Caught in the forest fire

John Iremil Teodoro

RIZAL, Palawan – While walking along a forest trail sometime in March, we heard what
seemed like a staccato of gunfire from a nearby mountain. We though there was a gun
battle, an unusual occurrence in this usually peaceful province, but the tribal leader who
served as our guide told us the sound came from burning bamboo stands. The forest was on
fire, and we were right in the middle of the blaze.

My companion and I were trekking towards sitio Imbo in barangay Canipaan, homeland
of many Pala’wan indigenous people. It takes an hour’s walk from the barangay proper to
reach the village. We were there to interview the local community for a brochure on land
tenure options that we were commissioned to write.

Edong Tuwahan, our guide is a panglima or tribal leader of the village. Two days earlier,
his house was among the dwellings burned to the ground. The forest fire had been going on
for days, but he did not seem very worried about it. He had this it’s-one-of-those-things
attitude, like this was something that happened every so often and they had learned to live
with it.

While we were going up, we passed forested areas where both sides of the trail had
been razed to the ground. Think piles of ask lay on what was once the forest floor, along with
the tree branches that were black and soot. We wondered what happened to the wildlife in
these forests – the monitor lizards, monkeys, cockatoos, peacock pheasants, mynah, and
others.

When we reached the village, Tuwahan pointed out his burned hut. Only a few
blackened posts remained, and his family was staying with his two married children whose
houses were spared because they had remove the roofs of their houses, since these are the
first to catch fire.

The villagers told us that the sitio is named after a river, which has dried up due to the
long dry season. We passed by that river on our way to their village and only leaves could be
seen on the riverbed these days.

When we asked them what started the fire, they said a Cebuano migrant engaged in
slash-and-burn farming caused the forest fire. This Cebuano bought that parcel of land from
their fellow Pala’wan for only one carabao and one plow a hectare.

They said it will be a very big help to them if the municipal government of Rizal could
help survey their land. It appears that the inaccuracy of the boundaries of their properties
caused tension among members of the tribe.

On our way down, we were gripped with fear when we say flames eating up the trees
beside the trail. The forest fire was spreading fast, considering that we stayed at the
panglima’s house for only an hour. My companion and I started to run when we felt the heat
on our arms and inhaled smoke.

When we looked back however, we saw the tribal leader and his children walking slowly,
totally unperturbed by the forest fire. Instead of getting panicked, we decided to take
pictures instead and walk at a normal pace.

That night, the fire is what was once a lush forest kept coming back to my mind as I lay in
bed. More than anything else, I couldn’t stop thinking about what the tribal leader said: the
forest fire would bring hunger to my tribe again.

(This essay was published in Bandillo ng Palawan Magazine, March 1998 issue)