Lingig experience

For four days, my workmates and I roamed the remote sitios in Lingig, Surigao del Sur, with hired motorcycles employing improvised, additional seating at both sides (locally called Skylab).

We visited eight farmers' associations engaging in native chicken and goat production in separate, distant sitios across Barangay Bogac and Rajah Cabungsuan. The nearest is about 30 minutes while the farthest is 3 hours away.

Aside from experiencing life in the town, our purpose was to interview and photograph more or less 300 farmers to update their profiles in the national database. We have been partnering with them since 2019. They are already earning additional income from the projects we provided. While still working on becoming an established community enterprise, which is the end goal, their group is already well founded. And one advantage of being in groups is qualifying for more support in the future.

Since our program will stop providing inputs to the groups by 2023, the prospect of sustaining their projects in the years ahead is our top concern. Multiple factors are at play in why projects fail. Lack of interest of members leading to disassembly is one. It can be attributed to project mismatch because the recipients were not involved in designing and planning the projects in the first place. Susceptibility of the animals to diseases and infections and failure to treat them right away is another. With sick animals, production is affected. The same is also true for crops.

One way or another, the support from the program allowed the FAs to experience government support first-hand. Because they are in remote locations, aid rarely reaches them. The interventions intend as additional income and food sources for the farmers. Traveling to the town proper will take them at least half a day. With the projects, they have readily available eggs or meat supply in the locale.

Rural life

Life in rural is challenging. They have passable roads, but only by motorcycles. Another concern is the recurring blackouts that mostly last for two days to a week. But even without much, they thrive and live simple life.

There is more joy and fondness in the rural in the eyes of the city visitors. It was not the first rural community I visited for work. But the recent one made me reflect longer about how I envy the tranquil surrounding.

They have traded multiple amenities for the life they lead in the rural. And I bet some, if not all, want quick access to healthcare and quality education in the city. But throughout interacting with them, I never heard a complain about what they missed since settling in a remote community.

In a conversation with one farmer, a workmate assured them that if they visit Butuan, we will provide for all the accommodation as a way to repay them. He replied, 'What will I do in Butuan?'. On one side of the coin, they seem to need more. But they exude contention. It was slow living at first sight.

Traveling to Lingig offered me a glimpse akin to the early years of my life in Dulag, a rural community in Butuan. Like how it used to be when I was a kid and stress-free, traversing the rocky road with tall trees and less hurtful sunlight towering over us was a blessing to both eyes and lungs.

The experience is sure a highlight in the journal, exactly how I want the month to end. September 2022 is difficult not to remember.

Summing it all up goes this way: eating with farmers over simple native dishes, bathing in the river and waterfalls and trying to float away our worries, talking about life during bedtime, drinking coffee(for Kuya Porce and me) and hot chocolate (for Mel and Ate Gra) in the morning and at dusk, and riding powerful motorcycles and not worrying about how much our butts and back hurt from all the bumping into big rocks. We took all of them straight to the heart, all of the Lingig experience.

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(Drafted 9.29.22)