The Power of a People's
Collective Memory

© by Edessa Ramos
Published in The Philippine Times, Summer 1993, Chicago

As the majestic terraces spiral up to the sky, so does the traveler spiral back four hundred years in time. Trekking through the damp foliage of a rainforest, crossing the unsteady length of an ancient footbridge, or riding top-load on the roof of a jeepney alongside a thousand-foot drop ravine, the traveler is humbled by the magnificence of the Gran Cordillera.

In these mountains, the so-called civilized man realizes that he is but one tiny specie of nature, and for all the power of his education, technology and superior intellect, greater still is the power of the elements, and belittled is man's arrogance and control.

I was a development worker in the Philippines from 1983-1987. My work was to assist rural communities in building and managing projects on livelihood, organizing and literacy. I was thrilled that my area of assignment was Northern Luzon which includes the Cordillera provinces, the Ilocos region, and the Cagayan Valley.

During my first visit to Bontoc, Mountain Province, I was caught in awe by the clouds swirling around the world war II vintage bus trudging along Halsema Highway from Baguio City. Since that time, every subsequent visit to the mountains was like another beginning. Today, I look back longingly at the memory of mountains beheld from an angle seldom seen - from the very heart of the clouds.

Deeper and farther into the interior villages... up and down terraces... along dizzying heights above the Chico River... past military checkpoints dotting the rough roads. This is a world little known to majority of Filipinos, a world unblighted by the trappings of western and modern civilization. There, one will meet the people who, for the past five centuries, lived under constant threat from outside aggressors and suffered discrimination from Christian Filipinos in the lowlands.

The story of the indigenous Filipinos is relevant to our search today for our identity. This search finds its clues in the spirituality of our ancestors. It is a spirituality shaped by relationships that know no exploitation, no profit motivations, no inequalities. Conflicts are governed by honor, not the thirst for power and conquest. From the land springs the people's life, the people's culture. The spirits of their ancestors dwell in every rock, every leaf, every living thing.

John Collier, a writer who lived among the Native Americans in the 1920's, wrote of the Indian spirit: "Could we make it our own, there would be an eternally inexhaustible earth and a forever lasting peace."

Thus is the same spirit that governs the indigenous Filipinos. Collier gave profound expression to mankind's very desire to know that spirit.

It is always a matter of discourse how we lowland Filipinos, who are products of a history of western colonization, are in search of the Filipino identity. Could it be that what we are looking for is that spirituality, now buried and forgotten underneath the ghettoes of our frustrations and defeated expectations, our desire for acceptance in a land where we will always be considered foreign, different.

Carlos Bulosan wrote during the 1930's: "Do you know what a Filipino feels in America? He looks, poor man, through the fingers of his eyes. He is chained, damnably, to his race, his heritage. He is betrayed, my friend."

Perhaps it is this knowledge, however much the Filipino denies it, that stares at his soul every night when he goes to bed, and which demolishes his dreams in America one by one. We must refuse to become resigned to this.

We have a power, and it is founded on the collective memory of our people.

It is fed by the dignity, steadfastness and courage that are deeply imbedded in the Filipino character. In America, our power is in a united community, one in vision and rooted in a common understanding of and pride in its people's history.

That pride starts with learning about the life and history of the Kalinga people, who for centuries repelled foreign invaders. To this date, they are fiercely resisting modern-day incursions into their ancestral domain - such as the logging and mining companies, the local and multi-national business ventures, the exploitative tourism industry, and the ever-present possibility of the government reviving the giant dam project. All these pose a threat to their survival and self-determination.

Dealing with a material that becomes intimate with one's soul can prove to be painful, an unsettling experience. It entails discoveries that could prick our vulnerabilities and fragile self-denials. But perhaps this is the only way to know the truth - by facing ourselves, we learn to know and accept ourselves. Now is the time to do it as a people. And perhaps, the end result will be a deeper trust in each other and the realization of our collective strength.

For centuries, colonizers and profit-seekers have defiled the dignity and pride of the indigenous people. They have robbed Filipinos of the chance to build a society capable of determining its own identity. They have divided Filipinos into a "majority" and a "minority". It is time to overturn the pain and consequences of that history.

We will reclaim what is rightfully ours ---
our beauty, our culture, our identity.

In the high altitudes of the Cordillera, at dusk and at dawn, the clouds envelope the ground and hide in solid darkness a landscape that one knows is always there, though invisible in the half-light. The fog lifts by mid-morning and the eyesight takes wing across an expanse of earth and sky, proud, unconquered. Perhaps one might even hear an elder's clear, strong voice chanting an ullalim, a salutation to the abundance of the land. A celebration of our history. A summon to our roots, our identity.