Gary Pekas
by Estanislao Albano
Sometime in 2005 while attending a journalism training in Baguio City, I met this reporter of the Bombo Radyo in Cauayan City, Isabela who shared this joke or what he thought to be a joke about Kalingas. According to the joke, a Coca-cola delivery truck hit and killed a chicken in a road in Kalinga. Hearing that in Kalinga, drivers who kill chicken will be made to pay the chicken that are still to be hatched from the unlaid eggs of the chicken aside from the chicken itself, the driver did not stop. Sometime later, a Pepsi delivery truck was stopped in the barangay where the chicken was killed and the crew were asked to pay the dead chicken. The crew reminded the man who stopped them that the truck which hit the chicken is owned by Coca-cola while they are of Pepsi. The man allegedly declared that they should pay because Pepsi is the cousin of Coca-cola.
The first part of the story is not a joke among non-Kalingas and even non-warlike Kalinga tribes because indeed, as I have told you before, the word accident has yet to enter the vocabulary of most Kalinga tribes. Up to this day and age, to most Kalinga tribes, accidents are still a golden opportunity to get money you did not labor for from others. Just to tell you how pervasive the practice is, several years ago, a lawyer who was the victim in a minor traffic accident tried to collect a settlement grossly disproportionate to the damage incurred. Fortunately, the immigrant tribe targeted for extortion stood their ground.
Worse, accidents could also occasion a reversion to barbarism. At least three drivers who accidentally hit pedestrians in Nambaran and Lacnog, Tabuk City, have been lynched through the use of bolos and spears right then and there so much so that the policy now among drivers who figure in accidents in those two barangays is not to succor the victim but drive as fast a possible to the next police station.
So it’s really a cause of amazement and celebration when a Kalinga who gets the receiving end in an accident only asks for what is reasonable just like this professional from the Taloktok tribe did. While driving to the office in a motorcycle the other Monday, the professional accidentally collided with the tricycle owned by LGOO V Mayer Adong, a member of the immigrant Bago tribe. The Taloktok professional sustained cuts in the left hand and the sole of his left foot and his right leg knee would later swell although the X-ray would show that there was no fracture. The driver of Adong admitted it was his fault because he entered the lane of the Taloktok professional without making sure that it was clear.
Upon hearing of the accident and the ethnic affiliation of the victim, Adong prepared for the worse. He would tell me later that he expected a settlement or multa of at least P20,000.00 over and above the reimbursement of the medical expenses, cost of the repair of the motorcycle and the pig for the sunga (a Kalinga ritual to fend off a recurrence and also for early recovery of the victim). Adong made the estimate on the basis of a recent case where the owner of a vehicle which sideswiped a child causing an injury that did not require hospital confinement was made to pay a multa of P15,000.00.
So Adong and his wife Hilda were greatly relieved and elated when upon visiting the victim in the hospital, the latter would tell them not to worry because he was not going to demand for multa but only for the payment of his hospital expenses, the repair of his motorcycle and a replacement for his uniform which was torn during the accident. (He would later reconsider the replacement of the uniform saying that his office provides uniform allowances anyway.) He did not even require the customary tingiting (a ritual where a chicken is killed so that the wounds would not swell and cause so much pain and for swift recovery) and the sunga. But party because of their gladness due to the understanding heart of the victim and partly so that the cultural practices would be complied with, Adong volunteered to produce the animals for the tingiting and the sunga.
During the sunga last Friday, Adong and the Bago elders who were with him expressed their appreciation for the victim’s unusual decision and also their hope that other Kalingas will learn from it.
When already by themselves partaking of the portion of the sunga they were given to bring home “for those who were unable to attend,” the Bagos were thankful that the victim made the decision on his own because had the professional amicable settlement negotiators whom they termed “negosyantes” went into action, the results may have been different. They speculated that when the “negosyantes” will learn of the case, they will feel insulted and that now, the Taloktok tribe will be ridiculed for not upholding Kalinga practices. They also theorized that the wife of the victim being a Tagalog must also have been a positive factor in the case because had she came from other immigrant groups, she may have urged him to demand the multa “because some immigrants who marry Kalingas sometimes think they too are Kalingas.” They regretted that they have a tribesmate who is married into a notorious tribe who is proud of and capitalizes on the connection and is also now resorting to squatting himself.
In an interview last Tuesday after he already reported back to work, the victim told me that resorting to the Kalinga practice of demanding the multa never occurred to him. He said: “As a professional and a government worker, it’s not normal and proper to demand the multa. Para laeng kadagiti barbariotik dayta. Let’s follow the standard which is just the reimbursement of the reasonable expenses. Our thinking should develop. Actually, the multa does not benefit the victim but third parties.” He went on to inform that initially, he was ashamed and reluctant to accept the tingiting and the sunga but allowed the rituals in the end because Adong brought the animals and “there might be consequences if we do not do the rituals.”
Asked if he encountered resistance to his decision from his tribesmates, the Talotok professional said that the moment the elders heard his stance, they went along with him. Actually, he did not tell the accident to his relatives so that when an uncle learned of it, he felt sore that he was not informed. The victim would tell the uncle to be thankful that the accident was not worse. The uncle would later approve of his foregoing the multa because “we have vehicles and in the event that we also figure in accidents, the victims might also demand the multa from us.” The victim claimed that it is not a practice among Talotoktoks to demand multa for accidents except when it results to death.
The victim said that during his student days at the Kalinga-Apayao State College, his friends were Ilocanos and that these days, he sometimes attends amicable settlement or areglo negotiations on the side of immigrants. He sadly noted that even immigrants demand compensation for their sufferings on account of the accident.
If all Kalingas were as civilized as this Taloktok professional, there would be less disunity and distrust and there would be better relations between Kalingas on one hand and immigrants on the other. But sadly, he is a very rare exception.
