What Tourists Must Keep Sacred in Sagada

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Inquirer Northern Luzon

By: Kimberlie Quitasol and Jessica Tabilin

THE “HANGING COFFINS” in Sagada town in Mt. Province remain a must-see for visitors in this resort town in the Cordillera region. RICHARD BALONGLONG

When a newlywed woman’s photograph at the Lumiang burial grounds of Sagada town in Mt. Province became viral online in August last year, residents were forced to confront the dark side of tourism and its impact on their heritage.

In her bridal gown, the woman posed near the wooden caskets on the mountain walls, part of the popular “Hanging Coffins” of Sagada.

The post itself was scandalous only because it drew condemnation online. It incensed Cordillerans, forcing the bride and her photographer to apologize and compelling local officials to impose a “No Tour Guide, No Tour” policy on visitors.

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Vandalism

The issue also prompted residents to reflect on the vandalism, the artifact thefts and damage to Sagada’s heritage sites committed by souvenir hunters. These are tales that have not drawn the same notoriety as the bridal photo.

For instance, many of the hanging coffins in caves popular to visitors bear the names of strangers—some printed in ink, others crudely etched by small blades.

In May 2015, authorities reported the theft of a burial jar at the Balangagan Cave after it was introduced as a tourist spot, said Robert Pangod, municipal tourism officer. Only two jars remain there and officials are concerned about their security, he said.

In other sections of the cave system, residents reported the loss of bones from the hanging coffins. Some visitors have also spirited away wooden planks from the caskets, probably as ghoulish souvenirs.

Pangod said the community did not want to whittle anymore goodwill it still has for strangers who pass their way each year.

In 2014, Sagada drew 64,970 visitors. The number increased by 115 percent in 2015 when it hosted 140,000.

But the community wants to draw the line as to what tourists must keep sacred in Sagada, Pangod said.

TOURISTS hike for more than an hour from the town center of Sagada to reach the Bomod-ok water falls. RICHARD BALONGLONG

Heritage sites

One solution is to declare the 12 “dap-ay” of Poblacion village of Sagada as heritage sites, which would fall under the protection of the National Heritage Commission of the Philippines (NHCP).

A dap-ay is where elders gather the community to discuss pressing issues that affect their lives. Some areas are now designated as tourist spots.

Another proposal is for Sagada to impose tribal restrictions over tourist haunts through ordinances. This contrary view is being espoused by residents who do not want their community to be controlled by a national agency.

Jaime Dugao, the indigenous representative in the municipal council, said some residents were skeptical, fearful that “the restrictions imposed by the NHCP will hamper the development of the town.”

Any improvement or repair of damaged state-protected heritage sites would need the permission of the NHCP, he said.

Conservation groups are pushing the idea of preserving these heritage sites and prompting their restoration using government funds, said Sagada Vice Mayor Benjamin Capuyan.

He said making the dap-ay heritage sites did not make these areas exclusive only to a select few. The dap-ay belong to the community, he said.

Some groups are also lobbying to make Sagada a heritage community, in the same way cities like Vigan in Ilocos Sur province are granted special protection. Others have initiated a petition seeking a council measure declaring the town’s tourist spots protected cultural heritage sites.

The Sumaguing Cave, the Crystal Cave, the Lumiang Burial Cave and the Matangkig Burial Cave are some of the most frequented tourist destinations in Sagada.

“Even if we were able to locate new burial caves, we will not open them to the public because things that happened in the past might occur again,” Pangod said.

“The Lumiang cave where a couple took nuptial photos that caused a stir online is still open to the public. We cannot promise that [another bridal photo shoot using Sagada’s burial site] won’t happen again. Nobody guards the place. We cannot afford to hire security there. So we have asked souvenir shops near the place to keep watch.”

New Year resolutions

TUE, JANUARY 12, 2016 BY THE MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR LEAVE A COMMENT

IN MY OPINION
Klaus Doring

We could spend all year living healthier, more productive lives, so why do we only decide to make the change at the start of the year? Why do we all make (and break) New Year resolutions?

Many of us will start 2016 with resolutions – to get fit, learn a new skill, eat differently. If we really want to do these things, why did we wait until an arbitrary date which marks nothing more important than a timekeeping convention? British psychologist Tom Stafford asked this. And not only he. The answer tells us something important about the psychology of motivation, and about what popular theories of self-control miss out.

