Creek clean-up … This tractor sent by the Jose Panganiban LGU is not paving the ground to build a new road just like what has been going on around the municipality since last year. It is actually scraping the bottom of this “estero” (creek) known as Maligat canal to unearth rubbish and silt that have accumulated over the past many years – decades, we can, perhaps, say– courtesy of residents nearby as well as those vendors at the wet and dry goods market just a few meters away. This estero lies just next to the temporary bus terminal of Superlines Express, which operates the Mambulao-Metro Manila route – another source of rubbish that obviously ended up on the creek. Until lately, residents have complained of stench that was said to be emitting from this creek. When it is high tide and the water gets really high, enabling it to flood into the creek, it drags with it tons of waste materials as it pulls back to the bay. The rubbish then finally ends up along the beach of Parang, just on the outskirts of the poblacion.

Men and stinking silt … Municipal government contract workers work on the creek known as Maligat canal right next to the wet and dry goods public market. The color of the wastes that had been manually dredged ranged from brown to stinking black – giving one an idea that they had been buried/or deposited there for quite long years until they were unearthed recently. At any rate, this waterway has been rescued from its gradual death, and made friendlier to the environment and to the people around it. Clean or unspoiled waterway is always pleasant to look at especially when its water ends up into the nearby Mambulao Bay without carrying any rubbish. The most intriguing question now is: could the people operating in the vicinity maintain its cleanliness? – Photos supplied/text by AP HERNANDEZ

Paranial project could affect Kabihug people

Signboard announcing a road project for the Kabihug community in Baranggay Osmena.

 The road leading to the tribal community.  – MWBuzzpics by ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ

By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ

THE reactivation of the Philippine Air Force’s radar tracking facility at Paranial on the outskirts of Jose Panganiban, CamNorte, could displace a colony of indigenous people known in the area as Kabihug.

Numbering more than 1,400, the Kabihug people live in a 22-hectare ancestral land within the Sitio Calibigahu at Baranggay Osmena, just outside the poblacion.

The Kabihugs do their hunting and farming here, according to Caritas of Australia, one of the charity groups working to ensure that they are not displaced from their ancestral land.

Known as Aeta or Abiyan in other parts of Camarines Norte as well as in Camarines Sur, they number about 20,000, according a study of indigenous people in the country.

The government, through PAF will clear a total of 72 hectares of hinterland occupied by the Paranial Radar Station facility.

The tracking facility will include a runway for its PAF aircraft, including jet fighters and other high-security facilities.

But due to the presence of the Kabihug tribe in area, the PAF is considering to reduce the clearing area from 72ha to only 50ha, leaving at least 22ha to the tribal group.

A top official of the PAF who recently talked to the local officials said that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would like to see to it that the Paranial clearing activities will not encroached on the land allotted to the tribal group.

Caritas said on its website that it supported the Kabihug people or more than 1,400 to gain land entitlement to 22ha of ancestral land in Osmena.

Right now, Caritas and four other groups have begun a project called Kabihug’s Land Road Project that starts at the Gawad Kalinga (GK) village in Osmena and stretches towards the area where the Kabihug people live.

Caritas is supported by two other non-governmental groups such as the Diocese of Daet and St Paul college Foundation, Inc (SPCFI), and gets support from the local government unit of Jose Panganiban and the provincial local government unit of Camarines Norte.

Basically, the road gives the tribal group access to many places outside their ancestral land, including the public market in town where they could bring their farm produce.

The tribe, which is engaged in subsistence farming and hunting for their livelihood, has been trying to assimilate with the Mambulaoan community through the help of Caritas and the other four groups.

Caritas said that PAF should see to it that the ancestral land is not affected in any manner by its development activities in the area.

The children of the Kabihug community in Sitio Calibigaho at Baranggay Osmena on the outskirts of Mambulao. – Photo supplied

Email the blogger: ahernandez@thenational.com.pg and alfredophernandez@y7mail.com

Editorial: Trashing the ‘epal’ candidates

RECENTLY, Commission on Elections Chair Sixto Brillantes Jr said on Twitter: “The best way to deal with (these) ‘epals’ [is to] remember their faces now and forget their names come Election Day.”

