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Itchad, La Trinidad (2026)

26/04/2026

Sunset

26/04/2026

Topsy-Turvy Thoughts on “Summer”
( , Northern Philipine Times April 26, 2026)

Back in our elementary days, the stretch between end of a school year and the next had a simple name. It is summer. It wasn’t something debated on; It simply is summer. By high school (when it was simply “high school,” no junior or senior labels yet), “summer classes” carried a certain reputation. If you saw someone going to school in April or May, chances were, they were making up for a subject or two that didn’t make the passing grade.
College followed a similar pattern. Summer classes existed but they were not usually part of the main academic path. For many, they were less about advancement and more about catching up. In these contexts, “summer” became less a season and more a space for recovery tied to “unfinished business” in a school year.
Of course, these were a time before the constant stream of information brought by the media and the internet blurring certain societal definitions. Back then, “summer” pointed almost instinctively to April and May, and everything that came with it. Today, it may no longer be that.
Then there’s Baguio City, the proudly proclaimed “Summer Capital.” The place is known not for heat, but for its cool climate. Elsewhere in the world, summer arrives after spring, when flowers bloom gently and temperatures rise; or follows winter’s retreat, bringing longer days and lighter air. The appointment of Baguio as “summer capital” tells that idea of summer is change on temperature but we have never been strictly technical as with having the four-seasons.
In the Philippines, authorities will clarify: we don’t really have “summer.” What we have is the dry season. We move between wet and dry, not spring and summer, not autumn and winter. Still, language together with the habit on use of terms has its own authority.
Also, it looks like for us Filipinos, summer is not exactly a meteorological category but on what society has to say. It’s the season of beaches and reunions, of road trips and rest. It’s halo-halo under a punishing sun, electric fans working overtime, and air conditioners humming through the night. Though, truth be told, many of these are no longer seasonal. Halo-halo is now available year-round. Travel is no longer confined to April and May. Even in places like Baguio, air conditioning has shifted from luxury to near-necessity.
Even in education, the meaning of summer has shifted. What used to be “summer classes” is now often called the midyear term. Some schools have moved to a trimester system, making the old academic calendar feel almost sentimental. Remediation, once reserved for summer, is now embedded within the school year itself—aligned with principles like “no learner left behind.”

At the same time, policies now protect uninterrupted vacation periods for teachers, recognizing the need for genuine rest. The end of the school year, which incidentally is “summer” is being now claimed not as a time for catching up, but as a time for pausing.

Scientifically speaking, our climate experts continue to describe two seasons: wet and dry. The dry season itself splits into the cool dry months and the hot dry stretch, the latter being what we casually call “summer.” This typically runs from March to May.
These stretch of hot dry months in recent years taken on a harsher edge. It is now also the season of forest/grassland fires and drying landscapes. For this year, the recent rains may bring relief, but they do not erase the damage already done.
And then there’s El Niño, a term we now hear often in news reports. Yet long before the term entered our vocabulary, local communities already had names for such extremes. In Ifugao, for instance, “dopal” refers to a time when the land dries up, when water becomes scarce, when even agriculture struggles to breathe.
The existence of such words reminds us that these phenomena are not entirely new. Our ancestors observed them, named them, and developed ways of coping. There is knowledge there, on what are they, on how to cope with such, but these are often overlooked.
Clearly, “summer” and terms related to it have broadened and meanings have shifted. It depends on where one stands whether in the school system, in science, or simply in a community. But maybe, what remained constant is the function that “summer” brings. These are the need to pause and recover (such as in a school setting), and the need to make sense of coping mechanisms (such as on what to do when there are changes in weather patterns.)
Whether we call it summer, midyear, or simply the dry season, perhaps what we are really seeking is a moment to breathe, calibrate or recalibrate.
Happy Summer!

26/04/2026

Ifugao Day dance for all
4/25/2026

Tobob di i-Hingyon

25/04/2026

When Politics Visits Local Cultural Spaces
(Cultural Notes, Northerrn Philippine Times April 19, 2026)

