Time Warp

"Why, nothing has changed! It is still the same as it was the day I left it!"

This is a common observation made by many balikbayans originally from Lianga but who have lived somewhere else for years, even decades, and have come back to visit the town after their long absence. And every time I hear the words I always wonder how much of that impression is actually true and how much is due to a sudden and understandable excess of nostalgic sentimentalism.

You see, I have lived in Lianga for many years, almost two decades now, and to say off hand that the place has not changed over those years cannot obviously be true. The changes may have come at a slow and gradual pace but they are there and are, mostly and fairly obvious.

The fact that I can blog and surf on the Internet, casually use a cellular phone, watch cable or satellite television and do all these while staying in Lianga is ample proof that this is not the same town I knew eighteen years ago. Much has indeed changed since then.

But it is also true that if much has changed in Lianga, the change has also come like layers of thin icing on a cake, superficial and largely trivial. As a long time resident here, I often get the feeling that if one can shake or peel off the thin veneer of what passes for modernity and 21st century progress in this town, the real Lianga that has remained stolidly the same underneath for ages will emerge unaltered and unadulterated.

Pindang

During each of the many sojourns I had in many places outside of Mindanao, I am always caught by surprise not so much by the many obvious differences but more so often by the subtle similarities between the lifestyles and culinary tastes of the people elsewhere in this country and those of Lianga where I have lived most of my life.

In one recent instance, one resident of Antipolo City in Rizal province just outside of Metro Manila dragged me to his kitchen and and made me watch as he started tossing what looked like large chunks of dark, dried meat into a pan of hot oil. As the oil hissed, popped and splattered unto the sides of his gas range, he told me that he was treating me to a dinner of Kapampangan-style pindang damulag or cured carabao meat. "A new taste treat for you," he promised me.

I did not have the heart to tell him that I was not only familiar with pindang in Lianga but also the fact that pork or carabao meat prepared pindang or tapa style happens to be one of my perennial, favorite food treats.

Playing At War

I kept hearing the whirling, snapping sound most of that afternoon several months ago as I sat in the living room of the house in Lianga watching the National Geographic channel on cable television. To me it sounded like a souped up electric motor plagued with a bad case of the hiccups.

Then a next door neighbor came rushing into the house, pulled me outside and with a flourish handed me what looked like a Colt M4A1 assault rifle. The feel, weight and detailing closely approximated the real thing but in this case what I had in my hands was an Airsoft version of the real McCoy crafted in metal and hard plastic and which relies on an electric motor powering plastic or metal "gearboxes" that dispel air to propel plastic pellets out of the muzzle in both semi-automatic and rapid fire modes.

The whirling, popping sounds I had been hearing was the sound of the rifle punishing a light metal can which lay dented and battered about twenty-five feet away across the road. My neighbor invited me to fire a few shots and even a short burst of pellets at the makeshift target. I assumed the firing position, peered through the sights and squeezed the trigger.

Fool's Errand

The frequent government drives to discourage the proliferation of so called "loose" firearms in Mindanao and all over the country are always more about talk and sloganeering rather than accomplishing anything else more substantial. One such program implemented in Lianga not too long ago amply illustrates this point.

Some time ago, the police chief of Lianga came by the house as part of a series of police operations designed to encourage town residents to legalize their ownership of unlicensed firearms. Those not interested to do so were asked to surrender to police custody any unregistered guns and ammunition under an amnesty program that supposedly provided for immunity from legal prosecution for the illegal possession of such contraband items.

He might as well have tried pissing against the wind or banging his head on a brick wall. No one in town in his right mind would even consider surrendering a loose or unlicensed firearm even if he had one. And chances are, almost everyone there has one or even several tucked away somewhere.

For most Lianga residents, the male of the species in particular, as it is for most Filipinos, the mystical allure of the gun is strong and is deeply rooted in the cultural machismo which lies at the heart of how he basically views his status in his society and community. The man with the gun is not only a man to be feared, he is also a man of respect and prestige, someone who can thus adequately protect his family and possessions from all manner of aggression and attack.

Senseless War

The recent violent encounters between government soldiers and New People's Army rebels in Lingig town, south of Lianga and near the southern tip of Surigao del Sur is another harsh reminder of how serious a threat to national security and the local peace and order situation the communist insurgency remains. The clashes have intensified despite reassurances from the government and the Philippine armed forces that the more than three decade old revolutionary movement is a spent force and is now supposedly on the wane.

I have lived in Lianga continuously for more than a decade now and today the reality of the situation on the ground there is as clear as it is emphatic. The Maoist insurgency there today may not be as strong and potent as it was in the 1980's and early 1990's when it was on the verge of virtually challenging the duly constituted government for control of many major barangays or villages in the countryside but it remains a clear and constant security threat for the local government and, consequently, all local police and military forces.

This resiliency can be attributed to several factors.

First, the numerous offensive operations conducted by government forces against rebel strongholds over the years have not only been halfhearted and sporadic in nature but they have not been able to address the social, economic and political roots and causes of the insurgency itself. The so called "clearing" operations have done little except to cause untold hardships and grave losses in terms of the lives and properties of the very people in the so called "rebel-influenced" areas that were supposed to be the target of liberation from communist control. Thus such operations only serve to fuel the very insurgency it is seeking so desperately to suppress.

Prayers On Beads

My parents tried their very best to raise me to be a devout Catholic especially my mother who inherited much of her staunch Catholicism from her own parents. My Lola Dingding, my mother's mother, was a diminutive woman, seemingly frail and delicate yet had a personality as strong and as dominant as the insurmountable religious faith that was the bedrock of her very existence.

When I was a young boy, my siblings and I treasured her visits to Lianga where, after dispensing generous rations of hugs and kisses, she would quickly make sure that all of us young ones where up to date on our religious obligations while at the same time dispensing timely and homey nuggets of spiritual advice to those she felt was lagging behind in their religious and spiritual growth. That was a task she took very seriously and something we all accepted with alacrity because we loved her dearly.

To think of even arguing or debating with her was not only absurd but simply out of the question. One simply does not quibble in the face of a personal faith that seemed capable of not only moving mountains but, more worriedly, seemingly able to bring down the wrath of the Almighty upon those who would dare disbelieve or worse, mock such a faith.

But it was when she took out her rosary beads and novena booklets when she was at her most formidable. I, like all of her grandchildren, always dreaded the moments when she would call all of us out to join her in praying the rosary. It did not matter whether it was early morning, late afternoon or before bedtime. Praying the rosary with Lola Dingding was more than an act or test of faith, it was, in our rather limited view then, refined torture of the most subtle, insidious kind.