“Bayong” mentality*

DON’T even try to change your spouse, pragmatists advise. I agree, preferring quiet co-existence to a fool’s quest for perfection.

However, after this week’s quick stop at a supermarket, I witnessed how even the 20-year-old habits of one’s roommate can be changed.

My husband picked up the tote I unrolled to hold our few purchases. Holding at some point books, shoes, used clothes, canned goods and newspapers, this tote has flowers plastered all over in a carnival riot of fuchsias, oranges, emeralds and purples.

The flowers, not so much the history, of my tote would scare away any man. That it didn’t daunt my roommate is proof that marriages can surprise and laws demand compliance.

Shoppers in Quezon City have to shell out P2 for every take-out plastic bag if they don’t bring their own tote. The P2 goes to the Green Fund, “in compliance with Quezon City Ordinance SP 2140 SP 2012,” reads the paper issued along with the official receipt of our purchases.

Although ignorant about how City Hall will use the Green Fund, I support the passage of an ordinance to reduce dependence on plastic. While it’s not plastic per se but the improper disposal of garbage that contributes to flash floods, discouraging the use of plastic may be a step towards this end.

Due to its convenience and cheapness, plastic is ubiquitous. It’s not indispensable.

In southern Luzon last summer, I saw how the “bayong” or the native tote made of woven fronds is a common sight in the streets, particularly in Lucban, known for its Pahiyas Festival that showcases farm produce and local crafts. Pahiyas visitors need no reminder to take away goodies in a bayong, plain, handpainted or embellished.

The bayong, used for trips to the wet market, was carried also by Lucban men. It was even more conspicuous than knapsacks in the narrow streets. In Cebu, the bayong with specially made holes is also used by men to transport fighting cocks. In Metro Manila, the “man bags” slung by the trendy share the form and sensibility of the bayong.

Though a thing of the past, the bayong remains contemporary. Its relevance is tied up with its sensibility: more than a single-use utility, it is a necessity bucking the trend of runaway consumerism and throwaway consumption.

When Maynilad workers recently transferred the water meter of homeowners in Parañaque, I spotted how one man carried his heavy implements and materials in a work bag converted from a nylon sack that once packed detergent. He cut out holes for hand-grips so he could more easily bring the sack turned bayong.

For those of us who need more incentive than practicality, the green consciousness uniting public and private sectors should spur men and women to pack away totes, modern remakes of the bayong.

In Cagayan de Oro, supermarkets began collecting last Wednesday P1 for every plastic carry-out bag requested by customers.

Nicole J. Managbanag of Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro reported last Nov. 14, 2012 that the Cagayan de Oro City Council mandates this “pass-through charge” in its Eco-bag Ordinance to discourage single-use plastic bags, reduce the plastic that contributes to flooding, and turn bag-making into a source of livelihood for typhoon and other calamity victims.

In both Quezon and Cagayan de Oro Cities, business establishments support the green ordinances. Even before the passage of one, the University of the Philippines Press bookstore in Diliman, Quezon City expects customers to take away their purchases in their own tote.

With commuters needing to carry totes for their packed lunch, laptops, exercise gear and other daily necessities, there are opportunities to earn from producing and selling these totes. The Christmas bazaars in Greenhills and Divisoria display a rainbow of ingenuity and craftsmanship in the totes that are eco-friendly options to gift-wrapping.

One criticism against the bayong is that it has a limited carrying capacity. Green bags are not only about using and reusing materials that degrade naturally and don’t upset the balance of the ecosystem. These also should make us think about not getting more than we need.


(mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ mayettetabada.blogspot.com/ 09173226131)

*First published in Sun.Star Cebu’s Nov. 18, 2012 issue of the “Matamata” Sunday column

To the trees of Perrelos

“DON’T they want oxygen?”

That’s a question exasperated student Preran Chowdary asked his forest minister when the Indian government publicly announced its plan to cut trees to transform a 60-feet road into an eight-lane superhighway in Bangalore, India.

According to a Nov. 10, 2010 article posted on www.ndtv.com, modernization rationalizes the removal of 856 trees, averaging about 40 years old, that are in the way of making “leafy Jayamahal road” smoother for traffic.

A non-government organization has contested the government estimate, saying the trees to be felled are nearly 1,200. About 2,000 students and residents vowed to form human chains to protect the trees.

The government’s answer to the tree huggers? Oxygen is nice but we want development.

The irony of trading off fresh air, shade and green heritage for road right of way (RROW), air and noise pollution and vehicular accidents is always lost when translated by those drawing up blueprints and spending public funds.

The fate of the Jayamahal trees may also fall on the trees of Perrelos if the Department of Public Works and Highways implements a road-widening project in Carcar.

Even if you’ve never taken a ride to the south of Cebu, you might still see a glimpse of the trees of Perrelos in coffeetable books or travel articles. No photo or flight of praise can do justice to the majesty of this green corridor, a rare experience in this extensively denuded and severely eroded island.

Even in a cramped, creaking mini-bus whose windows’ size and placement were designed for the comfort of Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs, an adult can, with flexibility and perseverance, glimpse the symmetry and grace of the great trunks arching across the road to form a green vault, shot through with golden filaments of sunlight or mist-wreathed on a rainy early morning ride.

Once, on a ride back to Cebu City, I had to get out of our vehicle and stand under those trees while my companions lined up and peed. To the sound of tinkling and much sighing, I looked up. I saw not just a hint of sky but my first intimation that the mortal is just a mote in the gaze of eternity.

Like tree-hugging, remembering one’s place in the web of life may seem loony to those whose visions require them to always look down at modernization plans and check the bottomline.

According to the theory of inevitability, development is rational and inescapable. First, roads targeted for RROW clearing connect to a national highway and international airport, as in Bangalore. Second, traffic levels reach at least 3,500 passenger car units (PCU) per hour, which calls for decongestion.

Lastly, tree-cutters always promise to plant trees to keep the “green tag”.
With some tweaking, the same development theory may be copied and pasted in Carcar. It’s “inevitable” to find P8 million to decongest the traffic clogging Carcar’s rotunda, but not the P700,000 required to remove and transfer a tree.

Bangalore protesters claim that road widening will not keep vehicle traffic from growing. Wider roads pose difficulties for children, elderly, disabled, and pedestrians, too.

Did road expansion ever inspire a poem? When I looked up the trees of Perrelos, my insipid youth gave voice to my awe by reciting Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees”: “I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree.”

A few days ago, my cousin Ito posted on Facebook these lines written by Rainer Maria Rilke: "Through the empty branches the sky remains./ It is what you have./ Be earth now, and evensong./ Be the ground lying under that sky. / Be modest now, like a thing/ ...ripened until it is real,/ so that he who began it all/ can feel you when he reaches for you."

If road widening cannot awe me into silence, why can it reduce me to tears?


(mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ mayettetabada.blogspot.com/ 09173226131)

*First published in Sun.Star Cebu’s Mar. 20, 2011 issue of the “Matamata” column