Mandaya folk see world outside village
Seventeen-year-old Josefa Mabanding was awake the whole night of December 9. “I was so excited I was not able to sleep,” she said.
Like many young Mandaya villagers of Manuriago in New Bataan, Compostela Valley, the only world that Josefa knew was her community that can be reached only after eight hours of trekking.
“There is no road going to their village so they have to walk a great distance,” said 1st Lieutenant Oscar Corpin of the civil-military office of the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command (Eastmincom).
Early on December 10, Josefa’s long wait to see the rest of the world was over. She boarded one of several buses that the military sent to take her and 107 other villagers for a tour of Davao City.
It was an Eastmincom project meant as a treat to “lumad” children in some of the remotest areas in southern Mindanao.
As they entered the city, the Mandaya children were awe-struck at the sight of vehicles, colorful buildings and throngs of people.
At the military airfield in the old Davao airport—their second stop after taking breakfast at Camp Panacan— giggles filled the air as they inspected the airplanes and helicopters, which they had never seen up close.
“Some of them did not even go near the parked planes because they were scared,” said Lieutenant Marianette Vinluan, also of the Eastmincon civil-military office.
At the Crocodile Farm, the children were amazed at the reptiles that they saw live for the first time. “We only see it on TV,” said Maryjoy Digaynon, 17, recalling the rare times her family would turn on their battery-operated TV, an appliance previously unknown to her community which has no electricity.
At a fast-food outlet in a mall, the children were wide-eyed: food was abundant.
Later in the day, they were brought to a beach—another place they hadn’t seen all their life. They laughed as water splashed on their faces. “It’s so salty!” said Arlene Donato, 17.
Cleofas Pagsac, a school principal of Manurigao, said the experience meant a lot to the children.
When they were finally heading home the next day, some were so exhausted that they can’t even keep their eyes open. On their faces, however, smiles were etched.
