THE CURRENT annual Kadayawan Festival once again brings into public focus the plight of the indigenous peoples in the hinterlands and the mountain fastnesses of our city as well as its neighboring provinces.
One fervent hope is government and those in the private sector continue assisting the lumads in many aspects of life, most specially health and education, which the cultural communities have been most wanting since time immemorial.
One doesn’t have to be an expert in governance in order to realize that lack of health and education is the one that pulls down the quality of life of those who live in the interiors. It is in these places, where there is usually no hospital and health professionals are scarce, that epidemics usually break out. Malnutrition also makes people in these areas very vulnerable to disease.
And yet there are other realities that exist in the hinterlands that government must also address immediately. There is the perennial lack of roads and low productivity. The first is slowed down by government’s lack of funds. Yes Virginia, we don’t have all the money in the world to criss-cross our communities.
But unknown to many Dabawenyos, especially the urbanites who have not gone to the hinterlands, the city government of Davao has recently caused the construction of three main ribbons of roads that have linked up the three districts in the city, thereby providing alternative highways for people and products to be brought from farms to the markets. The new arteries have also eased up traffic in the main highways of the city.
However, there is much to be done in the matter of productivity. Those who have observed the problem closely are wondering why there is still hunger in the hinterlands, where there is vast idle lands that can be cultivated by those living there? Why is it that lumads seem unable to learn how to grow vegetables and raise livestock just for their consumption? Are they indolent? Are they still ignorant of the more modern skills in agriculture?
We believe that the city government, through the city agriculturist office, should be able to remedy if not totally solve this unpleasant truth. We should by now realize that poverty, sickness and lack of food security in the boondocks are also affecting us in the urban centers. Haven’t we noticed that hunger, diseases and abject poverty are now affecting us in the urban areas as they do our brethrens in the hinterlands?
