Archive for February 2014
HEAD HUNTING
Posted on: February 11, 2014
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HEAD HUNTING BY OUR FOREFATHERS AND OUR GRANDCHILDREN
(Published by the Cordillera Today January, 2014)
Head hunting takes several definitions like a literal act of beheading before or after killing a person, moreover, a custom of cutting and preserving the head of enemies as a trophy by the killer. Head hunting is also a slang to mean an attempt of removing power and influence of political opponents.
However, in the management context, head hunting is a recruitment process of searching for the head or executives of corporation and organizations. There are several recruitment outfits calling themselves “Head Hunter” “head hunting” or similar words. This term also found its way into the music world as “Head hunter” is the title of an album of Herbie Hancock released by Columbia Records last October 13, 1973.
Head hunting was practiced in various countries as well as in ancient times most specially to display prowess of heroic fighters as well as martial arts combats. European headhunters were common among the Celts, West Germanic tribes, the Vikings, Scythians. The tribes of Melanesia, Papua New Guinea, Wa tribes of Burma China border, Borneo, Indonesia and other islands of South East Asia. Other Asians like the Japanese, China, and Taiwan have practiced head hunting and sometimes as raids. The Nagas of India and Burma as well as other tribes of India have practiced head hunting.
During the World War Two as well as in the Vietnam War, there were records that the heads of opponents were kept as “skull trophies” by the soldiers.
In the Cordillera Region of Northern Philippines, the men were described as warrior by early writers including Albert Henry Jenks in his book “the Bontok Igorots” published in 1905 and gave a vivid description of battles they undertook “Men go to war armed with a wooden shield, a steel battle ax and one to three steel or wooden spear. It is a man’s agility and skill in keeping his shield between himself and his enemy that preserves his life. Their battles are full of quick and incessant springing motion. There are sudden rushes and retreats even sneaking to cut off the enemy. These battles lasted about 30- minutes to an hour and often ceases after the taking of a single head by either side. But there were cases where fights last for half a day and a dozen or more heads taken. At times, rocks were thrown and sometimes hit and knock down enemies and there he loses his head if he was not assisted by friends. “
These battle skills were recorded when the Igorots fought against the Japanese. General Douglas Mac Arthur in his communiqué included “Hampered by the dense undergrowth and lost in the confusing maze of bamboo thickets, vines and creepers, the tankers would have been impotent had it not been for the aid of the Igorot troops of the 2nd Battalion, 11th infantry. Hoisted to the top of the tanks where they were exposed to enemy fire The Igorots chopped away the entangling foliage with their bolos and served as eyes for the American tank crew, firing with their pistols while guiding the drivers.
“When the attack was over,” said the General, “the remnants of the tanks and of the Igorots were still there, but the 20th Japanese Infantry Regiment was completely annihilated.
“Many desperate acts of courage and heroism have fallen under my observation on many fields of battle in many parts of the world. I have seen forlorn hopes become realities. I have seen last-ditch stands and innumerable acts of personal heroism that defy description. But for sheer breathtaking and heart stopping desperation, I have never known the equal of those Igorots riding the tanks. Gentlemen, when you tell the story stand in tribute to those gallant Igorots.”
My husband relates a story that happened in the 1950s as kids when; he and his brother Alex were spending their vacation in Alab. One night there was a commotion in the village because the men arrived from their head hunting. Some of the kids were afraid, but some of them found it as festivities for a bountiful harvest. They were told that the hunters took the jaws for their gong handles. When my husband asked his grand pa what happened to the other parts of the head, he was told that they were buried beneath the slabs of stones in the dap-ay. This brought chills and nightmares to some of the young kids sleeping in the dap-ay. But these were easily forgotten as they frolicked under the sun and bath in the rivers.
In the present day, head hunting may take some other form, though not as brutally killing the person, but making them “inutil” unable to function or stripping opportunities for opponents to exercise their responsibilities. This can take forms of boycotting people in authority. It could mean walking out of a hearing or a dialogue to incapacitate those who need to the consultation towards a resolution of an issue or a problem. Head hunters are in the social media with their irresponsible attack on people in authority without the facts or simply hunting them down blaming opponents with every problem that the community experiences. There are other strategies that have been developed in warfare including modern day head hunting.
women do twice as much
Posted on: February 11, 2014
Women do twice as much
(published by the Cordillera Today – Feb 2, 2014)
Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. ~Charlotte Whitton
In the mid-1980s when we were doing community development work in the Cordillera villages “ili” on the equal rights of women and girls. The discussion included the Kalinga women doing all the house chores as well as planting, harvesting, pounding and cooking rice. While the men do the hunting and sit around. For those from Mountain Province, they said the women and men share the responsibility in agriculture and in family life. All this ongoing discussions were feedback on the women’s rights movement.
This March 10 to 21 the United Nations will hold the 58th Session of the Committee on the Status of Women (UN CSW) in UN New York with the theme “Challenges and Achievements on the Implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for Women and Girls.” In the 57th Session last March 2013 was focused on the “Prevention of all forms of Violence against women and girls.” In that conference they reaffirmed the Beijing declaration and platform adopted by the twenty third assembly of the UN and fourth World Conference of Women. Likewise, the commission reaffirms the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Optional Protocols as well as other relevant conventions and treaties, provide an international legal framework and a comprehensive set of measures for the elimination and prevention of all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, as a cross-cutting issue addressed in different international instruments. There were other agreements the breaking of historical and structural inequality in power relations between men and women, and persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation of the enjoyment of human rights.
