feature, news and editorial writer… editor of magazines, newsletters, books, conference proceedings, master’s theses, doctoral dissertations… and ghostwriter of speeches, seminar papers, and project reports – nearly all of them on forestry and forest-related matters.

As for people-focused forest management, my rudimentary grasp of it has at least made me bold enough to be part of a team that advised field staff of the PNOC in Negros Oriental, Southern Leyte, and Sorsogon on how to make life better for needy communities living around geothermal plants.

I have also been part of a team that explored Hanunoo country in Mindoro, the Kalahan community in Nueva Vizcaya, and the Sagada-Besao area in Mt. Province for possible learning sites of the BFD Upland Development Program.

And once upon a time, too, I was with a fact-finding mission that for a week visited Ilongot/Bugkalot communities to listen to their differing views on the then planned construction of the 26-km tunnel that would siphon water from Casecnan River in Nueva Vizcaya and take it to the ricefields of Nueva Ecija.

While in college, I might have really taken to heart Elbert Hubbard’s concept of loyalty (“If you work for a man, in heaven’s name work for him, speak well of him, and stand by the institution he represents"). 

That’s why I never growled.

In 2013, however, I got into a soul-searching of sorts. I think this was in General Santos, if not Dumaguete, when my compadre Forester Bien Dolom and I went to share tips to LGU planning officers and DENR technical personnel on how to make Forest Land Use Plans more useful, sexy, and readable.

Noticing how receptive our audiences were, I could not help asking myself this: “Bakit ikaw, Carlo, nakakatulong sa ibang bayan at sa ibat-ibang tao… pero sa Dupax at mga kababayan mo, ano?”

It was actually a repeat of the soliloquy I did five years earlier while on “vacation” at the Baguio Medical Center for myocardial infarction, where I said to myself: “Ania metten, ngannganikan natay gapu lang iti trabahom… ngem awan pay uray maysa a naaramidmo para iti ilim!” (My goodness, you almost died because of your work… but you haven’t done anything yet for your own town!)

This earlier conscience-pricking event was my first time to realize my mortality – as in tao pala ako, at meron ding expiry date.

I recall my doctor saying I needed to reduce the girth of my tummy. But I guessed then my heart was just saying hello.

Well, it was because a week earlier, along with my “CBRM family” at the Department of Finance, I went into stressful days and coffee/beer-energized nights of furious work to meet the NEDA’s requirements, and the deadline, for the completion report of the multi-agency and World Bank-assisted Community-Based Resource Management Project that sought to pump-prime 120 or so LGUs in Bicol, the Eastern Visayas, the Central Visayas, and Caraga in the upkeep of their forest, mangrove, marine, and ecotourism resources.

Pero – alleluia! At salamat sa Poong Maykapal, nandito pa ako.

[CONTINUED ON PART 2]

Stories that flicker like fireflies

I DON'T KNOW about you, but when I was growing up in my hometown Dupax, I have always been fascinated by fireflies.

I would ask myself: How come fireflies have light while other insects don't? What do they feed on to be able to have battery to produce light? What use do they have apart from giving spectators delight?

Quite often at night I would open my bedroom's window so I would be able to see fireflies flickering as they pass by. 

Quite often, too, in summer, I would spend an hour or so before going to sleep staring at a tamarind or starapple tree nearby awash with tiny and moving lights.

Indeed, when I was small and the skies were moonless or cloudy, fireflies took the place of stars. They provided entertainment, inspiration, even lullaby of sorts, especially when during the day that just passed, something didn't go the way I wanted it to be.

It was my recollection of the fireflies of my childhood -- plus the fact that children in my hometown are no longer attracted to them, and probably don't know the firefly's name in Isinay -- that made me open this blog of Dupax Stories.

I don't know how you'll take it, but I'm only too glad to share the little stories about life in Isinay country when it has still plenty of fireflies, and how things are going now that this fascinating insect is already rare.

Yes, Idong, Eteng, Iva, and friends of Isinays, welcome to the wonderfully flickering world of when we who have Isinay blood flowing in our veins lived in the glorious days when fireflies were not yet the memories they have become.

Look, children, at the carabao, now!

A CASE OF being there at the right place and at the right moment, I shot this picture of kids on board a carabao-pulled sled in the Palobotan part of the Benay River in 2012. 

It is one of my favorites for a number of reasons. Aside from the site's being my spearfishing place when I was yet a Palabotan resident, the scene is reminiscent of that wonderful time when carabaos -- and the sleds, carts, and logs they pulled -- were still common parts of the lives of most children in Dupax when it was not yet split into del Norte and del Sur. 

I don't recall now who owned the carabao, but he was kind enough to allow the four kids to hop onto his patuki (Ilokano for sled) while his carabao cooled himself on the river crossing. 

It was the first (and probably the last) time the kids ever sat on such a multipurpose vehicle. 

Called nuwwang in Isinay, nuang in Ilokano, and kalabaw in Filipino, the carabao can give other domestic animals a stiff competition insofar as strength, endurance, and patience are concerned. 

MY PARENTS also have fond memories related to carabaos. 

While growing up in the Domang side of Abannatan Creek, my father and my Uncle Ermin tended a small herd of carabaos that they pastured in Pitang and Allawan. Their mother (Apu Teodora Mambear) gave them a grand scolding one morning because her favorite grandson (the eldest of their older brother's children) had no milk. Why? Because they failed to prevent the ubun (Isinay for baby carabao) from sucking all the milk of its mother nuwwang.

For her part, my mother fondly recalled how on Mondays she would not go to the Dupax Elementary School unless my Apong Pedro brought her there on board his karison (carabao-pulled cart).

I think I was in Grade 2 when we even had a song the lyrics of which went this way:

The big, slow moving carabao today must plow and plow
I wonder now if he knows how to do another job
and not just plow and plow and plow.

SO THOSE of you who have not yet gone near a carabao -- you better do so now, while there are still a few such wonderful creatures surviving out there in the rural barangays. The inroads of mechanized farming and diesel-powered vehicles are rapidly pushing carabaos away from ricefields, farm-to-market roads, and rivers. 

Go have your pictures taken with a carabao now, while you can. Time will come when this erstwhile durable epitome of patience, silent beauty, and strength will only be seen in Fernando Amorsolo's pastoral landscape paintings.