A Very Brief Sojourn in Kalinga

It was the first time in my life that I had seen fireflies on my ceiling. When you live in an overcrowded and extremely polluted city, you grow accustomed to reading about certain things in nature, yet never really seeing them. Save the ubiquitous stray cat, dog, sparrow, or cockroach, I would dare say that one could have lived in Manila not seeing any other type of animal for years. Except rats.

But I wasn’t in Manila, no. The serenade for the senses that was unravelling before my eyes was taking place in a small valley in the province of Kalinga. Fireflies were aglow on my bedroom ceiling while the constant rush of the river soothed my wandering mind better than crickets could have. Not that there weren’t any crickets - what must have been hundreds of the soprano-like maestros were singing in the darkness, perfectly complementing the midtones of the water to form a harmonious night lullaby, one that would rival the best nightingale from stories old.

The daybreak as well brought its own sense of magic and beauty. Hills and low mountains undulated about the countryside, as if God had slowly rolled his hand over the terrain. Green abounded, ending only where the mighty Chico River had cut its path through the valleys like a giant snake.

In the midst of this endless carpet of green, people thrived. We journeyed far into the midst of it all, grateful for the pickup truck given for our use without which we would find ourselves hiking for a good portion of the day. I found myself riding on the back of the vehicle on one of two sala chairs placed there at the last minute for our comfort, a welcome experience and one I think more befitting this sort of trek than comfort inside the air-conditioned vehicle.

We arrived at a small community of a few hundred people hidden in a small valley by the banks of the river. We pulled up to a house, owned by one of the leaders of the small barangay. As we greeted the host, his wife emerged from the house carrying a piping hot kettle full of coffee. The locals of Kalinga and the surrounding areas seem to have a coffee habit that’s very unique to the country. Coffee is served to any and all guests that come, seemingly without discrimination as to what time of the day it is. This habit is one that definitely is not just for show, as the residents of the area seem themselves to consume the substance even more copiously than they expected us guests to do. Tasting the coffee, which is grown right in their backyards, I could see why this was so.

Another unique experience that Kalinga had to offer was the menu, which was as exotic as it was delicious. The deer soup went down quite swimmingly, as did the native chicken and the pinikpikan, although the grilled dog required just a little bit more gin and mental toughness to wash down. Unlike Manila where animal flesh is normally kept on ice, most of my dishes were alive an hour before I had them, and virtually all meals came with a healthy side dish of entrails as if as proof. Although most homes kept a healthy stock of farm animals, hunting was very much in the mode in Kalinga.

One such hunter that I met was Emmanuel Guasi, or Amang Guasi as we called him. He was an old man, his face and body clearly weathered by the years but without the air of defeat that clouds most men his age. He had the gait of an unassuming fellow, of one who had seen much yet whose innate goodness had kept his soul intact. He would come over to the convent every afternoon that we were there and we would talk, each learning much from the other. He told me about his tribe, and a the legends surrounding the mountains. We spoke of hunting, how many dogs one needed for a boar, and how to best use one’s spear when it was finally cornered. He had much to say about his life, how he was the elder of his tribe and a peace negotiator for the other tribes in the area. In Kalinga and the surrounding provinces, the rule of law is mostly based on tribal relations. Disputes are settled by negotiators, rather than courts and lawyers, and fines are paid to each other, rather than the government. Each tribe is held accountable for the actions of its members, and offense against one man most likely would mean offense against the whole tribe. With this, peace pacts are utterly important, as is one’s best behavior when in another tribe’s territory.

Apart from being the peacemonger of the land, Amang Guasi was also a devout Christian and a lay minister. He would together with the parish priest travel to all the different churches that the parish covered, some of them more than an hour away on foot. At his age, I marvelled at his resilience, one that takes a lifetime of sweat and blood to achieve.

I could have listened to his stories for months, soaking in a culture that, though something I had grown up reading, was something I had never thought I would see up close and personal. Unfortunately, life had different plans for me and I had to rush back to Manila. I shall go there once more, eager to learn about the tattooed people that live in the mountains of Northern Luzon.

But until then, I’ll have my memory of the little green fireflies.