The good, bright man from Kiangan

As the title of his autobiography, Treading Life’s Terraces, suggests, lawyer Romulo B. Lumauig relates the multi-colored tiers of the life and times of Ifugaos in the northern mountain provinces. With the dearth of  materials on the Cordilleras, the book is a bridge to understanding who the Ifugaos are, their rituals, the influence of foreign missionaries and mentors on their spiritual lives, the scant attention the government gave towards the region’s development, the personal struggles of young men, like the author, whose intellectual superiority and personal determination, brought them to national legislative and executive positions based in imperial Manila.

Lumauig, now in his early eighties, is an Ifugao by birth, having been born in 1931 in Kiangan, in the heartland of Ifugao province, and as a Gaddang, his parents, both excellent educators, having moved to Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya. Thomasites who arrived in the country at the turn of the century, resulted in the  Christianization and education of indigenous locals. Romulo’s parents were practicing Catholics, diligently teaching their seven children at home, and enrolling them in the Roman Catholic school run by Belgian priests and nuns. The young Romulo, or Mulong, as he was popularly called, was class president and editor of the school paper, had a retentive memory, and a strong concentration.

Schooling was stopped with the breakout of the Second World War. The Lumauig brood sought refuge in Bagabag where the boys learned to plow and plant crops. What stands out in Mulong’s trove of painful memories during the war was seeing a man suspected of being a guerrilla bayoneted to death by the Japanese. But Mulong, along with other 11-year-olds in Bagabag, were bold youngsters who were members of a group called “bolomen” (so named for their carrying bolos for weapons) who surreptitiously took food to guerrillas in their hideouts. But the bombings of the town were traumatic, and just as etched in his cabinet of memories was seeing Gen. Tomoku Yamashita, commander of the Japanese forces in the Philippines, being hauled off in a convoy of vehicles and taken to Baguio.

When the war was over, Romy (the nickname by which he was called as he grew older), studied law at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, but was surprised to be given two degrees at the graduation ceremonies – one in AB political science, and the other, in law. After passing the bar in 1957, he joined the law firm of Roxas, Sarmiento, Montano and Perez, his job including research work, writing legal briefs, reviewing position papers, and handling traffic violation cases.

He entered government service in 1961 as head of the legal division of the Commission on National Integration chaired by Atty. Gabriel Dunuan, formerly a congressman of Kiangan, who told him that the national cultural minorities (Indigenous People, IPs, Lumads as they are now referred to) were not attended to or were simply ignored by government or the authorities, were left alone to fend for themselves, were being harassed and exploited, their farm lands and ancestral domains being grabbed by the powerful.

He first attended to the Kalingas’ complaint of their lands being claimed by the Susana Estate owned by the Madrigals by virtue of an alleged Spanish grant ceding the lands to them. The natives disputed the claim, pointing out that they owned the land since time immemorial, planted verdant rice fields, coffee, banana and mango trees and buried their dead ancestors in a cemetery there. Attorney Lumauig was a fearless prosecutor, questioning the authenticity of the Susana Estate’s “Spanish title” which was brittle, fragile, and almost falling apart. The judge banged his gavel to silence the tall and good-looking Ifugao lawyer, but who did not keep quiet. Someone whispered to Lumauig to sit down as the judge, who had a heart condition, might suffer an attack. The  matter eventually reached the Land Tenure Administration where the local political leaders raised the issue to Malacañang.

Lumauig’s commitment to help indigenous farmers took him to danger spots like Bayugan, Agusan where cultural minorities were beleaguered by the armed men of a timber concessionaire (the minorities won the case); to Matanao, Davao, where armed men of a pasture land owner (a top government official) let loose their cattle from their corrals and trample and destroy the corn crops of B’laan villagers; to San Marcelino, Zambales to inquire into the killing of two Aetas charged of scavenging for materials in the Subic Naval Base. Lumauig had a heated confrontation with the naval base commander who berated him for entering a security area of the base. Secretary Salvador Mariño, who was present, asked Lumauig to leave, as he would attend to the matter.

In the 1969 congressional elections, the Nacionalista Party drafted him as the official candidate for the Lone District of Ifugao Province, convinced that his helping the cultural minorities would woo the tribes’ vote. True enough, his kababayans elected him overwhelmingly as their representative to the 7th Congress, where he served from January 1969, to the time Martial Law was declared in September 1972.

Of his accomplishments in Congress, his  first bill created the municipality of Aguinaldo in Ifugao.

He served for six years as trade deputy minister under President Ferdinand Marcos.

It must be mentioned that Romulo’s younger brother, Gualberto, was also in government service. He was elected governor and congressman of Ifugao, and also served as Philippine ambassador to Taiwan.

After Romulo left the Ministry of Trade, he went into private practice then joined Fidel V. Ramos in his campaign for the presidency. When Ramos won, Lumauig was a valuable  right-hand man of the president. As head of the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO), he handled all tasks relating to the promotion of the chief executive’s legislative agenda. In 1992, Republic Act 7640 was signed into law, creating the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) for the purpose of institutionalizing the collaboration of the government toward national development, which Lumauig continued to head.

Lumauig encapsulates the country’s economic, social, political, and judicial reforms attained during the Ramos administration in the statement, “The Philippines has definitely caught up and is now at par with the other Asian economies.”

FVR writes of his top executive’s book as “a compelling thoughtful account of one person’s journey in the empowering, often intrigue-filled, even perilous, realm of public service. Such kind of journey continues to attract and fascinate millions of our concerned citizens.”

Lumauig lives a quiet life with his wife, Erlinda Guillermo, a philosophy and letters graduate of Santo Tomas University, and their daughter and her family in La Vista, Quezon City today. Another daughter resides in Eastwood with her family. The eldest son, Romulo Roman lives in Seattle, Washington, and Jesus Victor, in Los Angeles with their families. He finds himself handling law cases, and teaching a couple of law subjects at Bulacan State University.

Lumauig’s “parting shot: “Indeed, while enjoying my retirement years, I still aspire that the conflict between the major lowland ethnic groups and the minor ethnic groups inhabiting the mountainous areas of the Philippines be that which I had seen in my childhood years – the harmony that existed among the Ifugao and the Gaddang. The integration of these groups had its challenges, but it has not been a difficult one to structure if different groups yearn for true, authentic peace.”

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