The UN CSW also affirms that Gender-based violence is a form of discrimination that seriously violates and impairs or nullifies the enjoyment by women and girls of all human rights and fundamental freedoms. Violence against women and girls is characterized by the use and abuse of power and control in public and private spheres, and linked with gender stereotypes that underlie and perpetuate such violence, as well as other factors that can increase women’s and girls’ vulnerability to such violence as stated in the commission’s documents.
In the discussions of the 1980s and 1990s that we have handled there were still no government records that we could access for baseline reference on the gravity or the lack of Women’s rights to opportunities and victims of gender based violence. At one time, we have to stand guardian to a teenager who was raped and the parents and the kai-ilian do not want to participate because of historical and cultural structures. “Kababain,” “basol ti ubbing no apay nga isuna ket na rape” were the general excuses why people did not want to get involved. In that case the girl won the case and the man was placed in prison.
After those years, we still see that gender based violence is still lacking in support because of the lack of fiscal or funds allocation for the protection of women and girls. During the Soroptimist International (SI) 47th year celebration, one of the recipients of the fund raising “I love you this big” barn dance was the BCPO Women and Children Protection Desk. They have been asking for a mirror and video camera for their investigation room for the privacy of victims, it was longtime waiting but finally they got it from SI-Baguio. Funding and financing has been seen as lacking in the programs for the protection of women and girls.
One of the continuing concerns is the implementation of laws and rules around women and girls. The accountability mechanism is lacking that will make laws and rules implemented and those responsible for non-implementation should be made accountable. The Philippines is now considered one country where girls are trafficked, prostituted, abused and sold, this was not the case long years ago. Now, we even have organized syndicates abusing women and girls, Cordillera not exempted. And government and families are not held responsible, because government and families are party to the crime. Take the case of women in the tourist spots, when they are tested positive to Sexually transmitted disease they are even bullied by the sanitary inspectors instead of helped to be treated.
So many times women form organizations to help fellow women, though much or little is given nevertheless these gestures help in asserting women’s uniqueness and capabilities. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote “One is not born a woman, one becomes one.”
Life is not in our hands
Posted on: February 11, 2014
LIFE IS NOT IN OUR HANDS
(published in Cordillera Today – Feb 9, 2014)
“Accidents, and particularly street and highway accidents, do not happen – they are caused” said Ernest Greenwood. Similarly, we remember familiar quotes and songs about traveling and exploring the new and fascinating, the joy and dangers, flying, sailing and driving, the beginning and the end of the journey before we come back and rest down at our familiar beds and eat at our family tables.
Friday morning a Florida bus rolled down the road between Banaue and Bontoc to the bottom of the ravine resulting to 15 death and 32 injured persons. This brought about numerous comments ranging from condolences to asking God’s grace for the survivors and thanks for sparing them. At the same we get criticisms that the bus company was negligent, the driver reckless coupled with the treacherous, poorly maintained mountain roads produced such an accident. Such news is alarming and dampens the adventurous spirit that continues to plan for summer break travels. But at the same time such incidents sometimes become wake up calls for bus companies and road maintenance, even after the fact. But we should not learn safety because of accidents. How ideal it is if due diligence have been observed before such accidents because danger knows no vacation. Nothing can repay the pain of the loved ones left by those who died in accidents for they did not have time to hug, kiss or say goodbye.
We were based in Bontoc from 1989 to 1994 when we had the BSBT Foundation, Inc. that conducted outreaches to the municipalities of Kalinga, Benguet, Ifugao and the Mountain Provinces. Such outreaches were short courses in typewriting, computer, electronics, financial management, cooperative management, community development organizing, herbal gardens and other relevant courses needed by the communities. This was also the time that I drove the rough, long and winding roads, when there were not many lady drivers. Some drivers, when they see my red and white jeep, they gave me extra road courtesy. At times when my jeep gets a flat tire or a loose bolt, I leave it along the road and someone will bring it home for me – a student, a staff or other drivers. These experiences exposed me to the treacherous roads which were carved out of the mountains as a result of the indigenous labor and ingenuity of technical people. It continues to amaze me how such roads were constructed, more amazed at how drivers and motor vehicles maneuver those roads.
One summer we conducted an outreach in Barlig and after the graduation we packed up and the next morning we travelled from Barlig to Bontoc in an overflowing public jeep with people and baggage in and out of the transport. When we were just passing the saddle from Talubin climbing up the road I was overcome with a heavy dark feeling and I closed my eyes and said “God help us.” As soon as I said it, someone was banging the back of the jeep yelling at the driver to stop because someone fell off the jeep. The driver stopped and we saw that we were just few inches at the edge of the ravine. The man who fell came and said that he was clinging to the back of the jeep and then a black object covered him and he cannot see, he tried to remove it in his face and that was when he fell because he removed his hands from clinging. We had a short stop trying to settle nerves because the driver was also shaken that he was about to drive straight to the ravine. After all the sharing we finally got back on the jeep and arrived safely to our destination.
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it” said Cesare Pavese. For life is not in our hands it is in God’s hand, he gives and takes away. It is of innocent or arrogant perspective when we think we control our lives, because we do not. It is this reality that makes us seek the LORD and creator for eternity and meaning of the present.
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