ONE PITCH-DARK SATURDAY night, devout Roman Catholics of Barangay Kayan East in Tadian, Mt. Province, underwent a spiritual cleansing process called the “daw-es,” under the supervision of the province’s elders.

It is a ritual common in the Cordillera, but Councilor Lawrence Atipen said the survivors of the Oct. 8 landslide that killed 35 villagers and wiped out half of the community needed some convincing before they were gently led back through “the old ways.”

Cleansing means a plea to the ancestral spirits not to harm the living. It also affords family members time to commune with their dead to bring them peace, said Kayan East village chief Camilo Bragado.

On Oct. 8, a portion of the village was almost wiped out by a landslide triggered by torrential rains unleashed by Tropical Depression “Pepeng.”

A man and two of his children died in Barangay Bunga, while another man was washed away in Barangay Mabalite.

Pepeng also triggered rockslides that isolated Tadian for days, allowing few people to learn about the town’s fate until an Inquirer team arrived with relief goods on Nov. 6.

All black

Faith healer Albert Celino and his wife Roseni had guests on the night of Oct. 8, as almost every household had been busy preparing for the annual Kayan fiesta of the Holy Rosary the next day. They heard a loud thud and their world all turned black, said Bragado, Roseni’s father.

When his eyes finally opened, Bragado said seven members of the Celino family were gone.

Celino, whose healing career had started to take off, was scheduled to leave the country at the end of the month to see clients in Poland, Bragado said.

“I remember when we started pulling out our dead. There were children … their mouths were filled with rice. It was so painful,” Bragado said.

He said the one question haunting survivors was: “How could this happen to the faithful?”

Kayan used to be the seat of the municipal government when the American colonial government took control of the country at the turn of the 20th century, said Mayor Constito Masweng.

Village legacy

But the village’s historical legacy is its part in the Christianization of the Igorot Nation, said provincial administrator Paulo Pagteila.

In 1665, Kayan was the first town reached by a Spanish expedition seeking out gold from the Lepanto mountains, allowing Augustinian friars to settle here and install a Christian mission, records show.

Kayan was also one of the first settlements administered by the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM) in 1907. The CICM sent Philippine missions from Belgium to replace Spanish friars who were deposed when the Philippine clergy began to turn against its first colonial master.

The Catholic order celebrated 100 years of its presence in the Philippines in 2007, and had described Kayan as one of its pioneer mission areas.

Bragado said Kayan was also haven for Ilocano migrants like him. Many Ilocano teachers sent to educate the Igorot people settled here, said Councilor Alfonso Polan.

Climate change

A retired teacher, Bragado said many residents were aware of climate change. It was his late daughter, Roseni, who had been orienting the village about how to manage their waste and to protect their forests.

Although fairly educated about the phenomenon, Bragado said it was the neighborhood’s Catholic faith that held them together.

People were also aware of a huge fissure that had cracked open on top of the mountain and leveled their houses last month.

Masweng said geologists had been concerned about the fissure, which many traced to the 1990 Luzon earthquake. Water collects on the edges of the fissure during storms and residents had dug temporary ditches to prevent flooding, Bragado said.

Unexpected

“But no one expected that [kind of] rain [unleashed] by Pepeng,” he said.

“Many neighboring villagers immediately came to help Kayan. They came with their elders, who had been observing that water had been pouring out of the mountains for nearly a decade. But they realized there were few elders in Kayan who were skilled with the old traditions [to address this unexpected phenomenon],” Atipen said.

“We have very few mambunong (ritual priests) in this generation already. But Kayan [had none],” he said.

He said Kayan’s ethnicity and its religious devotion had simply made some Igorot practices irrelevant.

Bragado said social workers had been helping children in Kayan on how to understand these fears, but “for most of the adults, the burden is borne by the soul.”

“There was a Catholic priest who visited Kayan, and he told the survivors that maybe revisiting the old ways could be helpful. It’s the same God after all. We only call him Kabunian,” Atipen said.

Bragado said most of the survivors had already pulled themselves out of the rut. With the help of neighboring villages, they took turns removing rocks that had crushed their homes.

Help in terms of food and clothing came in droves from various towns of Mt. Province and Benguet. Some of Kayan’s dead came from the other towns.

Engineers have started working on the water supply because the slide had destroyed pipes coming from a spring. “We are awaiting donors to help us fix that,” Bragado said.

The Church has also provided Kayan much help. The Saint Louis University, a CICM facility based in Baguio City, is sending medical specialists this week.

Return to normalcy

Many survivors have already been back to school in Baguio, Bragado said, adding that a “return to normalcy” pervaded the village.

But at the barangay plaza, teenagers playing basketball at the public courtyard always watch the 300-meter gash of gray dirt and granite that looms large over their houses.

Travelers visiting Tadian always look at the mountains from their bus seats every time a turn leads to a recently cleared landslide area. A barangay called Tue was also told that it stands on dangerous grounds and may soon be relocated.

All 200 households will need new homes soon, Masweng said, and this had added to communal fears that Tadian now shares with Kayan.

The Saturday daw-es is but the first the Catholic community’s concession to the Igorot rituals. Bragado consented to another cleansing ritual, called the “tingao,” on Nov. 28 that would prohibit residents from leaving the community for a day. It would also bar travelers from entering the community.

“We think [these rituals] would bring us some peace of mind,” Bragado said.