Nora's Island: The beginning

It was not at all planned.  My husband Luis and I assumed we would live in the US the rest of our lives given that our children, other family and friends live here.  In February 2019, my brother Lito became very sick and later, passed away and I returned to the province I grew up in (Camarines Sur, Philippines)  It had been 6 years since I was there last. It had been over 20 years since Luis visited the country. Serendipitously, my cousins Edgar and Arturo mentioned an island and some beachfront property that had come up for sale and on a whim, my sisters Ester, Tess and I decided to see for ourselves.

We  were not prepared for the inaccessibility of the island.  After driving to San Antonia barangay, we had to trek 3 kilometers across rice paddies, streams, rain forest and dodge carabao dung.

But when we got there, it was all worth it.  Needless to say, we, (I.  Luis did not know.) made and offer and it was accepted.

As the story goes, Nora gave the Island to her husband Luis as a birthday gift.  But it was crystal clear to him that she wanted to go home.  The U.S is a home but so is the Philippines.  Part of the year will be spent in one place, the other in the other.

What follows is an adventure that is about to unfold.

The Barangay of San Antonio

My musings about the Barangay of San Antonio 

San Antonio is the most remote barangay of the 40 or so barangays in the Tinambac municipality.   We were stuck there for about 2 1/2 hours waiting for the van to pick us up to go to Naga. 

We incurred the curiosity of some of the residents with whom we engaged in lengthy conversations.  We had time on our hands.  One of them was with a lady in her 20’s who had two young children, the other a male with one child.  Both were married and had intact families.  There were others who came and went.  They contributed as well. 

San Antonio has a population of 1200 residents as of the 2020 census.  It has about 750 registered voters.  By contrast, the community college where I used to teach had upwards of 7000 students.

Still, this community is a barangay and qualifies as its own political entity.  There are two elected officials who receive a modest government stipend, not enough to live on.  When public officials campaign, they access these areas in bancas (outrigger-canoes).  These communities are called barrios that define them as social entities, barangays as political entities. 

They do not have a police force.  On occasion, a law enforcement official may include San Antonio when he makes his rounds.  They do not have a fire department nor any medical services or facilities.  A priest comes every Saturday.  Those who wish to marry may opt for the services of a government official. 

There are no public buses that service San Antonio.  There is a jeepney (a converted WW2 military jeep) that comes every day(?) from Naga and back, a one hour and 45- minute trip one-way.  It is loaded to the brim.  

In the middle of the barrio is a covered basketball court.  Basketball is to the Philippines as baseball is to the U.S.  They have an elementary school and high school.  Education in these parts is not viewed as essential to social mobility, happiness or personal development.

There were a lot of people of all ages engaged in various activities.  Dwellings were very close to each other with openings to the outside.  I wondered how these people maintained a sense of privacy.  They do.  They are all dressed modestly.  Because they were relatively isolated, the pandemic had little impact on their lives. Everyone knows everyone else personally.  It is noteworthy that a person’s identity is first and foremost who he/she is as a unique individual, signified by the person’s name.  Any other social category is tagged onto his/her name.  So, it would be Pablo who happens to be a fisherman or Mario who is a father.  All too often in the urban setting the social category is prime or comes before the who the person is.  Often, who the individual is, is not important relevant or even desired.

In Buddhism to be compassionate, one has to relate to an individual as a person before being compassionate.     

What is life like in a barrio?  I grew up in the city and had a postcard view of rural life.  Barrio life was and still is - Greek to me.

It is from their perspective that I continue my description.  It is tentative, incomplete, one that needs verification, elaboration and research. I intend to pursue a deeper understanding of San Antonio. 

What struck me about San Antonio is that it has many of the characteristics I associate with 16^th -17^th (?) century European towns.  These towns existed prior to the rise of capitalism, the advent of the factory system and the advent of cash crops. Their distinctive characteristic was that of a symbiotic self-sufficiency.  San Antonio exists in the 21^st century.

Survival: Food

There appears to be no problems with physical survival. Their diet consists of sea food which they harvest from the sea and the chickens they raise. Vegetables and fruits come from gardens and trees that abound in the region.  Vegetables are grown more like that of a forest rather than in neatly arranged rows of plants.

From the outside, they can purchase pork, beef, cooking oil, cooking fuel, other food stuff and household implements. Most important they must purchase rice.  Rise is a staple. It is incorporated in most meals and cooked/prepared in a variety of ways. 

Otherwise, their foods needs are more than adequate.  They appear well-nourished and healthy.

 Survival: Dwellings

I think the dwellings reflect the traditional practice of constructing houses utilizing materials available in the environment – bamboo, coconut trees, etc. 

Houses are close to each other, sometimes there is little if any space between a few of them.  Streets are narrow.  It is a communal way of living where dwellings are bunched together in a cluster.

