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Mt. Province folk build 1.5 km road through ub-ubbo

BAGUIO CITY (Feb.25) — With only unity and determination, the people of Sitio Letang, Tapapan in Bauko, Mt. Province were able to build a 1.5 kilometer (km)-road without government assistance.

Through the ub-ubbo (bayanihan), an indigenous practice in the Cordillera, the Letang people patiently built the road starting 2002, which took them nearly a year to finish. Bayan Muna Partylist and the Alyansa dagiti Pesante iti taeng Kordilyera (APIT-TAKO) assisted the Letang community, stressing the importance of working together to attain goals and not rely solely on government support.

“Uray adu ti panangdismaya kadagiti umili, daytoy kitdi ti nagbalin nga inspirasyon kadakami tapno ipapati mi nga palpasen ti kalsada nga dakami met laeng ti mairanod iti maudi” (Despite many negative comments, we still pursued the project because we all knew that we are the ones who will benefit from it), said Marcelo Daweg, chairperson of Letang Community Farmers Association (LECFA).

The community’s 120 households contributed P1,000 each, but those who could afford to contribute more gave P5,000 up to P20,000 each, Daweg added. The corresponding cost is P250,000. The road passes through the farmlands of Jerry Bagbagen and Lakay Bat-tata.

Daweg also said that the seven residents who have elf trucks “like Thomas Badcao, Ampil Domanzi, Carlos Tulali, Ignacio Tacio, Naty Espada, Maxima and Paday-os, hauled eight loads of gravel each.” Other residents also lent cash and donated steel bars and cement.

According to Daweg, now that the road is finished, the Letang farrmers are not hard up transporting their products to the trading posts in Baguio.

To pay the community’s loans from private individuals, the community agreed to put up a toll gate for entering vehicles with a certain load. Five hundred pesos is collected per load of river sand. One peso per kilo of vegetables, and P10 per sack of fertilizer and cement is also collected.

“At present, we have already collected fees amounting to P30,000”, Daweg said.

Daweg said that what the Letang residents have done should inspire other communities to strengthen their unity and to preserve their indigenous practices as a tool to pursue their own goals.# Johnny Fialen for NORDIS

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