By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Like I have already written three columns back, the upas are the tribes in Kalinga who do not stand up for their rights through the force of arms. I have said that in the pecking order existent in Kalinga which is based on the relative fierceness or lack of fierceness of a tribe, they are at the bottom. The kawitans who are at the other end of the pecking order look down on them and routinely oppress them. When they are the victims of crimes or accidents with the kawitans as the ones victimizing them, they cannot collect even just one-fourth of the multa imposed on them if the shoe was on the other foot. The kawitans do not take them seriously and derisively dismiss them with remarks such as I have heard one woman belonging to a kawitan tribe say sometime in the early 90s: “A dan ________? Adida tigammu din pumatoy.” (Oh the __________? They do not know how to kill.)
In short, the upas are the doormats of the kawitans in the twisted scheme of things in Kalinga. Woe unto them if one of their members happen to injure or kill a member of a kawitan tribe even without him meaning to! Woe unto them if they have a rice field which has attracted the fancy of a kawitan tribe! In the first case, if they do not want to lose the life of a member or members to the avengers of the victim tribe, they must give in to the unreasonable multa demand of the victim tribe pronto. In the second case, they might as well sell the land right away or kiss their land goodbye.
But Rev. Luis Aoas says that in one context, being an upa is not really that despicable. He says that there is a need to classify the so-called upas. According to him, there are some non-violent tribes in Kalinga who take the injustices inflicted on them in stride not because they are chicken but because they know that they will gain nothing by going down to the level of the kawitans. They very well understand that if they also arm themselves and fight back, they will lose more in terms of possible victims and lost economic opportunities during the war. They also could not live with the awareness that having passed the stage of lawlessness, they will go back there and with the knowledge that having embraced Christianity, they will return to killing other people.
In my column three weeks ago, Rev. Aoas mentioned the Sagadas as enjoying the fruits of their sacrifices and labors in times past in this once frontier town. I do believe that had he the chance to elaborate his remarks then, Rev. Aoas would have included in the meaning of the word “sacrifices” the countless times the Sagadas had to forbear injustices wrought on them by the kawitans. In my sketch of Miguel Omengan, one of the venerable men of Tabuk, I have told you the story how at one point during the 80s, the leaders of the Igorots in Tabuk of which he is one allegedly came together to decide whether to start fighting back or not. The agreement was that if ever the ethnic group will decide to take up arms and answer fire for fire, the decision should be unanimous. The unanimity was not achieved and the meeting broke up without reaching the decision which could have altered the history of Tabuk because Omengan allegedly told the group that it is contrary to Christian precepts to kill other people.
Rev. Aoas says that had the Sagadas adopted the way of the kawitans and fought every time it was provoked, then it is likely it would not now have the status of being the most economically progressive ethnic group in the locality. Perhaps they would not even be in the place anymore.
Rev. Aoas also lauds the Bagos, another immigrant ethnic group which contributed a lot to the opening and subsequent development of the Tabuk Valley , as one sample of the upas who shy away from violent confrontations not because they are afraid or are incapable but because they have a higher level of understanding and have “vision in life.” He relates that during a recent meeting of Bagos in which he was present, one Bago leader had commented that the tribe is not exactly a pushover. The reverend quotes the Bago leader as saying: “We have a lot of members in the uniformed services. Arms are not a problem. But is that what we came here for?”
Like I must have related to you earlier, in the mid-80s, the Bagos momentarily forgot that they came here to try to find a life better than in their mountainous and barely habitable homeland in the Ilocos and fought the Butbuts, a kawitan, giving them the distinction of being the first immigrant group in Tabuk to lapse to barbarism.
Francisco Gabel, chairman of the League of Integrated Bago Young Adults (LIBYA), says that the Bagos earned some sort of a trophy from that war explaining that the tribe used to be looked down on by fellow immigrants and Kalingas but after the war, they were treated with more respect. He has these to say of that episode: “What other immigrants do not know is that it was not a tribal decision. The Butbuts pushed us to the wall. We value life but even if we did not approve of war, we could not control all members of the tribe. But because of the developments, as though the majority tolerated it because the situation had reached a point when we simply could not condemn the acts of our tribesmates anymore… It was good for our generation because we are braver. If it happens now, our children could not take it. Had we continued on the path of violence, for sure not many of our youth would have earned education in the last two decades. Perhaps by now, we would be like the warlike Kalinga tribes who defer even to unlettered members just because these members are killers. We would have reverted to barbarism by this time… We do not prescribe tribal war as a solution. For one, instead of offering ourselves as good examples, going to war will make us no different.”
Let’s give Rev. Aoas the last word: “Of foremost value to Sagadas and Bagos is progress while the kawitans remain slaves to their violent culture. The kawitan mindset is satisfy the urges and demands of culture and sacrifices everything to achieve that purpose. To the kawitan, the most important thing when one is violated is to retaliate and get even. Not so among the Sagadas and Bagos. They are in good company because the non-violent in this world usually triumph in the end. Just look at Mahatma Gandhi of India and Nelson Mandela of South Africa . Through non-violence, they ended the oppression of their people.”**
