It was just over a hundred years ago when non Cordillerans came around and started exploiting our natural resources. To mention just a few, foreigners or outsiders made a killing from digging out and carting away our gold, copper and other mineral wealth. Then they made dams to churn out electricity which they then distributed at big profits to far away lands.
In addition to electrical production our lands or mountains caused rivers to exist and supply water to the lowlands. These made domestic life convenient and farmlands to become productive of food that had been feeding a big part of the country’s populace.
Such natural outputs reached mind boggling amounts if computed in terms of pesos or dollars.
But what did we Cordillerans get in return? Not much. Just loose change. Barya lang.
Note that all the barrios of Bokod and surrounding communities only had electricity recently—or just a few years ago—even if they are the hosts to Binga and Ambuklao dams that had been operating since the early 1950s.
And it was only in the early 2000s did we start traveling through our peaks and valleys on cemented roads. Before that, dirt or dusty roads were the only way to go from place to place. You had to eat a bowl of dust before you reached the next province or when you traversed just a municipality or two.
Our backwardness in development was supposed to be remedied through the proposed autonomy law requiring the national government to give the region P10 billion pesos a year for a number of years to enable it to catch up with the rest of the country. Though just a consuelo de bobo, some catching up could have been achieved even if the money for sure could not have been immune from corruption. Here we are though, still just holding an empty bag after 36 years as far as autonomy is concerned.
What about us Cordillerans, what are we doing about this individually? Well, we can complain to high heavens about the failure to grant us autonomy and perhaps we will get some results after a 100 years.
A positive reaction, however, is for us to contribute to the development of this region in our small ways. Let us contribute in the generation of employment opportunities even for just one or two jobless. It will go a long way if this is done in great numbers. Such numbers all start with one.**