By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
years old. ”
Kin-iway is the town center of my hometown Besao and in the 1960s, it only had about 8 stores, one of which was my lola’s store. We just called these “stores” but they were in essence “sari-sari stores” because they sold sari-sari (assorted) items from San Nicolas cookies to nails. They could also be seen as small department stores because they also sold cloth and slippers and umbrellas. Now, although my lola’s store closed down, there are now 21 sari-sari stores in Kin-iway and stores have sprouted up in the barangays. In the small barangay of Lacmaan with only 46 households, they have 2 stores! Meaning the sari-sari store is a viable income-generating venture. People are buying from the sari-sari store.
And what do these sari-sari-stores sell? Sugar, milk, bread, cookies, junk food, candies, canned goods, instant noodles, vetsin (this is our popular term for MSG) in all forms – ginisa mix, sinigang mix, magic sarap. And what else? Frozen foods. We were in this really remote barangay of Abra and wonder of wonders, there was signage “frozen foods sold here.” I was so dismayed because I was hoping to find a village that was “organic”. Oh yes, these sari-sari stores also sell bath soap, detergent, shampoo, even “downy” and “load”. It also sells salt and oil, two items that we need (the rest, we don’t really need them). Well, well, well, globalization has reached even the remotest village of this archipelago. Where the road has reached, you can be sure the market was the first to use that road. When I say “market”, I mean, the factories, those big businesses that manufacture or process “food” and other items that are sold to the people. Factories are usually in Manila or abroad. Even if these businesses are in Manila, their ingredients usually come from abroad. Take the case of milk. We don’t produce big quantities of cow’s milk in the Philippines. We have the Dairy Farm in Baguio City but it cannot even produce enough for the City of Baguio. And yet we have these cans and cans and boxes and boxes of milk- powdered, condensed, evaporated, chocolated, whole milk, low-fat milk, etc. We have those gelatin that are milk-flavored. We have milk tea. We have yakult and yoghurt. We have cakes and cookies that contain milk. Milk is imported and that means a lot of our money is given to the suppliers abroad and in Manila. I am sure that if we were to cost the goods coming in to Mountain Province and the rest of the Cordillera, it would surely be much more than the cost of our products that we sell out of Cordillera. We must be really rich. And yes, the farm to market roads are more of market to farm roads.
With our well-paved roads (thanks to our government), distributor trucks/vans now reach all town centers in Mountain Province and the other provinces. Island barangays are at least inaccessible. Where the road cannot reach, enterprising individuals would willingly carry these factory goods to the remotest settlement. One time in barangay Agawa in Besao, I chanced upon a woman carrying a box of bread and she said she delivered these to households as far as Gueday and Sabiyan, two areas which couldn’t be reached by road. There was also this remote barrio of Kalinga and frozen foods were brought in by enterprising professionals! Service at your doorstep!
I have no quarrel with enterprise per se. My main concern and I hope it is also your concern, dear reader, is the unhealthy goods being manufactured and sold to and in our sari-sari stores. If your food comes mainly from the factory which are sold in the sari-sari store rather than from the farm then you are in big trouble. As we have been saying time and again, our bodies are designed to eat foods from nature, whole and naturally-produced (meaning organic). Foods that are manufactured by God, the Creator. Just what our parents and grandparents and ancestors ate in the past. Our ancestors already experimented for centuries with beans, camote, rice, amti and those nutrient-rich natural foods. The knowledge of how to identify and propagate these healthy foods and how to cook them has been handed down to us freely by those ahead of us. Take note, these knowledge and observations (which form the basis of beliefs and practices) have been validated throughout the centuries. How lucky can we be? We don’t have to experiment what plant is edible or not. We don’t have to experiment how to take out the “sugpet” off the banana blossom. You learned that from your father and mother. Thank you so much, dear elders!
Now, since the sari-sari store has made the factory-made (therefore, huma-made) foods available and accessible to the households, we are experimenting. These goods made by human hands are relatively new, they are not even one hundred years old. In beloved Bontoc, these were just available starting in the late 1990s. So it is a dangerous experiment because it is our own bodies that we are experimenting on. In the past, people observed what animals ate. I heard that if the plant is good for the pig, then it is good for people. Well, we haven’t experimented on the effects of sugar or milk or hotdog on animals. Does the Food and Drug Administration require manufacturers to conduct tests with their goods first before selling to us? Nope! So it is our choice if we want to experiment.
We have come to believe in the ingenuity of people that we have forgotten that people are not THE Creator. We like to think of ourselves as creative. But we are not the Creator, with a big letter C. We have come to trust people and we are now even doubting God. We say “beans cause arthritis.” Hala ka. Who created beans? And you say you believe in a loving God? A loving God will not give you something that will make you sick.
So back to the sari-sari store. Barangay Bantey of Tadian banned junk food in their stores when they learned that one of their children got sick from eating too much junk food. Some other barangays followed suit- barangay Banguitan in Besao and Bagnen Oriente in Bauko. Congratulations to the officials and the people of these villages! Good for them. We already have enough evidence that store-bought foods from the factory have questionable safety. Furthermore, the plastic wastes generated by these factory-made goods are horrible. I feel sad and angered when I see a trail of plastic wrappers of cookies, corn bits, chips where pupils pass by. Try walking the path of kids from school or from church. Try picking up these wrappers and see the volume of poisonous wastes generated everyday day in one barrio. This should worry us the more. Unhealthy for people, unhealthy for the environment.
So I am happy that I see some sari-sari stores are now selling vegetables in season, bananas. These stores can be the trading posts in the barangay or “bagsakan sa barangay”. I am optimistic that if farmers see that we buy their produce, then they will produce more. If they see that we prefer organic foods rather than vegetables sprayed with poisonous chemicals, then they will produce foods that are organic. We need not give away our money to Manila or overseas. They won’t starve or get poor if we do that. These are huge businesses and they are wise. They will just change their products and produce what we want to buy. So if we continue to buy their junk food, then they will continue producing junk food. Instead, we give our money to the farmers so they will also discover that farming is a noble job and that they can earn enough from it. Then we have happy farmers and healthy “umili” at walang naiiwan.
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“Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11.
