I am Jonathan Bayogan, a Kankanaey (an Igorot ethno-linguistic tribe) from Western Mountain Province. My parents, Juan (Igorot name-Yagi) and Josephine (Igorot name-Bayngan) are both pure Kankanaeys. My father was the second of ten children of Paulo and Ebay Bayogan. My mother is the youngest of five children of Anoya and Mayang, who both died during the war. My childhood was split between a mining community, which was multi-cultural and individualistic, and a farming community which was family-centered and where everyone can trace his blood relation to everybody.
My adolescent years were spent in the jungles of Manila at the height of student activism and its sudden curtailment when martial law was declared. I saw and got involved in mass actions where we innocently shouted "Ibagsak, makibaka, huwag matakot" and was part of a society that sung "Ang Bagong Lipunan". My college life was uneventful except for being part of a small group of male students (in a sea of female students) who organized a fraternity when it was banned in campuses.
I grew up learning the life philosophy of my grandfather and my father:
1. "Ipapatim tasay matpeg san nemnem" translated as "Do things with passion and you'll never regret it", and
2. "Siya iman di taay" roughly translated as "Be content" - a life philosophy deeply rooted on hard work, patience, simplicity and intimacy to nature and people. I grew and lived both life philosophies.
My father was a farmer from childhood to his teens. He stowed away from home at age 15, just as the war was ending, to work as a farm hand in Santo Tomas, Baguio City. I will never forget his story of owning just a pair of pants and a couple of upper garments at that time. His work clothes were improvisation of jute sacks with holes on one end for the head, and on both sides for both hands.
He then worked as a mine laborer at 20 until he was 52, when he was retrenched from work due to "poor health". He was a classic case of an unwritten company policy of being "too old to work, but too young to die". He went back to his small farm, helped build simple dwellings for 6 of his 8 children, and served in the barangay as kagawad until he met his untimely death in his "river of no return" at age 74.
When I was about to enter college, my father was dismissed from work. On his spare time at work, he collected used, rusty, crooked nails thrown around the company premises, then he straightened and bundled them. When he availed of his 15-day vacation, he brought these nails (about 2 kilograms) outside the premises so he can use them at home. On a routine check-up at the company gate, the guard saw the bundle of nails and he was charged for pilferage. He was dismissed but was reinstated after more than two months after the labor union took the cudgels for him.
My mother is a simple woman. She was still a kid when both her parents died during the war. She grew up with three sisters and a brother who all had to fend for themselves from several small rice paddies in town. She was a teen-aged house helper when my father saw and married her in 1953.
We are eight siblings, born from 1955 (eldest) to 1980 (youngest).
