{"id":5740,"date":"2019-12-28T15:55:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T04:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=5740"},"modified":"2019-12-28T15:57:08","modified_gmt":"2019-12-28T04:57:08","slug":"the-village-without-dogs-or-chickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/?p=5740","title":{"rendered":"The village without dogs or chickens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Bernie V. Lopez<\/strong>, eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>
As seen on the August 2019 issue of The Philippine Sentinel <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in the 80s, I met a fisherman on a beach in a sleepy village in Mindoro, Philippines. He was cleaning five large shells. When he saw my eyes almost popped out, he smiled and led me to a small shed where he kept about 40 more shells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

They were the precious Chambered Nautilus<\/strong>, now an\nendangered species. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I interviewed him and discovered he had a spot in the open sea\nwhere he dropped a bamboo trap with a stone sinker and bait of dog meat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few days, he would catch two to three Chambered Nautilus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Chinese trader from Cebu would visit every month to buy about\n150 to 200 shells from about a dozen or so fishermen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a thriving business that practically supported the entire\nvillage. The fisherman treated me to a sumptuous meal of raw Nautilus meat\ndipped in vinegar and laced with onions and chili. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the side, we had some local gin that scraped my throat. The\nproblem was, they ran out of bait. They finished all the dogs in the village\nand had to import from other villages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dogs were precious, caged so they are not stolen. That was how it\nbecame a village without dogs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three decades after, I visited the village again and saw many\ndogs, meaning Nautilus-trapping had died a natural death. For this tiny\nvillage, the economy shifted from tourist commodities back to farming. The\nvillage now had a thriving garlic farming enterprise. Before the advent of\ngarlic farming, chickens were all over the place. But they destroyed the young\nshoots of garlic when they would scratch the soil for food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the farmers quickly ate all the chickens and banned roaming\nchickens from the village. Everyone ate fish instead. Mindoro was then garlic\ncountry. They no longer planted native garlic because it grew too slow and the\ncloves were so tiny. They planted hybrid garlic with large cloves smuggled from\nTaiwan, which grew fast. The more aromatic native garlic finally died a slow\ndeath, but is still available today at higher prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The village with no dogs became the village with no chickens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I were to visit this village again today, what will I find? My guess\nis no children. I am predicting I may find a village dying of hunger. Garlic\nwould die if they cannot compete with other villages closer to markets with\nless transport cost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, there is less and less fish to catch. Their children\nwould join the millions of OFWs out in the Middle East. The village would\nbecome a ghost town of elderlies, unless the children-turned-adults give back\nto their parents, capital not for consumption but for new sources of\nlivelihood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is amazing how globalization has its tentacles in the remotest\ntiniest village, where there are sudden shifts in survival modes. Industries\nnourishing people die left and right, replaced by other industries nourishing\nanother set of people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessons of this story: 1. <\/strong>Survival modes in a shrinking planet come and go. Whoever you are, a tycoon or a fisherman, be vigilant, creative, innovative, and have foresight \u2501 or die. 2. <\/strong>We are all connected. We must learn to share dwindling resources. \u03a9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Bernie V. Lopez<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n




About the Author<\/em>:<\/strong> Mr. Bernie V. Lopez is veteran journalist with a Master\u2019s degree in Communication Arts from New York University. He was a professor at Ateneo de Manila University where he graduated. He wrote for Philippine Daily Inquirer and Rappler and is a regular columnist of this paper.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bernie V. Lopez, eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com As seen on the August 2019 issue of The Philippine Sentinel Back in the 80s, I met a fisherman on a beach in a sleepy village in Mindoro, Philippines. He was cleaning five large shells. When he saw my eyes almost popped out, he smiled and led me to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":5743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5755,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions\/5755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}