Gary Pekas
By Estanislao C. Albano, Jr.
Naneng is the second to the last barangay of Tabuk City on the way to Mt. Province. The main village is located on a strip of flat land along the Chico River. On one end of the village which has 83 houses is the Roman Catholic church, the first ever religious outpost in Tabuk after the Philippine Revolution. The revolution had stopped all Catholic mission activities in the area. Up until recently when various born-again denominations gained some following in the barangay, Roman Catholicism was the only religion of the Nanengs.
On the gently sloping land between the village and the national road to the west is the 54-hectare ricefield. This used to adequately supply the staple needs of the residents. That is in the past tense because for some decades now and due to a combination of natural and man-made causes, the traditional source of the village’s rice can no longer keep up with the consumption.
From a conversation with barangay secretary Andres Amla, 73, and housewives Reynalyn Albert, 40, and Blesilda Albert, 50, I learned that before the Second World War, there were only few families in the main Naneng village. The average number of children of each family was two to three. Reynalyn theorizes that one reason for the small families during that period was that the back-breaking work involved in eking out a living then when modern technology was not still available must have adversely affected the fertility of the people. With the low population and there being sufficient irrigation water then, the produce of the ricefields exceeded the consumption so that there was no need for people to augment their staple needs by engaging in slash and burn farming or kaingin.
But right after the war, the picture drastically changed as the big family became the ideal. The three said that because of the war, the villagers had come to think that it is good to have many children so that if another war happens, there would be more members of the family helping each other and that’s even if a member or two would go to war. They said that during that period, most of the families had more than 10 children with one family even having 16 children.
The sudden increase in the population put pressure on the traditional source of rice supply of the villagers and later on when it was time for the post-war children to marry and start their own families, also pressure on the space available for residential purposes in the village. One of the results was that some families have to resort to kaingin farming to complement their harvest from their rice paddies. Another effect was for some of the new families having to look for new locations on which to build their houses. That meant the clearing of erstwhile forest lands in the barangay.
The three said that the average number of broods in the village in the 60s and 70s was eight and in the 80s to 90s six to seven. Blesilda said that the hardship of sending too many children to school brought about the slight decrease in the average number of children.
The steady increase in the village’s population impacted on the environment. The three related that starting in the 70s and with the denudation of the forest primarily due to the kaingin system, there was a steady decline in the volume of irrigation water reaching the riceland of the village. They said that it was not just the cutting of trees which caused the dwindling of their water source but likewise the earthquakes sometime in the 60s and in 1990. Blesilda related that in 2003, the situation forced the villagers to institute irrigation water rationing. The scheme brought about a semblance of order in the usage of the irrigation water but as the water became more scarce, the demand for the precious resource has become a potential source of conflict among the farmers. To make sure that the schedule is maximized, a farmer has to stand guard in his farm otherwise neighbors would steal the water. It came to a point that Blesilda decided to do the guarding herself taking advantage of the Kalinga cultural trait of sparing women from violence. For her, that means going to the rice field at 4 AM and staying there until morning.
Blesilda said that after the 1990 earthquake, what was unthinkable in the village which for centuries used to be self-sufficient in rice took place: some villagers started going to town to buy rice. At first, such a sight was rare but as the population of the village continued to grow, it soon became a common occurrence.
The three picture the current situation of the village rice resource as follows: During the wet season or main crop, all 54 hectares are tilled. What makes that possible is that the rains bring to life the creeks from which the farmers could draw the water which the Gapang irrigation system, the original water source of the ricefields, can no longer supply. During the second cropping when the creeks are dry, only around three hectares are made productive by the water from Gapang. During our visit yesterday, I personally saw several paddies with half inch-wide cracks. The farmers harvesting the rice in the adjoining paddy said that the crop in the waterless paddies can no longer be salvaged.
And according to Reynalyn, a new phenomenon is compounding the troubles of Naneng’s farmers. She related that for around eight instances already, the creeks have overflowed during heavy rains flooding the rice lands and even the village. She informed that the last time that the flooding occurred which was in August of last year, a portion of her family’s ricefield was covered with silt rendering it unarable. She blames the flooding on the development of the erstwhile forested area above the village where over the years, people with no more land in the village to build their houses on or to grow their rice have moved. Some 63 households are located there now. Back in the 70s, there was only one house in the area. With the trees gone, there is nothing more to hold the soil when it rains thus the top soil-laden floods, Reynalyn observed.
I gleaned from the conversation that the worsening food situation in the village was and is one of the main factors women in the village were and are receptive to the family planning program which government health personnel are promoting to them. Reynalyn and Blesilda said that there are other reasons such as the difficulty of sending children to school. They said that except for a few, women in the village have embraced artificial family planning methods as one response to their current condition. They said that the mere realization that things in the village are no longer as they used to has combined with the family planning campaign of the government to bring down the average number of children among young couples in the village. They allege that the maximum number of children for families there now is four.
Reynalyn unabashedly revealed that she herself underwent ligation several years ago. She said that she and her husband would have stopped at three or four had they been blessed with a girl by that time but since they were not, they decided to give themselves more chances but when their seventh child turned out to be yet another boy, they decided it was time to quit and to ensure that no more children will come, she underwent ligation.
When I asked the three how come the villagers are defying their church on the issue of artificial contraceptives, Reynalyn answered: “Religion is not the only basis for decision when it comes to the number of children a couple will have. The government and the church have conflicting positions and it is up for people to choose which to follow. As far as I am concerned, bringing into this world children whose basic needs you cannot adequately provide and whom you cannot send to school is far worse than using contraceptives.” Blesilda and Amla did not voice any objection.
About the reaction of their church, Reynalyn related that at the time the villagers were faced with the decision whether or not to accept artificial family planning methods, some members of the congregation consulted the priest, a foreign missionary. According to Reynalyn, the priest readily understood the reasons of the villagers for being open to contraceptives as he was aware of their hardships and had encouraged the members who approached him to lend rice to the villagers who could not afford to go buy rice in the market. From that time on also, he often included in his homilies the topics of responsible parenthood and proper nurture of children in moral values. Reynalyn said that the priest never commented on the usage of contraceptives.
I chanced upon these Naneng men harvesting rice during my visit to the village on March 23,2011. Take note of the paddies in the distance that were not planted this cropping season due to lack of irrigation. The men said that the rice plants in the adjoining paddies which run out of irrigation water for sometime have no chance of surviving.
This was how the paddy the men were harvesting rice looked like.
