Arid land

Arid land

Berto saw it on the third day of the second week of November. In the previous years, starting October, their rice fields would be full of water that sometimes went up a few inches below his knees. But on that day, the field was simply dry, as if the land had sucked up all traces of water. The stalks of rice that began to show some grains looked deprived and hungry. A farmer since his birth, he knew he had a big problem. He would have very little harvest in December.

“Lagring, you’ve been to Lando’s rice field yesterday. How is it?” Berto asked his wife. She would often visit her brother’s farm nearby, chat with his wife Lucrecia when there was not much to do in Sityo Catubig..

“It’s the same. So is the farm of Siloy that’s closer to the irrigation system. There’s no water in that system anymore. Probably that old diversion canal you made last year needs repair.”

“Yes, yes. Probably.” He nodded his head.

“I’ll talk to Siloy and pass by Lando on my way here. We’ll inspect the canal,” he added.

“Don’t stay long. It’s almost lunch time. I’m hungry. Why don’t you pass by Lando now so the three of you can inspect the canal?”

“Okay,” he said as he left. He could feel the assertive woman in his wife in situations like this. Like most farmers’ wives in Catubig, these women felt the problems facing their husbands deeply.

Berto’s two-hectare rice field used to be deep green in November before it turned golden in December during the harvest season. Now patches of yellow were all over, the signs of starving rice stalks that starved of water.

Lando’s adjacent fields showed the same signs. The younger brother of his wife was chopping wood when Berto arrived and told him he was going to Siloy’s place so they can inspect the irrigation canal they had constructed.

“We’re done. There will be crisis in December, I can see that,” Lando said with resignation. It was evident in the sad tone of his voice, like someone dear had passed away to the afterlife.

“What do you think is happening? This has never happened to us in years, even when the canal broke, the water did not disappear.”

“We will see.” Berto sensed the change in Lando. The man used to have a cheerful disposition. Now he had become sullen, with hunger staring at them in the face.

The two were silent most of the way to Siloy, a good ten minutes walk from Lando’s place. Siloy was busy fixing his mechanized hand tiller, a machine used for the final phase of tillage. The forced drought had put it out of commission.

“Siloy, maybe we should inspect the canal. Something is wrong with our irrigation,” said Berto.

“I’ve been there just yesterday. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s just no water,” said Siloy.

The two gave him puzzled looks.

“Yes, no water. Water’s gone.”

“You mean the river no longer reaches our canal?” Berto asked.

“That’s right. That’s why I went farther upstream. That’s where the problem is. There’s a big sand extraction going on upstream that’s causing the water level to go down.”

“The sand extraction of Solid Rock Company?” Lando asked.

“What else. Remember the petition we wrote last year before their business started? Nothing happened to that. Government people would not read it. They just told us we should be glad we’re making money from this river. Now our fears are justified,” Siloy said.

“I remember signing it. I thought it was just one of those things,” Berto said, shaking his head. He knew letters from farmers from Sityo Catubig were not read. He had signed similar letters before, and sometimes they heard a lot of promises to do this and that. But things were unchanged afterwards.

“So what do we do now?” asked Berto.

“I really don’t know. I’m confused. There are a lot of problems coming. I’m just keeping my hands busy to take my mind off these things. I’ll go crazy if I keep on thinking about them. Anyway, when I’m in bed, these things come to my head.”

“How about another petition?” said Berto.

“I don’t know if that’s going to work. It has not worked before. Why should it work now? Solid Rock is too powerful and has lots of connections from the governor, members of the board, the mayor, to the environment office. It has lots of money to pay for inaction,” said Siloy with bitterness.

Siloy was probably right, thought Berto. But if they did nothing, they would have nothing to eat after December. They would starve. Lando looked pensive but he was silent. He just shook his head. He had that faraway look that seemed to indicate a troubled mind.

But Berto was not ready to give up. He wanted to write another letter.

He and Lando walked back home in silence, each filled with his own thoughts. Lando had two daughters who were both in the elementary years. Probably he worried about them.

