Bansalan: Davao del Sur’s green town

By Henrylito D. Tacio
SOME years back, friends of Leila Rispens-Noel – who was then living in the Netherlands – wanted to visit the town where she was born and where she grew up. But they had difficulty in finding the town on the Philippine map.
“I had to describe to my friends where the town is geographically located and told them not to worry because one day Bansalan will be placed on the map of the Philippines,” said the native of Bansalan, Davao del Sur. She left her hometown in 1979., but now she’s back for good.
Bansalan is a small town, with a total land area of only 20,770 hectares. It is subdivided into 25 barangays and is the boundary between the provinces of North Cotabato and Davao del Sur. It is about 72 kilometers south of Davao City and is very accessible by land transportation. The town is sandwiched by two cities: Kidapawan and Digos.
“This is probably the reason why progress in my former town is so slow,” wrote Rispens-Noel in the column “Roundtrip: Bansalan-Holland,” which she used to write for a syndicated media organization. “Vehicles do not linger long in Bansalan. Passengers from North Cotabato are eager to reach Digos or Davao City, while passengers bound for North Cotabato are raring to reach Kidapawan City and further to Cotabato City. It has never been a place where passengers stay longer for one reason or the other. Business activities remain in the hands of the local enterprising people. And so the town remains largely rural and agricultural…”
There are always two sides of a coin. In a way, being a laggard in development can also be a blessing in disguise. As a matter of fact, Bansalan has been touted as a “green town” of Davao del Sur for being “environment-friendly.”
For one, Bansalan is the birthplace of the internationally-known Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT). “The system is a simple, low-cost, and timely method of tilling the fragile uplands, which comprise about 60 percent of the country’s total land area,” explains Roy C. Alimoane, the director of the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center (MBRLC) Foundation, Inc. “SALT helps protect the soil from erosion and leaves of nitrogen-fixing trees and shrubs are used as fertilizer for crops and feeds for livestock.”
The MBRLC is located in barangay Kinuskusan, just 10 kilometers away from the town proper. Actually, it’s a training center for various sustainable farming systems. Considered the “Disneyland of agricultural lovers,” people from all over the country travel to this place just to learn the modern technologies it shares.
At MBRLC, you can learn how to make a FAITH (Food Always In The Home) garden and to sustain your farm by adopting the SALT system and its three other modifications: Simple Agro-Livestock Technology (SALT 2), Sustainable Agroforest Land Technology (SALT 3), and Small Agro-Livelihood Technology (SALT 3). You can also learn how to milk dairy goats, harvest tilapia, and graft fruit trees, among others.
For developing these technologies, the Department of Science and Technology awarded the center “in the area of agricultural production” in 1987. In 1991, the regional office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recognized MBRLC with a World Food Day Silver Medal for its contribution in “mobilizing people’s participation in tree planting and sustainable forest resources management.” Earlier, in 1985, its former director, Harold R. Watson, was given the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for peace and international understanding for promoting the technologies in various parts of Asia.
Speaking of Asia, the center houses its affiliate, the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation (ARLDF). “Our main purpose is to help develop and uplift the standard of living of the poorest of the poor in Asia,” explains Alimoane of the foundation which was launched in 1988.
Through the foundation, the staff has trained more than 10,000 people from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Trainees have included farmers and high-level officials, Christians and Hindus. “Aside from training, they also learned to know more about our country and our culture,” says Alimoane.
In an adjacent barangay, in Eman, you can visit the Lao Integrated Farm. If you love durian (described by a Westerner as a fruit that “smells like hell but tastes like heaven”), then you should not miss visiting this place. It is owned by Benjamin Lao, who planted 700 durians in his five-hectare farm. Other fruits you can find in the farm include mangosteen, rambutan, and lanzones. Lao also raises goats (purebred and upgraded). His fruits are grown organically as he uses goat manure as fertilizer for his fruit trees.
Lao practices organic farming. It’s no wonder why the Department of Agriculture singled him out as the Outstanding Organic Farmer of the Year some years back. Years earlier, he also received the same distinction for integrated farming.
Other areas to visit while in Bansalan are the Mainit Hot Springs in barangay Managa, Balutakay (where vegetables like cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, and onions are grown), and Tinago and Angel Falls (which can be visited while on the way to Balutakay).
Every September, the town also celebrates its Bansaulog (which comes from the two words, “Bansa” taken from the name of the town and “saulog,” the local word for “celebration”). It’s a week-long celebration which culminates with street dancing. Participants come from various schools, both elementary and high school.
As known for its environmental protection initiatives, Bansalan recently added in its Bansaulog celebration the search for “Mutya ng Kalikasan.”
“Instead of the usual beauty and brains search, we want to include environmental protection so that people will be aware of the importance of what God has given us,” explains Geraldine Batal, the municipal tourism officer.
Bansalan used to be a barrio of the municipality of Santa Cruz. When Digos (now the province’s capital) became a town itself, Bansalan was part of it. The municipality lies 22 kilometers west of Digos.
On June 6, 1952, Bansalan was separated from Digos and under Executive Order No. 506 became a municipality itself. (In 1957, Matan-ao was created out of the territory of Bansalan. Ten years later, Magsaysay followed suit.)
But it was not until Apolonio Ilagan, a captain in the Philippine Constabulary, became the town’s first mayor on September 18, 1952 that the town celebrated its anniversary.
According to some legends, Bansalan got its name from a Bagobo chieftain (datu) named “Dansalan” whose tribal folks were the original inhabitants of what is now the town of Bansalan. A so-called reporting error by the early surveyors transposed the name to Bansalan and somehow became the official name. Bansalan is also previously called “Miral” – named after the river – and some local folks still refer to this former name.

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