By Joel B. Belinan
Last week saw the demise of two of the region’s natural leaders, Kalinga’s Reverend Luis Ao-as of the Lutheran Church and Sadanga Mtn. Province Mayor Gabino Ganggangan. Both did not occupy very high positions in government. In fact, Rev. Ao-as (or ‘Pastor Ao-as’ he was more popularly known) was a natural community leader while Mayor Ganggangan just went back as the chief executive of Sadanga in 2019. The two were well known in their respective lines of advocacy. While they were known in their own towns, they were also well-known all over the Cordillera.
Incidentally, this writer had developed some friendship with these two because of his being a journalist. They were frequent news sources so they became my personal friends. Gabi, as we fondly called Mayor Ganggangan, an engineer by profession, was a long-time secretary-general of the Cordillera Bodong Administration (CBAd), the Political wing of Fr. Conrado Balweg’s Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA). He was at the same time an employee of the Cordillera Executive Board (CEB) before Congress abolished the Cordillera Bodies in 2001 by giving them a one peso (P1) budget. As one of the close-in confidants of Fr. Balweg before his assassination on Dec. 31, 1999, Engr. Gabi was a constant source of information on the developments on the ground relative to the Cordillera Autonomy issue not to mention the never-ending squabble among the factions of the CPLA and also between the CEB and the CRA.
He then ran and won as mayor of Sadanga, a 4th class town in Mountain Province in 2007. He, however, lost his third try in 2013 but recaptured it during the 2019 election. Mayor Gabi then became the poster boy of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in its effort to end the communist insurgency in the Cordillera. Being a confidant of the late Fr. Balweg, who himself was a former red combatant; Mayor Ganggangan was very vocal against the New People’s Army’s presence and activities in the region. Through his leadership, the council of elders in almost all levels of his town declared the NPAs and their various legal fronts as persona non grata. He also urged the other towns in MP including the provincial government to do the same. To date, all the municipalities of the province (except one or two) and the provincial government did declare the NPA and their legal fronts as unwelcome.
During this pandemic, Sadanga under his leadership became popular because it was one of the few towns in the entire country that were able to maintain zero infection for the longest periods. Ganggangan made headlines for declining government food aid and employing indigenous community cooperation instead during the Luzon-wide lockdown.
Then in 2021, Mayor Ganggangan made a maverick move may be out of frustration with the seeming fluctuating government policies and questionable actions towards the resolution of the pandemic by declaring the opening of Sadanga to the World. He parroted some opinions that the best way to attain herd immunity is by letting the populace get exposed but at the same time urged everyone to boost their immune system through known traditional means like the su-ob, among other things. This of course did not sit well with the national and regional officials that prompted them to have a zoom meeting with the mayor. After that, the mayor shied away from pursuing that direction of his town’s Covid response.
Pastor Ao-as on the other hand was known as Kalinga’s peace-maker. Born to a family of the Basao tribe, one of the fiercest warlike tribes in Kalinga, he happened to be one of the fortunate scholars of the famous Dr. Henry William Scott. Dr. Scott was an American Lay Missionary of the Episcopal Church, a historian/anthropologist, and writer who came to stay for life, particularly in Sagada, Mountain Province. He adopted selected young kids, from the warlike tribes in Kalinga and Eastern Mtn. province. Dr. Scott also ensured that these kids, later called Scotty boys, completed their basic education. One of them was Pastor Luis Ao-as. He soon entered the seminary and became a Lutheran missionary. He first served in the Lutheran missions in Baguio, Benguet, Nueva Vizcaya, Manila, and abroad. In the late ’90s, he requested the Lutheran leadership in the country that it should be time for him to be assigned in Kalinga so he could serve his own people.
Pastor Ao-as was popularly known for his peace-keeping advocacies using the Bodong system to prevent the escalation of violence between and among various sub-tribes in the province. In many instances, his efforts were criticized not only by those tribes that accused him of being biased whenever they perceived that a resolution of a conflict was not in their favor, and even by the clergy of other churches in the province. In partnership with the police and other law enforcers of the province and government officials, Pastor Ao-as was never deterred in his efforts to prevent tribal wars, and in cases where the peace pact (Bodong) was broken, he immediately worked for its restoration.
He was also a founding officer and very active member of the Kalinga, Apayao Religious Sector Association (KARSA). Apart from this, he was the leader of the Kalinga environmental group that campaigned and fought in court for the stoppage and clearing of the Bontoc open dumpsite that had been polluting the historic Chico River. Its headwater is at the Mt. Data in Bauko and flows to the heartland of Mtn Province and Kalinga Province, then to Tabuk City and ends in the Cagayan coast. The group was also instrumental in the formulation of the Tabuk City Solid Waste Management System that eventually caused the closure of the city’s open dumpsite in Brgy Dilag, this city.
Pastor Ao-as is described by many as an Ibasao Kalinga but was cultured in the Applay tribes of both Sagada and Besao, thus, he had been very close to people from those two MP towns. He was very dear to me not just because he was a constant part of my news stories from Kalinga, but he was also our ninong during my wedding in 2003 and since then regarded me as a son.
Another prominent personality who had made a mark in Kalinga, was another wedding ninong of mine, former Gov. Macario Duguiang. Earlier, in late 2021 he passed away due to Covid-19 infection. I will, however, devote a separate piece for him in the future. **