“Epals” are those aspiring candidates or incumbent politicians who are represented by the pictures, names and initials you see plastered all over the place.

Such names or initials are attached to government projects as if the funds to realize such projects came from their pockets and not from taxes paid by the people.

If Mambulaoans would be game to dance on Brillantes’ suggestion, we can assume by now that would-be re-electionists CamNorte Governor Edgardo Tallado and CamNorte Congressman Unico will never win in the municipality of Jose Panganiban in the May 2013 elections.

Their handsome faces were recently the talk of many disgusted Mambulaons, especially on Facebooks, following the sprouting of their roadside streamers and banners announcing this and that public works projects, congratulating new graduates from the Jose Panganiban National High School and greeting the people on their coming baranggay fiestas.

These were attempts to promote themselves months ahead of the campaign period, which starts three months before Election Day.

We can assume as of this writing that Unico and Tallado and those who would be running for provincial offices are now readying to spread in the open air above the road leading to the poblacion wide streamers bearing their names and mug shots and patronizing Mambulaoans on their October 6-7 town fiesta.

Or maybe, they have done it already.

Don’t vote for these SOBs.

Funded by money from the “kaban ng bayan”, said streamers and banners are nothing but self-serving attempts to embed in the public minds a name recall that would become handy come election day.

It is most likely that the face and name – their faces and names, to be exact --- they are trying to push into public consciousness are OVERRATED compared to the actual social significance of public works and projects they installed during their terms as public officials.

The voting Mambulaoans, assuming that they have not been bought a few hours before they are to cast their ballots, would always know whose names to write in their ballots: the candidates who have served their constituents -- when they were in office -- honestly, ardently, effectively, brilliantly and promptly, with tender, loving care.

Whatever social projects and public works they delivered during their incumbency – if ever there were -- would be more than enough for them to deserve the winning votes.

Whatever achievements these would-be candidates etched around the community would be monument to their humility as public servants, assuming that they are indeed sincere and humble.

On the local scene, Mayor Dong Padilla doesn’t need to do this.

He got his banners and streamers well in place in many parts of Jose Panganiban in the form of ribbons and ribbons, stretches and stretches, of freshly concreted roads.

When Mambulaoans pass through these pavements on their way to town from their homes in far-flung baranggays for their usual day to day errands, the second thing that would come to their mind is: “It’s good Mayor Dong did his best to cement this road … this was unheard of before him …”

Over the past several months, the JP local government built much-needed facilities such as health clinics in one or two baranngays away from the poblacion and classrooms; it is working hard to build bridges that are badly needed in flood-prone rural communities, untiring in seeking funding support from the powers-that-be in the national government.

Projects like this, although slow in coming due to funding constraints, especially those that have to come from the national government, will always be a reality, simply because Dong Padilla wants it that way, and this is without “ifs” and “buts”.

The bottom line is that worthy projects that served the good of the community – Mambulao for that matter -- are more than enough to sell the prime mover of such a project, if ever he or she intends to run for public office.

Obviously, Mayor Dong will seek re-election.

He wants to see the fruition of what he started late last year – the road cementing project across the municipality of Mambulao – a total of 81 kilometers -- which has obviously captivated beyond belief the educated, the professionals and the ordinary Mambulaoans.

Right now, they are not interested in the guy who would want to challenge him in the May 2013 elections.

And to those who have the plan to do so, MWBuzz suggests: they can go fly their kites across Mambulao and make themselves “pogi” -- for all we care.

And to the voters, we say: Just don’t forget Comelec Chairman Brillantes’ twitter: Don’t vote for these SOBs.


-    A P Hernandez



For feedback, email ahernandez@thenational.com.pg and alfredophernandez@y7mail.com