By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
Before I proceed to the meat of this piece, I want to address the comment of CPLA members on what I have written here last week. It was in many ways a criticism but these were intended to be addressed by the group. As the management guru Peter Drucker once said, a manager or businessman should not guess about what the customer wants, he should be certain about it. What I said about the CPLA are what many people in Baguio thinks about them. Without addressing these they cannot hope to be credible precursor of change in this region. For Baguio City is still the center of the Cordillera. Lose your reputation here and you lose everything. So, leading this region towards change? You first have to be able to lead Baguio City. Otherwise, you are just dreaming.
Now to the lessons from old friends. While they are again from my own small circle, what I am about to write about are universal. It runs across the board.
First was a classmate in high school. He is an Ibaloi but not of the ilk whose job is just to sell, portion by a portion, a wide tract of land he inherited. He went to college and graduated. When he got employed by the government he could not stomach it. The corruption was just too much for him. So he came home to Baguio City, enjoying his time.
Lucky for him, his parents are not the type na “kuma kanyaw” as he put it. So their sprawling parcels of land in Irisan, Baguio City are still there. For those who are not in the know about Ibalois who are “kumakanyaw”, they keep on selling portions of their land to buy pigs or cows to butcher for their “kanyaws” which are not cheap. When they pull one off, it lasts for days or weeks, butchering animals everyday and feeding the whole community. Usually this keeps going on for years. If their elder gets a bad dream, he would have a “kanyaw.” How to finance it is usually not a problem. He will just sell off a part of his land. The process gets repeated every time until there is no more land to sell.
So if you want a cheap land around Baguio City, keep a hundred or two hundred thousand pesos ready for this purpose and then be on the prowl for an Ibaloi elder who will have a bad dream. Chances are he will need some money to pull off a “kanyaw.” So be on the ready with a deed of sale that you can just bring out from a folder or envelope, ready for signing. You will go home at the end of the day whistling for having acquired a good piece of real property on the cheap.
So this classmate of mine was lucky. His parents’ land are intact, beside the highway. His job now is to lease out portions of it. He just goes goes out to collect the rentals. What he does aside from this, he did not tell me. He did not admit that he just goes around womanizing.
The lesson for parents is not to sell real property if you can help it. Keep it for the younger generation—but be emphatic to them they should not waste it on useless vices or superstition.
Then there is this guy who was with us in the college of forestry. He hails from La Trinidad, but his roots are from Besao, Mtn. Prov. He was, and still is, a wide reader. He also tried government employment but he could not stomach the corruption and the incompetence. So he sought private employment with forestry or agroforestry projects or ventures. Since his head is well filled with gray matter, he never ran out of employment as a consultant.
He now has a small rubber plantation in Palawan which should be generating cash for him in the near future. That is, in addition to his consultancy fees.
What he has is enviable. Having a good parcel in a touristy area that is just a short sprint to the beach is one of my dreams. This friend of mine has that.
The point is, if you have enough brains and you are a wide reader, you don’t have to endure government employment. You can leave and be free anytime.
I invited him to contribute an article here every now and then and he appeared OK with the idea. Am keeping my fingers crossed.
By the way, his nickname is “Boy.” With that name, he will never grow old.
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