Desecration of an ancient heritage

I am appalled beyond description at the desecration of the ancient heritage of the people of the Cordillera, the majestic Banaue rice terraces. Some wise guys, unscrupulous men with no thought at all about the sacredness of our national treasure but with jaundiced eyes for commercialization, have converted the terraces into a garish wake-skate rink. If this defilement of the revered terraces, more ancient than many wonders of the world, won’t bring tears to heritage-loving Filipinos, more so to natives of the Cordillera like me, I don’t know what will.

As first governor of Ifugao, where the rice terraces are actually located, I had been repeatedly besieged with proposals to improve, renovate, redesign, refurbish, make something else out of them other than their original purpose of producing rice. All of these “brilliant” ideas for a “new, improved” terraces went to where they belong, the trash can.  And now this crazy idea of converting the terraces into a unique sports attraction.

The ancient Cordillerans labored long and hard, clawing, shoring soil and stones on the mountainside of the Cordillera to carve the magnificent cantilevered rice terraces. What drove our ancients to spend their sweat and tears on a monumental task such as the creation of a project that equals, if not surpasses, in grandeur the pyramids of Egypt?  They were not forced to labor by whips and chains as were the slaves that built the pyramids. The ancients of the Cordillera were moved into action to build the terraces by the very first requirement of a people wanting to be free and independent—to be able to provide for their subsistence, food.  Thus, the natives of the Cordillera built not tombs and memorials for the dead as the Egyptians did but farms, cantilevered on mountainsides for the living.

Making the rice terraces a wake-skiing venue where the rich and beautiful people can cavort and have fun is not only a travesty of what the Cordillerans hold sacred and holy, it is also a harebrained idea, the originator of which must not have heard of the word “creativity.”

It should not be presumed that I am the only Ifugao, or Cordilleran, livid about the ludicrous manner unscrupulous people are trying to convert the terraces into a commercial venture. The entire region, my province Ifugao in particular, is up in arms against this mindless disturbance of the pristine beauty of what has become known to us as “Stairways to Heaven,” the Ifugao rice terraces.

My judgment: Junk it altogether. NOW.

—GUALBERTO B. LUMAUIG, former governor of Ifugao