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Nurturing culture

Two parallel activities happened in La Trinidad, Benguet and Baguio City. Both activities promote these areas for tourism and marketing of local products. Baguio City officials are more concerned of patronizing the area to regain its status as the summer capital of the Philippines. It is their perspective of officialdom after its tourist-related business went down due to the meningococcemia scare.

In La Trinidad, the officialdom conducts the Adivay for the first time. Same with Baguio, it has the aim of promoting the area for tourism purposes.

There is however a component of the celebration in La Trinidad that I liked most. There are activities that are culturally educational – learning from the customs and traditions of the different ethnolinguistic groups in Benguet province.

Each municipality has something to show about their culture. There are the traditional huts displayed. Made with locally available materials, it can stand without the use of any nail, which was unavailable during the earlier times. They explained its advantage of having that character of the traditional hut –they can easily move in areas where the people have their next agricultural activities like in swidden (uma) farming.

There are many traditional products displayed. It includes the kinuday, or indigenous ham of the i-Benguet. It is the equivalent of the etag among the Kankanaey of Mt. Province. The kinuday is smoked from firewood to preserve the meat. The longer it is smoked, the tastier it is. This technology is still practiced. Personally, I prefer this kind of ham than the commercial one. And this kind of activity is complimented from the explanations by the i-Benguet, which I found very enlightening. But the entrance of commercial ham slowly affects this indigenous technology of food preservation – leading to rare and slow disintegration.

The celebration also tried to serve as a venue to realize the living tradition. In some booths, elders told of their culture and traditions. For instance, an old man from one of the municipalities explains the traditional birth practices in their village. Their system differs from the mainstream birth and health system. They have capable community members that can conduct or assist the delivery of a child from the mother. They have simple instruments, like the sharp bamboo, to cut the umbilical cord of the child. This mirrors the traditional and informal learning system among indigenous peoples during the earlier days. The elders are the teachers, who acquired their wisdom from experience and sense of community belongingness.

There are many enlightening activities going on in the Adivay celebration in La Trinidad.

I have to point out however that the Adivay celebration is promoted more for tourist oriented purposes. The government conducts the activity for businessmen to earn profit and assures the share of the government paid by this sector in the form of tax. The more profit realized, the more to share to the government. By this purpose alone, cultural enlightenment for the youth is a secondary priority.

Any activity geared towards tourism contributes to the disintegration of the indigenous practices instead. Look at the Benguet mummy, for example, where they had been promoted for tourism purposes. These were showcased to tourist but the indigenous people failed to understand the importance of this indigenous mummification. Instead of integrating the indigenous systems under our mainstream education, even at the regional level, so that the youth will appreciate their culture, it is an aspect not given much attention by those in the government. Like the indigenous technologies mentioned above, these systems will slowly disintegrate if it is not primarily addressed by those in the government. #

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