There are a few houses that built with cement blocks in the western style.  The main difference from the traditional way is the incorporation of modern materials.  For example, thatched roofs are replaced with galvanized iron that rusts. 

On occasion the strong winds of typhoons damage these huts which have to be periodically restored.  The attitude is to make-do and re-purpose what is available and with what one can acquire at minimal cost.  The key is functionality and making what fits dweller’s needs and tastes.  There are no neighborhoods clearly separated by individual private dwellings.

Residents of San Antonio do not have the attitude that everything has to be in “factory condition” before they proceed with a project.  They do not accumulate tools over the years for specific purposes.  The bolo or local equivalent of a machete is one of the most versatile tools they have that can be used for a variety of tasks.

My impression is that raw materials from the environment are not as plentiful as they have been in the past.  Neither is the fisherman’s catch as plentiful compared to the past.  These are presumably due to pollution, climate change and the degradation of the environment.

They have adequate food and shelter.

Survival:  Why do the residents need money?

Residents need to buy clothing, food, household, and work implements over what is available in their environment. They need luxuries.  They need transportation, smart phones and access to the Internet. 

None of the residents, as far as I can tell have jobs.  The only professionals in the barrio are the teachers who are subsidized by the government.  Out-of-barrio teachers are provided with government subsidized housing.

If a resident becomes employed in a 9-to-5 job they move out of the barrio.  There is no commuter service and riding one’s own vehicle is too time-consuming.  

Residents get money from selling their surplus from fishing and the other resources on the land.  Those that have motorcycles opted to sell some of their land buy one.  They refuse payment plans which wind up costing them twice what they would have paid otherwise.  Land is not viewed the same way it is in the west.    

Residents may take odd jobs and help-out others as needed. They prefer cash transactions. 

Cash crop

There are no cash crops to speak of.  Areas are not cleared to make way for planting.  There are coconut trees which the residents periodically harvest for copra.  The coconuts have to be husked and the meat extracted and dried.  They can sell these to purchasers who come around periodically or they may take it themselves to a broker in the town.  There is not that much to justify purchasing a truck.  The cost of fuel is a major consideration.

The government provided the residents with a machine that allows the husk of coconuts to be shucked to make twine and for other uses.  The government buys the product at a modest price since they provide the machine. 

Fishing is accomplished by local fishermen using bancas that are manned with a crew of 2-4 fishermen.  There are no large-scale commercial fishing vessels or techniques.

Comments 

The residents live close to the land and develop a symbiotic sustaining and sustainable relationship with their environment and other residents. While large families have been the norm, the young residents I spoke with planned to restrict the number of their offspring because of their perceived dwindling of resources available in the future.

There are no 9-5 salaried or wage earners.  There is no commuter transportation between San Antonio and other towns.  They would have to commute by motorcycles more than 3 hours daily.  Those that have jobs in the larger towns, live there. 

Teachers are the only exception.  They are also the only resident professionals.

There is a huge difference between the commodification of services and resources from the codification of the same.  The latter is subject to accounting in fuzzy logic.  In other words, how services and “goods” are counted is different from the way they are accounted commercially.  I am guessing that by U.N. standards these people are all way below the poverty line.  This is the case if you count only the “commodities” they possess.  We are defining commodities here in terms of items produced by employers for which a monetary value is assigned.  It also raises an interesting problem when it comes to taxing one’s “income.”  

Monetary relationships are based on reciprocal exchange of commodified goods.  Family relationships are based on need and sentiment.  They are counted differently.

The residents of San Antonio do not display the virtues or stresses of factory/office employment.  The virtue of hard work does not exist.  The pressures and anxieties of urban employment are absent.  The work may be hard, but one is not judged (put-down) by superiors.  One is not judged in terms of the virtues of urban employment.  Many Filipinos view these barrio people as lazy, uncaring, without ambition and indolent. 

It is interesting to note the residents have access to the Internet and everything global. It does not necessarily lead to a widespread desire to incorporate the ways and values of urban living. 

Conceivably, if salaried work becomes the norm, the barrio as it is today will no longer exist.  Guam and San Salvador are examples.  In Hawaii, traditional culture probably and primarily now exists as a commodity of tourism.  It allows us to enjoy the “authentic” or the “real thing,” which is no longer practiced except by a very few.   

Equilibrium with nature

What is demonstrated here is the establishment of a symbiotic equilibrium with environmental resources which is sustaining and cyclic.  This contrasts with the idea that economic activity is ever growing or expanding so an equilibrium is never achieved.  Why is it that prices always rise without ever going down to their original levels. 

To Marx capitalism is characterized by a series of boom and busts till the whole system collapses.  Keynes suggests a way where the peaks and troughs of these cycles mollified but retains the continual upward ascend of economic activity and expansion.