The food that Lagring cooked was still warm when he arrived. She had set their plastic plates, rice and vegetables flavoured by dried fish on the rectangular wooden table, made of roughly finished thick lumber slabs. There were two long benches that took their places at the opposite sides of the table that could fit three adults on each side. He told Lagring about Siloy’s findings.

“That’s what I had suspected. Water does not disappear on its own,” she said.

“I plan to write the mayor about it,” he told his wife.

“For what? For the mayor to stop Solid Rock? He won’t lift a finger, I tell you.”

“Well, let’s just try. It’s better than not doing anything,” Berto insisted.

She just shrugged her shoulders. Probably she did not want to waste time arguing with him. It never amounted to anything because in the end, they always ended up arguing. Her wife had that stubborn streak that Berto found difficult to tame.

He would ask their fourth year high school Melissa to compose the letter in the vernacular, he thought. Their eldest child had surprised her parents with a silver medal in her third year high school. That girl had promise - until early this year when the rice stalks were still showing signs of a good harvest.

When Melissa reached home from school late in the afternoon, Berto told her to sit at the table and be ready with a pen and paper. She was going to write a letter to the mayor. She looked at him puzzled.

Then he explained. Now she really looked worried. She probably suspected its consequences on her schooling. Last year, she entertained the idea of going to a public university in the next town, but their situation now made all that almost an impossible dream. She had to be ready to face a dark future. Poor girl, Berto thought.

Now her father entrusted her to she had to compose the best letter of her life. Her future might have to depend on that. She began to write.

“Dear Mayor Esteban,

Greetings from the farmers of Sityo Catubig!

You probably are surprised at receiving this letter from your humble constituent. But you see, sir, our lives are imperilled because a big business undertaking, the Solid Rock Company, has undertaken activities that are adversely affecting our farms. Because of their constant extraction of sand and gravel upstream, we can no longer derive irrigation water for our rice fields, causing our plants to wilt and die. Naturally, we will not be able to harvest rice this December and we might starve and die because of that.

We are thus appealing to your good office to please stop this extraction now to allow our rice plants to recover and save us from certain starvation. We know you are a good man, Mayor Esteban, and a good father to his constituents. To be sure, you will not permit your constituents to suffer starvation because of the wanton destructive acts of a single company.

Thank you, kind sir.

Sincerely,

Eriberto Bustillo and family”

She had to write several drafts before making a final draft in her handwriting. Berto thought that a person’s handwriting carried more weight than a computer-encoded letter.

Her younger brother, Rey was reading over her shoulders. He was in second year high school, was decidedly more intelligent than his sister, but unconcerned about medals and school honors. His interests went beyond school activities. In the petition circulated by Siloy months ago, Rey had urged his father to sign it and had attended the gathering of farmers at the mayor’s office, skipping his classes.

“Tatay, I’ll come with you to the mayor to deliver this letter.” He said.

Berto looked at the boy. Already he was speaking like one of the adults in the family. His voice was forceful, serious. He had often heard him talk about the problems of Siloy, Lando and the other farmers in Catubig like he knew the details of each one. He probably knew about the Solid Rock Company but was just keeping his mouth shut. Berto had seen his son a few times in the past months going upstream past the extraction area to the mountain beyond, ostensibly to collect rare orchids. He would be gone for hours and would return with his orchids.

When asked where he went to, he would say he went mountain climbing with friends. But he had not seen any of his classmates or schoolmates passing by their hut. Berto could sense his boy was keeping secrets.

“You have classes, Rey. I’ll go alone.”

“No, Tatay. This is more important than my classes. Anyway, there is not much to learn from my teachers. The lessons are boring and repetitive. I’m coming with you, Tatay.”

He was forceful like his mother, thought Berto. He could reason out for himself.

“Alright. We’re going early tomorrow morning.”

“Tatay, can I come along too?” Melissa begged. “I wrote this letter, didn’t I?”

