(Pomologist Bernie Dizon teaches the Aeta tribesmen the proper way of planting grafted mango seedlings. Looking on at left is Fr. Chito Beltran. Photo by Elmo Roque)
(First of Two Parts)
PALAYAN CITY –Rattled by the eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo, about 1,900 Aeta tribesmen consented to be resettled in the latter months of 1991 to the Doña Josefa Village in this city, the capital of Nueva Ecija.
A residential community with core houses was set up for them. Farm lands were also segregated for their food and livelihood sources.
A part of the village, Sitio Bacao, which is within the military reservation of the Philippine Army’s Camp Fort Magsaysay, was pinpointed as a community for about 1,000 families. Partnered with it was a 1,000-hectare area for development by the tribesmen.
The special arrangement was covered by a memorandum of agreement signed by then Brig. Gen. Orlando Soriano, commander of the 7th Infantry Division, and by the then Bishop Sofio Balce of the Diocese of Cabanatuan.
Both men had exhibited abiding concern for the ecosystem or communities of living and non-living things interacting harmoniously.
They envisioned the place for development as a “Garden of Eden” for the resettled Aetas under the direct auspices of the Diocese of Cabanatuan. Fr. Apollo de Guzman, then head of the diocesan Tribal Filipino Apostolate, was the designated point man to lead in the development of the place.
But the place was contemplated by most of the tribesmen as a “howling wilderness”.
“Wala daw pong mga tanim na gabi, camote at punong kahoy (They said there were no taro and sweet potato plants and forest trees in the place),” said Lolita Soria, 60, one of the resettled Aetas who stayed put in the place.
“Kaya, hayun nag-alisan po ang maraming pamilya at bumalik sa Zambales (That’s why many left and returned to Zambales),” she added.
Soria explained that gabi, along with other root crops like sweet potato, are mainstays in their diet, and the forest products as their sources of income. In her case, however, she joined about a hundred families to cast their future in the place.
Sparse land
Indeed, the place, as depicted by De Guzman, was virtually without forest trees and root crops. It had only a sprinkling of alibangbang trees and a vast cover of cogon and talahib grasses.
“But we never tired of picturing to them that the area can be turned into their Garden of Eden with improved vegetation including the growing of various forest and fruit trees,” De Guzman said.
“Four pastoral nuns stayed with them in the place to assist them. The diocese also contributed some provisions for their needs, including food, through donations worked out for them.”
In convincing them, De Guzman vividly pictured what the biblical Garden of Eden was. He impressed on them that “it was an earthly paradise created by God to be inhabited by the first humans and the gods.”
It was, he pointed out, a “luxuriant place nourished by fl owing waters from the river”.
Then he adverted that Sitio Bacao in a way has a very important feature of the Garden of Eden.
It has a river and two waterfalls with lagoons upstream that can provide the very important need of growing plants.
He also said that although it is a mountainous terrain, with some towering peaks, it has some plain areas for growing rice, corn, vegetables, including root crops, and a relatively beautiful area for residences.
If the water from the river can be properly impounded and harnessed, he stressed, it can do wonders for agricultural pursuits.
De Guzman also envisaged to them the possibility of their owning the place as they are working it out to be particularized for them thru a presidential proclamation.
For his part, the priest admitted that indeed it was an uphill, daunting, painstaking undertaking.
But he tenaciously held on banking on the saying that sooner or later, thru dogged determination, there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
Years after, the place is barren no more. It has become an apt microcosm that encapsulates the “good, the beautiful, and splendidness” of working together for a common good especially in the greening engagement.
In a way, Sitio Bacao can become a model on how to turn a wilderness into a model for ecosystem development.
All that is needed is lots of inspiration, dogged determination to pursue an envisioned beautiful undertaking, and honest-to-goodness pursuit of a project.
After all, the goodness of men of varying cultural orientation is always there.
(To be concluded)
