FISHING VILLAGE “Biyakos,” illegally built fishing structures, are installed in the middle of the Bicol River in the poor remote village of Punta Tarawal in Calabanga, Camarines Sur province. JUAN ESCANDOR JR.
Incoming Vice President Leni Robredo’s choice of the leader of the remote village of Punta Tarawal in Calabanga, Camarines Sur province, to administer her oath of office on June 30 has also put on the spotlight one of the poorest communities in the Bicol region.
More than the electoral support of the village, Robredo had said she wanted Ronaldo Coner, the village chair, to swear her into office because it will symbolize her advocacies—“giving face and voice to people on the fringes.”
All the 187 votes cast for Vice President in Punta Tarawal (population: 408), the smallest village of Calabanga, went to the outgoing representative of the province’s third congressional district. Her five other rivals got zero.
Disaster prone
Punta Tarawal is a marshland where mangroves and nipa palms thrive, but it has no water supply, either for drinking or household use, because there is no groundwater source. Only about 2 percent of its land area is habitable, Coner said.
Coner lamented that only about 300 of the more than 400 inhabitants are actually living in Punta Tarawal due to lack of basic services and facilities.
Some have dug a well, but its water is salty. Most of them go to the Bicol River to bathe and wash their clothes.
There is an elementary school with classes for Grades 1 to 6.
Coner yearned that someday a road leading to the village would be built and correct impressions that it is an island. That road, he hoped, would bring progress to their community.
“We could easily sell our products if there is an access road and then, maybe, people from our village would come home and help develop our place,” he said.
Punta Tarawal is vulnerable to storm surges and residents must evacuate whenever a typhoon comes.
“We need an evacuation center that could withstand strong typhoons,” Coner said. Some of the men would stay during calamities to attend to their animals and property, he added.
Project beneficiary
The village is one of the beneficiaries of the P142-million seawall project that Robredo had facilitated for residents of several coastal villages in Calabanga. It was once the docking place of trawl boats of her father-in-law, Jose Robredo, in the 1970s to the 1980s, said Salvacion Templonuevo, 72, a village councilor.
Templonuevo said most of Jose’s workers in trawl fishing came from their village. She said that after Robredo’s late husband, Jesse, was elected mayor of Naga, the business stopped.
While cruising toward Punta Tarawal, stilt-like bamboo structures standing in the middle of the 700-meter-wide Bicol River cannot escape attention.
Jose Asuro, village chief of Balongay, the take-off point to Punta Tarawal, said the bamboo structures, locally called biyakos, are actually illegal because the fishing method uses a pouch with fine-meshed nets.
But Asuro found it difficult to enforce the law because the owners of biyakos are also subsistence fishermen while commercial trawls continue to operate inside the 15-kilometer municipal waters in San Miguel Bay.
VP oath-taking
Robredo’s oath-taking before a village chief is the first ceremony for a newly elected Vice President which, according to Camarines Sur Rep. Salvio Fortuno is within the bounds of Republic Act No. 10755.
Fortuno said RA 10755, which he is the principal author at the House of Representatives, was signed into law by President Aquino on March 29 this year, amending Executive Order No. 292, or Administrative Code of 1987, to include punong barangay or village chiefs among the authorities who could swear in public officials, including the President.
INAUGURAL WEAR Ronaldo Coner, chair of Barangay Punta Tarawal, and his wife Miriam show off the attire bought by the staff of Vice President-elect Leni Robredo that he will use during the June 30 inauguration. JUAN ESCANDOR JR.
Coner is excited, and for the meantime, stopped his business of buying and selling crabs until after he has sworn in the second highest elected official of the land.
He started in village politics at 23 years old when he ran and won as village councilor in 1988. He became barangay secretary after a term in the council.
He won as village chief of Punta Tarawal in the 1998 and 2001 elections. He lost in his attempt for a third and final term but won in 2013 and retook the seat of punong barangay.
On June 15, Boyet Dy, head of Robredo’s transition team, named Coner as the official who would administer the incoming Vice President’s oath.
“I was stunned when I was named on the television newscast. I cannot believe it and I could not sleep at that time thinking why among the (village chiefs) in the country, I was chosen to administer the oath,” he said.
Coner said he was told by Robredo’s staff to just be ready and prepare himself for the ceremony to be held in Metro Manila. He was given a copy of a text for the rites.
On Friday, Robredo’s staff bought him a new barong Tagalog, black slacks, shoes and belt which he will wear during the oath-taking ceremony.
Since the announcement on June 15, all major television networks had visited Punta Tarawal.
“It is a great honor that our village chief was chosen to administer the oath-taking of Vice President Leni Robredo. You see, our small village is singled out among thousands of villages all over the Philippines,” Templonuevo said.