SAGADA, Mtn. Province – During the Batil-ang-Peypeyan clan reunion in Besao on July 15 and 16, Department of Justice Assistant Secretary Cheryl Daytec-Yangot and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Vicky Tauli-Corpuz were just ordinary members of the clan.
Nobody waited on them to attend to their needs, they were introduced by their names with no references to their professions and positions. Corpuz was given a couple of minutes to say something, a chance not accorded to Daytec-Yangot.
And yes, they lined up for their own food.
Asked for comment, Tauli-Corpuz said: “This is what we like about our clan. Everybody is equally valued and important. We all came from the same roots. Our ancestors must be happy seeing us honoring them.”
Daytec-Yangot on the other hand said that if they did not queue, “Batil-ang and Peypeyan may have turned in their graves.”
“Our clan from generations ahead has demonstrated that a high post in government does not give you entitlements. You become a public servant. It is just a role which is not more than that of the farmer who produces our food, the teacher who educates our children, the activist who struggles to change the world, the doctor or nurse who takes care of the health of others, the driver who takes us places, the janitor who keeps our workplaces and environment clean. What is important is that we do right by our roles, regardless of how high or low, or how important or not society views them. No role is more important or higher than the others. What matters is we do not use them to take advantage of others. We use them to help humanity even as we use them to put food on our tables,” the DOJ official said.
Andrew Pekas, a member of the clan, claims that the valuing of humility and equal treatment and disdain for self-importance are shared traits of Besao and neighboring Sagada.
He said that generally speaking, people in the two town’s reject persons who think very highly of themselves.
“The thinking of people here is everyone is equal. They ask how could there be any distinction when everyone is as human as the rest. People here who make themselves important do so at their own risk,” Pekas said.
He said that the community is observant of people who seek preferential treatment like those not queuing during occasions alleging that politicians who do have short political careers.
Pekas says that local educators reinforce the value of humility by continuing to tell their students the story of how former Mtn. Province governor and congressman Bado Dangwa while he was starting his transportation business had gone to buy a bus wearing slippers with his money loaded in a paper bag.
Pekas who owns the Salt and Pepper Diner pension house in Sagada said, showbiz personalities who visit the tourist town get disoriented because unlike Filipinos elsewhere, local residents are not dazzled by celebrity and balk at giving preferential treatment to celebrities.
Pekas claimed that if there is any autograph signing, selfie-taking and swooning over celebrities in Sagada, it involves outsiders and never the locals.
He recalls that an actor one time tried to make it appear he is doing the restaurant a favor by bringing his entourage there to drink and had asked for favors was promptly rebuffed by the staff who asked him why he should be given special treatment.
The staff put the action in his proper place by telling that if he does not want to drink there, there are others waiting for the table to be vacated.
“The mentality among businessmen here is that celebrities do not pay more than ordinary customers and worse, they ask for favors,” Pekas said.
According to him, the cool treatment from locals discourage some celebrities from coming to Sagada but there are also those who keep coming back because they like being left to themselves.
Pekas said that the particularity for equality goes back to the dap-ay (council of elders which used to govern the tribal communities in some places in Mtn. Province including Sagada) where everyone was equal.
Ghumie Pinkihan who traces her roots to Kiangan, Ifugao and Sagada and Besao but resides in Tabuk City says that the value of equal treatment is not confined to Sagada and Besao because in Kiangan, everyone including the local officials queue for their food.
She claims this insistence on equal treatment is true for the people of Ifugao and Mtn. Province in glaring contrast with the people of Baguio City, Kalinga, Apayao and Abra who serve their politicians as though they are their masters.
She did not mention Benguet.**Estanislao Albano, Jr.
