The blue mountain

Mt. Fakal Range is a timber-rich forest in North Upi, Maguindanao. Nestled some 1,000 feet above sea level, it is one of the few spots in Mindanao that still boasts of a dense forest cover. The Tedurays and tribes who claim the land have another name for it, Kansad Gadung – the blue mountain.

That’s how I opened the story I wrote for the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) and if it sounded ominous, I meant it that way.

The hike to Kansad Gadung was difficult. The habal-habal only takes you to the first barangay and oddly enough, we were greeted by the barangay chair who was sitting, zen-like, in a small thatched hut without walls along the road.

That was to be our last conversation with another human being for another six hours.

The next hours were pure hell. We trudged the path that rolled drunkenly along seven hills as the sun tried to pound us into submission. With each step, I could nearly feel the sun’s rays getting heavier.

My Teduray guide, Romeo Saliga, told me that it’s not uncommon for the Tedurays to go home nearly blind in the dark, preferring the shadowed roads to the merciless sun. I could only think: “Yeah, right! Now he tells me.”

This distance has also developed in the Tedurays a twisted sense of humor. A curious klakafan or traveler asking how far Kansad Gadung is would get the curt reply: “Walking distance lang.”

“But it’s really walking distance because you have to walk all the way. How can you refute that?” Saliga laughed.

He could afford to mock. Saliga, after all, was no ordinary guide. He is the project coordinator of the Lumad Center for Development, Inc. (LCDI), which works to preserve the habitat, culture, and identity of the Tedurays at the risk of being corrupted by the customs and traditions of the lowlanders.

A growing number of Teduray children migrate to the city to work as trisikad driver, laborers, househelp, construction workers, and waitresses

Because of assimilation and the lure of the life in the city, Saliga said, more and more Teduray children are becoming ashamed of who they are. In extreme cases, some Tedurays who met success in the city even disown their tribe. . Of course, this is a problem that besets not only the Tedurays but other indigenous peoples as well.

The tribe used to dominate the 21 ethno-linguistic groups in Central Mindanao, but due to the devolvement of the Maguindanao Province to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the number has since dwindled to a little more than 67,000, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) said in its website.

Although the Teduray belong to one tribal group, they differ in dialect intonation, rituals, dress and color identities, depending on where they are located.

After passing seven hills, two ghost communities, a big-ass river, endless fields of cogon grasses and a stream with the most delicious water I’ve ever tasted in my life, we finally reached Kansad Gadung.

What greeted us was a structure right at the foothill of the peak, as the first descending slope touches the plain. The two-storey wooden building was constructed in way that resembled a woman with arms akimbo, which I learned was a traditional Teduray design.

I could almost picture out the woman from the building, with her eyes looking at the verdant expanse and her back against the peak of Kansad Gadung.

The building took nearly a year to finish by 100 Teduray men and women through bayanihan spirit. The upper level has been fixed to accommodate visitors, like us, who might have to spend the night while the ground level was converted into a school.

Two-meter long benches, equidistant to one another, were lined up in the middle of the school, with the solid earth for its floor. A dangerously-tilting makeshift stage supports the blackboard.

In the corner, traditional Teduray weapons and tools like the sundang (bolo), klung (shield), laya (woven basket), kubing and agong, both musical instruments, were displayed.

Here, high school graduate Ronald Benito has been teaching children ages 6-10 years old the rudiments of reading, writing, and counting. Only 29 years old, Benito was trained by the LCDI to ably teach the indigenous-based curriculum.

The goal, he said, is to instill their identity in the children’s minds so they wouldn’t get swallowed up when they enter the mainstream multi-grade system.

“They are afraid because they could not cope up in the multi-grade system,” he said.

Each class begins with the sagfad, a prayer for peace, followed by a Teduray song, inged gey freneken. Even the song “Bayan Ko” was translated into Teduray.

Teduray folklores, fables and myths, make a major part of the class; the story of Matalgo, for example, and bitun, the origins of the Teduray. An hour is also allotted each day to learn practical survival and hunting according to the ways of the Teduray in the jungles of Kansad Gadung.

“The concept is learning by doing, and making it more fun,” Benito said. “We talk about how to care for the environment.”

I wrote:

It’s still 4:00 a.m. The roosters in their backyard have not yet crowed. But 9-year old John Paul Mokudaf’s house is already a bustle of activity. His mother is hunkered down at the kitchen, her face near the palayok, blowing life into the fading flames. Only the young ones remained sleeping.

In about an hour, John Paul and her sister Judy Ann, who’s in kiddie 1, would start the three-hour walk to the school. It’s not a leisurely stroll along the boulevard, either. The morning fog renders it almost impossible to see beyond two feet while the roads are slippery and the grasses are moist from the dew. One wrong step and they could end up with a bum ankle or worse, roll down the steep incline.

The sharp blades of the nearly six-foot high cogon grasses continuously bite into their faces and arms. John Paul and Judy Ann occasionally look down, shielding their eyes from the danger.

At 10 minutes before class time, almost without fail, John Paul and Judy Ann are already in their benches, picking off the sludge that caked on their feet and slippers.

“Every time, when I come to class they are already there waiting for me even though I only sleep upstairs,” Benito said.

When asked why he didn’t stop schooling despite the difficulties, John Paul replied: “So I could learn what I must do and think for myself.”

His perseverance paid off as John Paul was adjudged as the class valedictorian during the graduation rites.

That’s not the end of his troubles, though. Graduating from grade school meant he will now walk for nearly five hours at Sitio Lahangkab, where the elementary school is located.

“I can do it,” John Paul said, his face set and his eyes steady.

But the school building has far more significance than just giving the Teduray children an education. The forest of Kansad Gadung has become the venue in a silent but deadly war between the Tedurays and the illegal loggers.

The Tedurays treat the forest almost as the last frontier and they were not about to give an inch against the loggers.

“We set up traps in the forest for the loggers who enter without permission,” he said, pausing before adding, “They also kill us when we prevent them from cutting the trees.”

While the men shed blood for the blue mountain as its present protectors, the children would ensure its future. Saliga said they need to learn to read and write so one day they, too, would continue the fight to keep Kansad Gadung through the ancestral domain claim.

The school and the justice hall, built a few meters from each other, serve as the fortress of the Tedurays. Even though tradition compels the Tedurays to live far from each other, both buildings are always filled with people.

The cicadas started to sing as the dusk and fog enfolded both buildings. The emerald peak loomed at the distance, slowly disappearing beneath the gloomy miasma.

As we lay down on the hard wooden floors, I heard Saliga crept into the room cradling the banig (weaved mat) on his left arm. He stood near the windows and I could hardly make out his shape in the dark.

 “That’s Kansad Gadung,” Saliga whispered, pointing to the unlit forest from behind the wooden jalousies of the school building. “We’re prepared to die to protect our home.”