iBOONDOCK

Here’s a video report from GMA News on the recently concluded Lang-ay Festival. The video itself isn’t very good (it’s blurred in some parts) but it features an interview with Governor Maximo Dalog, the wedding of Dave and Janice Gulian in Sagada, and some shots of our favorite Anglican priest, Fr. Ben Solang.

Related: Lang-ay 2008 Video

Video source: GMANews.TV

Here’s a photo collection (in video format) of the recently concluded Lang-ay 2008 festival in Bontoc. Video courtesy of Rafael Manuel Jr.

Since, you will be watching a lot of the peoples of Mt. Province in the video, maybe this is a good time to talk a little bit about them. According to the National Statistics Office the population of Mt. Province is broken down as follows:

Applai: 2,947
Balangao/Baliwon:18,886
Bontok/Binontok: 2,510
Ibontoc: 17,234
Ilocano: 6,968
Kalinga: 2,468
Kankanai/Kankaney/Kankanaey: 72,694
Other Local Ethnicity: 16,197
Other Foreign Ethnicity: 22
Not Reported: 413

Total Mountain Province Population (Year 2000): 140,339

Apparently, because Kankanaeys compose a slight majority of the population, the NSO ridiculously dubbed Mt. Province as “Home of the Kankanais”. Hah, maybe we should encourage our Bontoc and Baliwon/Balangao activist-friends to make “sugod” the NSO to change their ill-advised title/description for Mt. Province. What you think, Layad?

Anyways, Applai is a Kankanaey sub-tribe so they should be included in the Kankanaey total. The Bontok/Binontok and Ibontoc are, of course, one group and should not have a separate count. Meanwhile, in case you are wondering, the Balangaos/Baliwons are from the eastern part of Mt. Province particularly Natonin and Paracelis.

I hope the NSO made a breakdown of the 16,197 who are listed as “other local ethnicity” but maybe they’re busy spending all their time coming up with trying-to-be-catchy-but-actually-silly titles like “Home of the Kankanais”.

Hala, let’s make sugod na the NSO so it will change that ridiculous title with an inclusive one.

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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Arggh. We almost missed blogging about this. Bad, bad us. We actually planned to blog about the Lang-ay Festival which ends tomorrow with a street dancing parade in Bontoc but we’ve been busy hehe. Anyways, its better late than never.

Mountain Province celebrates the Lang-Ay Festival
Manila Bulletin
Mountain Province is staging the fourth “Lang-Ay Festival” in celebration of Mountain Province Day on April 7. The weeklong festival starts on April 1 and culminates on April 7.

The “Lang-Ay Festival” was the biggest crowd-drawer event in the province when it was launched in 2004 to promote the wine production business in the province. With the success of the first “Lang-Ay Festival,” it was made part of the annual cultural activities of Mountain Province Day.
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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.

Some people are upset that the winner of the Ms. Laga Gala in Kalinga is part-Kalinga and part-Australian. Mars has the details of the story in his blog as well as in the Ground Report.

Sounds like an awful case of reverse discrimination to me. If the rules state that anyone can join the beauty contest/fashion show, then anyone can join it whether or not s/he is a pureblood, or a half blood, or a mudblood. Surely we are better than Lucius Malfoy and his pureblood nonsense.

PHOTO CREDIT: alsmarine.com.ph