When a national leader arrives in a small town, the visit is never just a visit.
This was evident when Vice President Sara Duterte joined the Rambakan Festival in Lamut, Ifugao, upon the invitation of the town’s head, Mayor Mariano Buyagawan Jr. What unfolded was not merely a festive gathering, but a moment where culture, politics, and public meaning intersected revealing more about the community and the surrounding towns than about the visitor.
On the surface, the narrative was simple: a warm welcome, enthusiastic crowds, and a leader mingling with the people. Supporters pointed to her ease in engaging with locals, even beyond the main venue. Her remark about possibly buying a house in Lamut was quickly picked up as a sign of affinity. The symbolic highlight came when she was adopted as a daughter of the town and given the name “Oltagon.”
In many localities, such gestures are not trivial. To be named, to be adopted is to be placed within the language of kinship. It signals belonging, however temporary, and reflects a tradition of openness to outsiders who are received not just as guests, but as relations.
But in today’s political climate, no gesture remains untouched by political analysis.
Online reactions quickly moved beyond celebration. For some, the visit was read as part of a broader effort on her part to consolidate influence in Northern Luzon. Others questioned the timing and intent, voicing the idea that cultural spaces like festivals nowadays are increasingly being used for political branding. The “adopted daughter” narrative, to some, felt less like tradition and more like strategy.
These contrasting reactions are not surprising. They reflect a deeper tension that when national power enters local cultural space, meanings multiply.
For many in Lamut and surrounding communities, the Rambakan Festival remains what it has always been. It is a celebration of abundance, gratitude, and community life. In this view, the presence of a national figure does not diminish the festival’s essence. But undeniably, it adds another layer to it. The visibility of a leader drawing more crowd can bring economic benefit, tourism, and recognition of the town in places who hear about it. These are practical outcomes that matter to local communities.
On the other hand, there are concerns that can be subtle but no less important. At what point does participation of political figures become cultural appropriation? When does political presence begin to overshadow cultural meaning? These are not easy questions, and they do not have uniform answers.
The same divide appears in how people interpret the role of Mayor Buyagawan. Supporters view his invitation as decisive and strategic. It is an act of leadership that connects Lamut to national networks and opportunities. Critics, however, see it as a political alignment that risks turning a cultural event into a partisan stage.
What is worth noting is that both sides draw from the same expectation that leadership must ultimately serve the people. The disagreement lies not in principle, but in method.

This event also invites past memories. In 1993, then-senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo visited Hingyon, Ifugao. Like in Lamut, she was welcomed through cultural forms of inclusion and given an adoptive name, “Aginaya.” At the time, the gesture carried meaning within the community, reflecting a tradition of integrating outsiders through symbolic kinship. Today, however, that moment is barely remembered. It survives, if at all, in fragments of oral history and held by a few of those who witnessed it, but largely absent from public discourse.
The adoptive name, once meaningful, has faded with time. Will Lamut’s “Oltagon” be any different?
It is important to note that the context has changed. Unlike in 1993, today’s events are documented, shared, and archived online. Memory is no longer dependent solely on storytelling; it is reinforced by digital permanence. What once faded naturally can now be revisited endlessly, often detached from its original context.
This shift matters. Cultural gestures that were once grounded in the immediacy of the moment must now contend with a wider audience and with interpretations that may not share the same cultural understanding.
In this sense, the real story of Lamut is not about whether the visit was political or cultural. It is about how communities navigate that very distinction in an age where the two are increasingly intertwined.
Social media, in particular, has become a new kind of public space. It is one where meaning is negotiated in real time. Pride, skepticism, celebration, and critique all coexist, reflecting not just individual opinions but broader questions about identity, leadership, and belonging. But with it is an angle permanence where future generations may have access and subjected to different interpretations at later time.
Lamut’s experience reminds us that culture is not static. It adapts and absorbs changes on one hand and the ability to sometimes resists on the other. The Rambakan of this year also reminds that a single event where different forces, say leadership, politics, and culture, meet, what emerges is not a single narrative but many.
In the end, the significance of present moments is not determined solely by who visits, or even by how they are received. It is shaped by how the community understands the encounter—how it tells the story, how it remembers it, and how it chooses to carry it forward. Long after the crowds have gone and the posts have faded from timelines, what will remain is not the spectacle, but the meaning that the community decides to keep, in case.

(Photos: Landscapes in Lamut Ifugao)

21/04/2026

Halo-halo habang nabara pay ti panawen. Iruginan nga agtudo sunga pinaglalammin. Aghalo-halo tayun tapnu awan babawi nga mangibaga nga "haanak nakahalo-halo" ket nalpasen ti "summer".

21/04/2026

There are fruits, beautiful to the eyes, yet untouched even by birds.
People pass by and call them useless, for they feed no hunger.
Perhaps their purpose is simply to bring delight to the eye.
Or perhaps, like the fruits of our labor, their worth is not yet to be discovered.

In life, some things are indeed useless. Or may be not. Only waiting to be seen for what they truly are.

19/04/2026

by Hugot siklista

19/04/2026

Home

“Natago mo te di awadan tau”—that was how someone like me, who had left and now only returns from time to time, described home: *our village has been left behind.