While celebrating during New Year’s night, my family an friends found out, that what we want isn’t really straightforward. At bedtime you might want to get up early and go for a run, but when your alarm goes off you find you actually want a lie-in. When exam day comes around you might want to be the kind of person who spent the afternoons studying, but on each of those afternoons you instead wanted to hang out with your friends.

You could see these contradictions as failures of our self-control: impulses for temporary pleasures manage to somehow override our longer-term interests. One fashionable theory of self-control, proposed by Roy Baumeister at Florida State University, is the ‘ego-depletion’ account. This theory states that self-control is like a muscle. This means you can exhaust it in the short-term – meaning that every temptation you resist makes it more likely that you’ll yield to the next temptation, even if it is a temptation to do something entirely different.

A corollary of the ‘like a muscle’ theory is that in the long term, you can strengthen your will-power with practice. So, for example, Baumeister found that people who were assigned two weeks of trying to keep their back straight whenever possible showed improved willpower when asked back into the lab.

But, and more importantly, that theory doesn’t give an explanation why we wait for New Year’s Day to begin exerting our self-control. If your willpower is a muscle, you should start building it up as soon as possible, rather than wait for an arbitrary date.

Another explanation may answer these questions, although it isn’t as fashionable as ego-depletion. George Ainslie’s book ‘Breakdown of Will’ puts forward a theory of the self and self-control which uses game theory to explain why we have trouble with our impulses, and why our attempts to control them take the form they do. The virgin page of a new calendar marks a clean break between the old and new you – a psychological boundary that may help you keep your resolutions (Credit: Getty Images).

And, so to speak with Tom Stafford again, Ainslie gives us an answer to why our resolutions start on 1 January. The date is completely arbitrary, but it provides a clean line between our old and new selves. The practical upshot of the theory is that if you make a resolution, you should formulate it so that at every point in time it is absolutely clear whether you are sticking to it or not. The clear lines are arbitrary, but they help the truce between our competing interests hold.

Good luck for your 2016 resolutions!

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Email: doringklaus@ gmail.com  or follow me in Facebook or Twitter or visitwww.germanex patinthephilippines.blogspot.com  or www.klausdoringsclassical music.blogspot.com.

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Green Groups See Red Over Davao City Coal Plant

By: Nikko Dizon, Philippine Daily Inquirer

President Benigno S. Aquino III leads the Ceremonial Switch-on of the 300- Megawatt (MW) Davao Baseload Power Plant, Davao Base load Power Plant Complex, Boundary of Bgy. Binugao, Toril, Davao City and Bgy. Inawayan, Sta. Cruz, Davao Del Sur on Friday (January 8, 2016). Also in photo are Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa) chairperson Luwalhati Antonino, Department of Energy Secretary Zenaida Y. Monzada, Aboitiz Power Corporation CEO Erramon I. Aboitiz and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin.This Power plant is one of the critical projects needed to finally solve long term the perennial Mindanao power shortage. This power plant supplies power to more than twenty (20) electric cooperatives and distribution utilities all over Mindanao. (Photo by Benhur Arcayan / Malacañang Photo Bureau) 

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—President Benigno Aquino III emphasized the potential of Mindanao and the need for peace to achieve development on the island as he inaugurated a 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant here on Friday.

Built by Aboitiz Power Corp., the plant is envisioned as a long-term solution to the power shortage in Mindanao.

But environmental groups saw the plant as adding to the Philippines’ vulnerability to the effects of climate change and criticized the government’s plan to build more coal-fired power plants despite Mr. Aquino committing the country to reduce its carbon emissions at climate talks in Paris last November.

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“Apart from all the projects that have come to fruition during our administration, our private sector partners have committed to undertake at least another 11 power projects in Mindanao that will come online between 2016 and 2020, envisioned to produce at least another 675.30 megawatts of capacity, which will be more than enough to cover the projected increase in demand for those years,” President Aquino said at the ceremonial switching on of the plant in Barangay Binugao here.

The power plant, under Therma South Inc., a fully owned subsidiary of Aboitiz Power Corp., delivers power to more than 20 electric cooperatives and distributors serving Davao, Cagayan de Oro, General Santos, Butuan, Zamboanga, Kidapawan, Cotabato and Tagum.

It also serves the provinces of Davao, Agusan, Surigao, Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat, Zamboanga peninsula, and parts of Bukidnon and Misamis.

The President said that the plant’s “dependable capacity is roughly equivalent to one-fifth of Mindanao grid’s highest peak demand in 2015.”

