Balik-Banahaw, balik-loob

When 2010 was coming to an end, I found myself back in Mount Banahaw, my stomping ground and romping place of many years back. Busy schedules, deadlines and the mad rush of living have prevented me from going back regularly to my sanctuary in the protected rainforest of Quezon. I once more went through the pilgrimage route of the lower pwestos or sacred places: Santa Lucia Falls with the twin falls of God the Father and the Virgin’s Hair (Buhok ng Birhen), to Prisintahan’s twin caves of Peter and Paul, and to Jacob’s well (Balon ni Santong Jacob). As I was “doing” the pwestos, my thoughts kept going back to the idea of “kaliwanagan” or the light. I was accompanying some first time visitors along all the pwestos and these were the thoughts coming into my head... of how here I was again, back in the mountain that represents the sacred folk — spirituality of our people and how we are constantly searching for that light, or perhaps I should say, “enlightenment.”

Later as I walked Mount Cristobal, the sister slope of Mount Banahaw, I couldn’t help but think of these two mountains, centers of pilgrimage, both haunts of religious sects and past Katipunan-type societies and groups. Rain was coming, and the strong wind across the mountain top chilled me to the bones. The rawness of nature around me gave a sharp clarity to my thoughts that just kept turning over and over in my mind... when would this light come through in our country’s history? How, after so much time have groups of nationalists, sacrificed and worked so hard to bring forth a people proud and truly free? Dare I say NOW?

You see, Mount Banahaw’s history as a sacred mountain also represented the nationalistic spirit longing to be expressed in freedom. It was home to the so-called rebels against the Spanish colonization. In the mountain where these Filipinos would seek refuge, they would look to find their inner spiritual power through prayer and use of amulets (anting-anting), communed with Nature, kept a community strong, and tried to keep the local and traditional healing rituals alive. Spain called them rebels practicing demonic rituals. The various sects in Mount Banahaw started as various groups of the faithful who walked the mountain in pilgrimage and prayer (the lakaran), led on by a spiritual leader. The Santong Boses or the Holy Voice would often be heard by the leader or group. The Santong Boses would identify the sacredness of the pwesto, and would teach how purification rituals were to be performed. We can trace the roots of the various sects now found in Banahaw from the earlier colorum or people’s walk that worried the Spanish and American regimes as these were popular apprisings. The colorum members stood for their traditional belief systems, worships and practices and for just reforms for the lower class. The lakaran was a process of purifying one’s inner being, one’s kalooban through a pilgrimage, a mission, an ascent — all represented by the physical pilgrimage of Mount Banahaw that parallels the passion and resurrection of Christ.

In his book Pasyon at Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, Reynaldo Ileto writes in depth about these colorum or popular groups, and states the lakaran as a dangerous undertaking for the sheer physical exhaustion involved as one tried to follow the footsteps of Christ. This is about the “straight path” that implies the experience of trials and suffering with serenity, discipline and control of the self. This process begins the search for the “kaliwanagan,” the clarity, the light within and the enlightenment of the mind. The lakaran was all about Light and Brotherhood. And through our history, we have seen how all the points of our revolutions produced martyrs who tried to bring forth this light or truth, that tried to show us the essence of our national soul, our “loob”... and where killed: martyrd priests Gomburza, Rizal, Jacinto, Bonifacio, and in contemporary times, Ninoy Aquino. It was only Cory, the first woman president, who tried to once more bring back the light from the darkness of a dictator, and summoned the lakaran of a peaceful people power.

Ileto writes how “the history of the Filipino people was seen in terms of a lost Eden, the recovery of which demanded the people’s participation in the pasyon of Mother Country.” It was about “the transformation of the loob, a rebirth in a sense of brotherhood and a passage from darkness to light.” Our heroes and intellectuals have written about this direction of transformation — Apolinario Mabini, Emilio Jacinto, Jose Rizal and the Supremo Andres Bonifacio who sought to make it an ideal for the common man through the Katipunan’s tenets.

Maybe I speak in riddles for many of my readers — but let me try to explain. Within each and everyone of us is that shared sense of being a Filipino. This is our kalooban. Here we have our shared cultural values (bayanihan and volunteerism, goodness of heart to name a few) that we should seek to always bring to a higher plane, towards the Light, guided by the Light. The Light of Day, Daylight. The light of clarity. It is transparent, pure. The imagery of “light” has always been used through our history. Our path as a people has always been about transformation per our struggles, challenges, pain, our “pasyon”... seeking to bring out our nationalistic soul, our pride in our race, in ourselves as a people. To bring this to light. Beyond just the personal need towards the national good. Away from selfishness, greed, self-serving acts and hardness of heart that corrupts the “loob”, to honesty, transparency, courage and moral transformation. When we all can understand our nation’s redemptive struggles as a sacred mission, that each and everyone of us has a part in creating a change on the spiritual and moral fiber of our country, then we will begin to truly see unity and progress. This can only bring positive results on the areas of economic and social reforms.

The leader we now have embodies these ideals: of honesty, transparency, of fighting the imbalance of poverty and corruption, who seeks the common good from the honesty of his own heart. He will not be able to do this alone as he repeatedly said during the campaign until he moved into his own “Calvary” to assume the post. We all are part of this storyline. It’s something very personal. Yet it’s also very community bound, and group bound, and nation bound. From our inner change, outer positive action can only be expressed.

Drenched, chilling and tired after the rainy walk on Mount Cristobal, I returned to Mount Banahaw, cleansed, rejuvenated and peaceful. Yes, I dare say NOW is the time we can truly shift to a different level as a people united. From our own inner change to outer positive action.