One couldn’t deny it with the presence of native houses now standing empty, some slowly giving in to rot. A relative who had stayed here most of his life would often explain, “Ote adi mo mabalin di nikuling a baleh’ tun boble”—because those raised wooden houses on posts are no longer of this time. And perhaps that is partly true. But I know, too, that it is because many have found opportunity to live elsewhere, away from this barrio, that these homes have been abandoned.

As I continued the conversation with my barriomate—who, like me, is now more visitor than resident—I said, “Mu gapu nin hitun kalata, ya dakol di munbangngad”—perhaps because of these roads, more will find their way back.

I still hope to one day be in Mompolia again. Though I know my townmate, who found better opportunities elsewhere, may never return.

Even as the wells begin to dry and the ricefields starts to crack when dry season, home remains home.

17/04/2026

Nabasak lang...

15/04/2026

On Telling our Own Stories
(Cultural Notes, April 5, 2026)

There are stories we grow up believing belong only to our own place until we hear them again, told differently, from somewhere else.
Growing up in a barrio in Ifugao, I remember my folks including my grandmother telling the story of Pitpitungnge, an unloved grandchild. His own grandparents, for reasons never fully explained or so I remember by storytellers, sought to rid themselves of him. One day, his grandfather brought him to the forest and asked him to retrieve his butung (a handy bag) from a spot where a tree was about to fall. The grandfather intended for the falling tree to kill him. But Pitpittunge returned home, not harmed, but carrying the very tree meant to crush him. Cheerfully, he told his grandfather that they now had enough firewood.
Another time, the grandfather tried again this time using boulders while they went fishing. He asked Pitpitungnge to dive into the big pond to look for “howong” (holes in the pond where mud fish might hide) then he let a big boulder fall upon him. Yet once more, Pitpittunge survived. He came home carrying the heavy rock and said they could use them as seats when warming themselves under the sun.
Finally, he brought him to a cliff supposedly to install “tawang” (bird traps) and then he pushed him down. This time, Pitpittunge pretended to be dead and did not return hime, allowing his grandparents to believe they had succeeded. The story, as I remember it from my grandmother, fades at this point—but what remains clear is the image of a child who turned every act of harm into something useful, even generous.
Recently, I heard a strikingly similar story from a friend from who traces roots from another province. This time, the character was named Ulo.
There was once a couple who longed deeply for a child. After years of praying, they asked for one. Desperate, they asked even if it were “just a head.” Their wish was granted, and a child was born to them in that very form. They named him Ulo. At first, they loved him dearly. But as he grew, his difference became more visible. Other children ridiculed him. The community saw him as strange. Eventually, even his parents began to feel shame.
One day, his father brought him to the forest. While cutting a tree, he asked Ulo to fetch his hat from the place where the tree would fall. The tree came crashing down directly on him. Believing Ulo had died, the father went home relieved. The story even says they celebrated, thinking that the chicken they were raising would now feed two mouths instead of three.
But later that same day, Ulo came home alive carrying the large log. Smiling, he told his father that they now had plenty of firewood.
Another time, the father took him fishing. While Ulo was underwater, he pushed a large boulder into the spot where his child had dived. Again, he returned home convinced it was over. Again, they celebrated. Yet later, Ulo returned, carrying two heavy stones. He offered them to his parents so they would have something to sit on while warming themselves under the sun.
For a third time, they brought him to a cliff and allowed him to fall. But this time, Ulo did not return. Perhaps he had finally understood that he was no longer wanted.
Later, villagers discovered a plant bearing fruits shaped like a human head. The plant became a source of food for the community. And they believed it was Ulo transformed, not into absence, but into sustenance.
Two different characters but one underlying story. These narratives echo a child rejected, subjected to harm, yet responding not with anger . They seemed to be just intended to let children go to sleep in those times (before ‘90s when there were no TV nor mobile phones) but just like the ending of Ulo wherein he becomes something that nourishes others, the stories have moral lessons that may “sustain” generations of today.
The stories make me wonder how many more of these shared stories exist across the Cordillera. The stories that have traveled not through books, but through memory, through voice, through generations of telling. These stories certainly reveal some common ways of seeing like resilience, endurance, and the maybe some “value” of being different.
Our indigenous oral literature is one of the foundations of commonality that is divided by many things like language and even dialects, and the geography itself. Common literature may bind our communities through shared imagination like the roads that now connects the region
But – as National Literature Month is observed this April , we are also reminded of a gap. Many of these stories remain unwritten, or if written, are not widely available. Rarely do we encounter books authored by indigenous storytellers that are accessible to our children. As a result, many grow up reading more Western narratives than their own, shaping their imagination around distant contexts while their own cultural stories remain in the background.
It is not saying we do not literary works from other places say foreign one but there must be balance. When a child hears the story of Pitpittunge or Ulo, they are not just listening to folklore but it is a way to let them encounter a worldview in their own culture.
Perhaps the task of telling the folk stories looks simple, but often not done. To keep telling these stories, to begin writing them, and to make them available is a more difficult one. But difficult as it may, they should be done so that the next generation will not only read the world but also recognize themselves in their own culture.

