For the last six months we saw several vlogs and documentaries featuring situations in Davao City’s hardest-to-live highland communities.
The vlogs and documentaries further strengthened our observation that there are two faces of Davao City. One is that of affluence and advanced development, and the other is that of abject poverty and deprivation. The former face is represented by the posh central business district and its expanding economic enclaves in the peripheral communities. The other face is manifested quite clearly in the condition of the communities in the most rural and remote villages in the uplands sparsely populated by indigenous tribes and some pioneering Christian settlers.
Most of these poverty-ruled villages are several kilometers away from highways and barangay roads, and are accessible only by foot or horses using trails and crossing dangerous rivers. While these places can be considered as epitomes of nature’s beauty, the areas are at the same time pictures of disparity among Davaoenos and seeming absence of government services.
The latest that we saw of this face of Davao City was the one featured in the documentary of GMA’s Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho. The area featured was a very remote upland sitio of Barangay Tambobong that appears to be isolated from civilization and from the city’s governance. The isolation is further aggravated by the stretch of Tamugan River the water of which is not only deep but also treacherous as its current is literally rampaging even if it is not raining in the upper areas.
The residents who are tribesmen and are upland farmers sell their produce down to the center of Barangay Tambobong by crossing the dangerous Tamugan River wading in the water while carrying their farm products.
What broke our heart while viewing that particular episode was the scene when villagers have to carry a sick farmer down to where an ambulance was able to reach in order to take the infirmed man to a hospital.
The patient who cannot walk has to be placed in a hammock strung in a wooden pole. The carrier co-villagers have to negotiate an hour of slippery walk going down. And upon reaching Tamugan River they have to still carry the patient in the hammock on their shoulders while holding on to something like a PE Pipe water hose that was tied to a tree on both banks of the river.
Crossing the almost shoulder-deep water of Tamugan River while ensuring the safety of the patient was indeed a big challenge to the volunteer carriers. But they did it until they reach the waiting ambulance.
Another heart-breaking scene was the group of villagers who accompanied the burial of the body of a young man who died after he was bitten by a venomous snake. While negotiating the trail and the coffin was on the shoulders of four men, a landslide occurred blocking the only route. It was not shown in the documentary what happened to the scheduled burial. Perhaps the group did some cutting of trees and shrubs to create a new trail to pass going to the burial site.
Then we saw children from families residing in that sitio who were going to school in another village across the treacherous river. They have to take off their clothes and use the occasion in crossing the river holding on to a rope as their bathing time. With their clothes and school materials on top of their heads they dress again after successfully crossing the treacherous water before proceeding in their journey to school.
How we wish that episode of the Jessica Soho program was seen by the members of the Davao City Council more importantly by those coming from the City’s third district where Barangay Tambobong belongs.
We also hope that the same episode was witnessed by the city’s third district congressman or any of his office personnel in his Davao City office.
Perhaps the opportunity to have viewed the documentary could possibly help them come up with projects that they can propose to be included in their program to alleviate the suffering of the people in areas like that remote mountain village in Tambobong.
And if it is not too much of asking favor from them, especially from our local government officials, maybe they should take time out to visit the far-flung villages by doing it on foot and crossing the river themselves so they can have a feel of the sitio residents deprivation.
They have to have the experience so they can come up with a more viable project given the situation of the area. And it is not necessary that the project would be expensive as the condition in that upland Tambobong village does not guarantee a return on investment (ROI) of the government.
Or, if Davao City’s local officials are not willing to spend public funds to help out the unfortunate constituents in that hell of a place, why can’t they connect to corporations with strong corporate social responsibility programs like San Miguel Corporation or the Apo Agua Infrastructura. The latter firm is now earning a huge income derived from the waters of Tamugan River. The former conglomerate is also harnessing underground water emanating from the watershed that provides water to the aquifers drilled by SMC. The cost of one or even two hanging bridges for residents of that sitio in Tambobong will not make even a slight dint in the two firms’ humongous incomes.
And remember that Davaoenos are primarily the ones boosting the two business conglomerates’ revenues in this part of Mindanao.
Unfortunately Davao City officials seem to busy themselves helping stoke the fire that is now burning the bridges that connect the city to the national government. And it is at the expense of the Davaoenos, especially those in the remote highlands already long marginalized.
