Tourism
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04.06.08Bontoc as a Tourist Destination
Here’s an interesting story about the packaging of Bontoc as a tourism destination. Just some quick comments for the one who wrote the story hehe.
* Bontoc is part of the highlands. It may be lower in elevation than Sagada or Banaue but it is very much a part of the Cordillera highlands.
* People of Bontoc are iBontocs/iFontoks and not Ifugaos. Ifugao is a separate province so its not correct to say that Bontoc has an “Ifugao heritage”.
* What exactly does “descendants of old tribes” mean?
Anyways, according to this report, there is a plan to build an airport on top of one of them thar mountains and iFontoks are resisting the idea.
If I am from Bontoc, I would also resist it. Well, I’m from neighboring Sagada so maybe I should also join the resistance hehe. The problem with tourist-oriented projects like this is that they are conceived to please the tourist.
Nothing wrong really with trying to attract tourists but if the primary reason for planning an airport is to make it easy for them to go traipse in the boondocks for a day then I’d say it is a bad idea. And those who resist this idea, i.e., “the descendants of old tribes”, should not be portrayed, as this article (or its source) slightly does, as anti-development.
Anyways, in our bid to attract tourists we should also be mindful of the social costs of tourism. I believe that sacrificing the ancestral domains of the “descendants of old tribes” for an airport designed for tourists is, at the end of the day, going to be more costly than the income we’ll get from tourism.
Now, if the people of Bontoc themselves are clamoring for an airport then maybe you can justify an airport.
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03.17.08Question of the Day
Like, uh, Metro Manila has tourists? Or just passers by? Seriously, I haven’t met anyone who goes to Manila to do touristy stuff. Practically all of them, whether foreigner friends/colleagues or Filipinos, pass by Manila because they have to and would like to get out as soon as possible.
This should be a challenge to Metro authorities because, as things stand, Manila really has a bad reputation as a tourist destination. Anyways, related story from which the above image was captured is here.
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02.27.08Party Poopers or Voice of Reason?
You decide. Statement from the Tungtungan ti Umili via Sunstar.
On Panagbenga funds:
“People have the right to know where their money was spent and how their elected officials spent it,”On that cultural street dancing thing:
“Clearly, this is at the expense of exploiting Cordillera indigenous culture so rooted in our indigenous peoples’ history of cultural heritage. Commercializing causes its own slow death — and this death is tantamount to that of indigenous peoples when we lose our identity due to national oppression.”“To replicate this for public consumption and consumer satisfaction robs the people of their own cultural symbols and practices. Misrepresentation gives the broader public wrong impressions of the Cordilleran culture. In fact, we may be introducing the wrong culture to our children.”
So is the Tungtungan a party pooper or is it the voice of reason? Maybe both?