*Photo: AI generated

12/04/2026

Viewed from Sadjatan, Wangal, La Trinidad.

For those who chase roads, trails, and sunrises, Sadjatan is a pit stop.

07/04/2026

"Pagans" (The article appears in the April 5 issue of the Northern Philippine Times)

The term “pagan” has recently found its way into public conversation. Unfortunately, it is not in the most thoughtful manner as it is because of a viral (and now deleted) reel of a vlogger who, while visiting a burial ground in a well-known tourist destination in the Cordillera, casually declared that he was holding “the skull of a pagan.”
The video may be gone, but the discomfort it stirred remains. There were talks from the local government unit concerned of declaring the vlogger persona non grata, but whether that has been formally pursued or not remains unclear. Still, one can imagine that if that vlogger ever returns, the welcome may not be as warm as the Sagada sunrise on a clear morning.
This incident reminds us how risky it is to enter a cultural space unprepared, especially when one begins to speak about things that require not just curiosity, but respect and understanding.
So why is the term “pagan” sensitive in this context? Primarily because of what the word has come to imply. In common usage, “pagan” is often burdened with negative connotations, suggesting backwardness, primitiveness, or even barbarity, particularly in reference to practices unfamiliar to mainstream perspectives.
At times, the term is loosely (and inaccurately) associated with “Igorot.” While “Igorot” itself has been reclaimed with pride within many Cordillera spheres (many now wear it as a badge of identity and heritage), it is worth noting that outside the region, the term can still carry outdated or stereotypical meanings. Thus, careless use risks reviving old prejudices rather than fostering understanding.
From a more neutral standpoint, “pagan” is simply defined by Merriam-Webster (online dictionary) as: “a person who is not religious or whose religion is not Judaism, Islam, or especially Christianity;” or, in literary usage, “one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods: a nonreligious, hedonistic person.” Even as we consider these definitions as objective, we still see that, at an angle, they reflect a lens shaped by some browbeating narratives.
As pointed out by voices that work on culture, labeling people or their indigenous belief systems as “pagan” sometimes is meant to point to an absence of spirituality. But it should be noted that it is actually the opposite. Here in the Cordillera, it is observed that the traditions of the various Igorot ethnolinguistic groups—diverse as they are in language and practice—are based on a spirituality that is very much rooted in a relationship with the land, or with nature in general. Indigenous rituals, customs, and worldviews embody respect for life, community, and the environment. Long before “environmental protection” became policy, it was already practiced, lived, and performed as faith.
The problem, historically, began when introduced religions framed these indigenous beliefs as inferior or even evil. Today, however, we speak more thoughtfully of acculturation and enculturation. Acculturation is “cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture.” Enculturation is “the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values.” (References for both are still Merriam-Webster.)
It may have taken time, but these acculturation and enculturation allow space to appreciate that indigenous practices hold values that can harmonize with present-day beliefs rather than oppose them, or that people here have the ability to adapt the culture of others without losing their identity.
The majority of people in the Cordilleras today identify as Christians—including those in predominantly indigenous communities. Faith, here, for the most part did not erase identity; it adapted, intertwined, and, in many ways, deepened.
This brings us back to the troubling image of a skull casually held for content. Burial practices in the Cordillera are not mere customs, but expressions of respect for life and the dead—a value shared across cultures and religions worldwide. To disturb such a site, and worse, to reduce it into a spectacle labeled with a misunderstood term, is not just insensitive but a clear violation of something sacred.
And beyond all assumptions, we can ask: can anyone truly identify the “religion” of a skull? Bone, after all, does not carry labels. But for sure, being part of that community, the skull carries the stories and culture of that community, which deserve dignity.
Perhaps the lesson is—for visitors to the Cordillera—before picking things up, one should first pick up understanding. For us here in the region, the real danger is not in being called a “pagan,” but in not being able to act in a way that shows we have that distinct spirituality, so that we can show the world that here in our place is a spirituality that can contribute or bring something to the world.
And incidentally, as we enter the season of Easter—a time that speaks of renewal, respect for life, and the triumph of what is sacred over what is carelessly broken—perhaps it is also a good moment not just to celebrate, but still to reflect, as with the preceding season of Lent. Not just on faith, but on how we treat the faith of others, the memory of the dead, and the dignity of cultures not our own.
After all, resurrection is not only about rising again, but also about becoming better than we once were.
Happy Easter, everyone!
(Photo: AI Generated)

Itchad

26/04/2026

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