(First of three parts)
HAPAO, Ifugao—Her wrinkles showed her age. She was barefoot and her ginger-looking feet dipped into a muddy soft rice field. Her veins were protruding, snaking up her hands, and her rough palms showed the hard work she does every day. Her body was quivering as one by one she harvested the rice grains with her own bare hands, and put it inside a white sack tucked into the black cloth belt around her waist.
Innug, who grew up not knowing when her exact birthday was, is more than 90 years old, yet at her age she still prefers to farm her clan’s rice terraces in Hapao—part of Banaue’s famed Rice Terraces—the traditional way.
Old Innug has no choice but to plant and harvests the heirloom rice by herself, because she has no one to do that for her. She never married, has no kids to inherent her land, and has no siblings around. She farms her own land, and the produce is only meant for her sustenance.
her small rice terrace plot in Hapao, Ifugao. Photo by Kira P. Ramirez
But the question, as with the other rice-farming elders of Banaue, is who will continue farming when Innug finally passes on?
That was also on Gloria Belange’s mind when her four children chose to work in the city than help her and her husband, Noel, farm their 12 hectares of rice terraces in Poblacion, Banaue.
Unlike Innug’s land, which can only be reached by a road so narrow only two feet can fit in—flanked by other rice fields, irrigation canals or deadly cliffs—Belange’s plot is located on a small hill her husband inherited from his forefathers, who were headhunters during the Japanese occupation.
“What can I do if my children no longer want to farm? They preferred working in the city or abroad,” Belange told Manila Standard.
One of Gloria’s three daughters is working in Saudi Arabia, while the rest already have their own families—and do not see farming as their main livelihood.
“My children are business-minded people. Before when we they were still young, I asked them to help me farm, but when they became adults and already have children, they refuse to help me farm, they said they do not want to stay longer under the sun, they said their skin will turn black,” she said.
(To be continued tomorrow)