He also emphasized the need to establish peace and security in Mindanao to aid in its development, citing the urgency in passing the stalled Bangsamoro Basic Law.

Mindanao transformation

“Each time I speak about Mindanao, I mention how the goal for our administration is to transform it, from the Land of Promise to the Land of Promises Fulfilled, and over the past few years, we have seen the beginnings of this transformation,” he said.

The President admitted the challenges his administration faced dealing with the Mindanao power shortage.

“We had to come up with temporary measures to minimize the impact of the power situation. Among the schemes we came up with was the Mindanao Modular GenSets Program, wherein the government would help finance generator sets for cooperatives that wished to produce their own power,” Mr. Aquino said.

The government, he added, planned to buy back the generator sets once the power plants were in operation.

“Sadly, this program did not have the impact that we hoped. There were very few who took us up on our offer, and even then those who did took the longest time to go through the necessary processes. Nevertheless, those who did avail [themselves] of the Modular GenSets experience less brownouts. In fact, in most cooperatives, they experience no brownouts,” he said.

Mr. Aquino also mentioned the Interruptible Load Program, where the government urged big companies to use their own generators instead of sourcing power from the grid.

Even if the Aboitiz power plant runs on coal, the President emphasized that the government remains intent on developing renewable energy and is “doing [its] part to mitigate climate risk.”

“In fact, we have increased our usage of renewables, and they now make up 33 percent of our energy mix. We have reduced the number of illegal logging hotspots by 88 percent. And in 2011, we started a national greening program, the goal of which is to plant 1.5 billion trees on 1.5 million hectares by this year. We did all this even if our nation’s carbon emissions are minimal, especially compared to more industrialized countries,” he said.

“At the same time, the Mindanao situation has made it obvious that we also need more baseload power. After all, while I am a believer in developing renewables, at this point we are still hounded by the questions: What if there’s no wind? What if the [sky is] overcast and the solar efficiency is down? What if we do not have enough biomass? Unfortunately, right now, we cannot wean ourselves completely from coal,” the President said.

Gov’t plan hit

Mr. Aquino’s stand drew flak from environmental activists, who stressed the Philippines’ vulnerability to extreme weather conditions caused by climate change.

They criticized the government’s plan to build more coal-fired power plants, the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the top contributors to global warming.

President Aquino attended the United Nations climate talks in Paris last November, leading small nations in pushing for a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius in temperature rises, which was adopted by the conference.

“Countries with [coal-fired power plants] should retire them and invest in renewable energy,” Jean Lindo of the Network Opposed (NO) to Coal Coalition said.

“The Philippines should not build more and should start retiring the old ones,” she said.

“This President is a hypocrite,” said Ben Muni, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines.

Muni said that in Paris, Mr. Aquino committed to reduce the impact of climate change on the Filipino people, but now “he is attending the inauguration of the very source of climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions.”

“We are asking you, Mr. President: Where is your sincerity and commitment? It seems you have forgotten your commitment in Paris,” Muni said.

Erramon Aboitiz, chief executive officer of Aboitiz Power Corp., said the days of high polluting coal were a thing of the past and gave the assurance that his company would not “do anything” that would harm the environment as well as the lives of the people of Davao.

“To be fully transparent, there were some concerns and reservations related to coal and its environmental impact. We assured all the stakeholders that we would bring in the most modern facilities and would operate under the strictest environmental standards,” Aboitiz said.

“The days of highly polluting coal plants were a thing of the past and would definitely not be tolerated on Aboitiz Power’s watch. After all, the Aboitiz Group has been a part of Davao and its growth for many decades, and we would not do anything that was not good for Davao. We encouraged Mayor Sarah Duterte and the city council to host the power station in Davao so they could ensure we would comply with what we said we would do,” he said. With a report from Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao

Frohes Neues Jahr 2016 - mit mehr Aufgaben.

Lieber Herr Döring,

vielen Dank für Ihre netten Grüße zum Jahreswechsel. Gesundheit, Glück, Erfolg und viel Freude am Leben – das wünsche ich Ihnen für 2016, das uns hoffentlich mehr Frieden bringen möge als 2015.

Danke, dass Sie weiterhin für uns da sind, um unsere Zuschauer per Telefonschalte über wichtige Ereignisse auf den Philippinen zu informieren!

Ich freue mich auf die weitere Zusammenarbeit mit Ihnen!

Herzlich grüßt

Bernhard Lauster

Bernhard Lauster | Chef vom Dienst
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