The Benguet Igorots have an abiding love for gambling, and some of them learned new tricks, which did them no good, through contact with Filipinos when working on the Benguet Road. Strict enforcement of the law against gambling has, however, prevented any considerable spread of this evil.
One of the most interesting results thus far obtained is the arousing of a strong commercial instinct among them. It was literally true at the outset that one could not buy from them an egg, a chicken or a basket of camotes, much less a pig or a cow. Now special market buildings have been erected for them at Baguio, and they are thronged on Sundays. The Igorots have money and spend it wisely. They also have farm products to sell, know what they are worth, and insist on getting full value for them. Among other things there may be mentioned sleek cattle, the best fat hogs grown in the Philippines, chickens, eggs, cabbages, Irish potatoes, peas, beans, tomatoes, squashes, camotes and strawberries.
There have been some interesting episodes in connection with the work for the Benguet Igorots. At one time it became necessary for the provincial governor, Wm. F. Pack, to undergo a severe and dangerous surgical operation. Word spread through Benguet that the doctors were going to cut him to pieces. Palasi, an old Igorot chief of Atok, gathered his cohorts and came in hot haste to Baguio to stop it. He was assured by Governor Pack himself that the cutting was to be done with his consent, but still entertained some doubts about the matter and asked to be allowed to be present. His request was granted. There was then no operating room in Baguio, so one was extemporized in the governor’s house. He walked out to the operating table, and Palasi, who was standing by, once more asked him if he was to be cut up with his own consent, offering to stop the performance even then if the governor so wished!
On March 30, 1913, I sat at a luncheon given at Trinidad, Benguet, in honour of former Lieutenant-Governor E. A. Eckman, who had just been promoted to the governorship of the Mountain Province. At the long tables were seated a representative gathering of decently clad Benguet Igorot head-men, the hosts of the occasion. They understood the use of knives, forks and spoons. At the close of the luncheon they presented Governor Eckman with a beautiful silver cup. The presentation speech was made by an Igorot named Juan Cariño, who had been shot and badly wounded by American soldiers from whom he foolishly endeavoured to escape in 1900!
Fortunately old Juan was not killed. Like every other Igorot in Benguet he is to-day a good friend of the Americans. The people of his tribe are now sober, industrious, cheerful, contented and prosperous. As time passes they keep cleaner, wear more and better clothes and build better houses. In this case, at least, a primitive people has come in close contact with the white man and has profited by it.
Lepanto, like Benguet, was a comandancia in the Spanish days. Its Igorot inhabitants are fellow-tribesmen of their Benguet neighbours, and like them are, and have long been, peaceful agriculturists, raising camotes, rice, coffee and cattle. They also mine gold and copper. In the extreme southeastern and the extreme northern parts of Lepanto the people are wilder and less law-abiding than those of Benguet, and some of them are prone to indulge in cattle stealing.
This subprovince has one Ilocano town, Cervantes, which was made the capital of the province of Lepanto-Bontoc. At the outset communication with the coast was maintained over a very bad horse-trail crossing the coast range at Tilad Pass. It zigzagged up one slope of the mountains and down the other on a grade such as to make travel over it very difficult. Furthermore, after reaching the lowlands on the west side of the range, it crossed a river some fourteen times. During the rainy season there were weeks at a time during which this stream could not be forded. In the early days of the American occupation a good wagon road was built from the coast to the point where the trail began, and the trail itself was put in the best possible condition. It was subsequently well maintained, but after the establishment of a Filipino provincial government in South Ilocos the wagon road was allowed to fall into such a state of neglect that travel over it, even for persons on horseback, became impossible during wet weather. Mr. Kane, the supervisor of the Mountain Province, was nearly drowned in mud when trying to ride over it, being thrown from his horse into soft ooze so deep that his hands did not reach bottom, and had it not been for a timely rescue by Filipinos who chanced to be passing, he would certainly have lost his life.
Although forty or fifty thousand pesos’ worth of supplies were annually sent into the mountain country by the people of South Ilocos over this trail, that province refused to spend a peso in keeping the connecting road up. The constantly growing trade of the mountain country made it, in my opinion, necessary that it should have a good outlet to the coast, and a route for a road was surveyed from Cervantes directly west over the Malaya range, traversing the subprovince of Amburayan from east to west and coming out at the municipality of Tagudin. In order to prevent the occurrence of a state of affairs such as had rendered the Tilad Pass trail practically useless during much of the rainy season, this Ilocano town was annexed to Lepanto-Bontoc, thus giving the province a route to the coast within the limits of its own territory.
The people of Tagudin were at first inclined to protest against annexation to the country of the non-Christians, but soon discovered that the change was greatly to their advantage. Their town had long been threatened with destruction by the encroachment of the Amburayan River, and they had appealed in vain to South Ilocos for help. The Mountain Province gave them assistance in the construction of a protecting wall which held the river within bounds and adequately safeguarded the town. Their business rapidly increased when Tagudin became the western terminus of an important trade route. They soon began to take an active interest in improving local conditions, and their municipality was gradually changed from a dirty, down-at-the-heel place to a neat, clean, sanitary town in which its people could take justifiable pride. An old feud which had long separated the leading men into two parties so bitterly hostile to each other that the mere fact of advocacy of a given measure by one of them was sufficient to cause determined opposition to it by the other, died out, and Tagudin is to-day quite a model place in comparison with the general run of Filipino towns.
The opening up of transportation lines has placed the people of Lepanto within much easier reach of a market for their rice, coffee and cattle. The successful combating of cattle disease by the Bureau of Agriculture has been a great boon to them, as has the suppression of the liquor traffic. Schools have been established in a number of their settlements. Last, but by no means least, their lives are no longer endangered by the head-hunting Bontoc Igorots. They are now a peaceful, prosperous people, and are progressing steadily in civilization.