“Alright,” Berto said after some thought. Maybe it was about time that his children learned about the realities of their life and understood the problems that confronted them.

Berto came in his favourite black pants, chequered shirt and rubber shoes, but his two children were in the informal get-ups typical of their generation. The mayor’s office occupied the eastern corner of the new municipal building built during his second term. The whole structure was rumoured to have cost a little more than 40 million pesos, although his political opponents would swear it was twice that amount. But nobody could say for sure except the mayor and his friends in the construction industry who kept the figures to themselves. Investigations by the audit office yielded nothing, claiming everything was in order.

The office had three major sections: the visitors’ lounge, the executive’s office and a small conference room where secret meetings took place unseen, unrecorded. Mayor Esteban himself insisted on the eastern section of the building on the second floor because that was in accordance with good feng shui. It was for good luck and good fortune, he was told. True enough, good fortune smiled on him when big companies like Solid Rock located their extraction site and crushing plant at the Paniki River a year ago. Many other manufacturing concerns that took interest in abaca pulp processing were in the process of putting up their establishments in good old San Sebastian town.

On Thursdays, he did not have many visitors. Berto and his brood were in luck that day. Their letter was the fourth communication that the mayor was going to read. In the meantime, they were to wait outside at the visitors’ lounge in air-conditioning comfort. Berto only felt uneasy about it. It felt like the machine was sucking his skin dry. He would have felt more comfortable with an electric fan which kept the air moving around. But the device had been discarded with the old building or used in the government’s field offices. San Sebastian’s new town hall didn’t use them anymore.

“Eriberto Bustillos,” the mayor’s secretary called.

Berto stood up and motioned for his two children to go with him. The mayor’s room was cooler than the visitors’ lounge, which only caused Berto to be nervous. The mayor was a big man with a large voice. He was dressed in a cream-colored barong tagalog and his hair was neatly combed, but he had a balding forehead and thinning hair in the middle part of his head. His features belonged to the older generation of the Sanvictores clan that had descended from a Spanish ancestry. It was said that his ancestors were the town’s earliest settlers, which partly explained his ownership of some of the choice lots in San Sebastian,

“Sit down, Eriberto,” the mayor said.

“This letter is unlike the others I have read. First, it’s handwritten and then it’s very personal. Come, tell me, what’s your problem out there?” the mayor continued.

“Mayor, our rice fields have dried up and it’s causing our plants to die. The way it is now, we will not be able to harvest next month.”

“This was the same complaint written by farmers also from your sityo about a month ago. I have discussed this with the members of the council but they said industrial extraction permits are given by the province, the office of the governor, not by us. Let me try to make a representation with the governor’s office. On Monday I will be going to the capital. I’ll probably see him. I’ll talk to him about this.”

“Thank you, mayor. Do you want us to return next week?”

“No, no. Just wait at your farms. I’ll send somebody over if anything happens.“

“Thank you, mayor.” Berto and his children stood up and hurriedly left the room. He wanted to tell the mayor about the other problems caused by the extraction but his mouth seemed frozen by the air-conditioning. He was tongue-tied or maybe just overwhelmed.

Lagring did not seem happy with the outcome of Berto and the children’s visit to the mayor’s office. The opposite was true. She saw hypocrisy in the mayor’s promise to see the governor, a promise which he made earlier to a petition of Siloy and the other farmers.

“He’s a liar,” Lagring said. “It is true that the industrial extraction permit is issued by the governor’s office, but it is the mayor who issues the business permit. He can easily cancel it if he wants to.”

“And that’s the problem. He doesn’t want to,” she added.

“Well, let’s just see until Tuesday. If nobody comes here from the mayor’s office, then that’s it. He’s just playing with us,” said Berto.

“Haaay, Berto. Stop dreaming. What will he get from us? A handful of votes? While he can easily be getting thousands of pesos from Solid Rock.”

The two children listened during the exchange of arguments of their parents. Rey was silent and did not change his seriousness, but he listened keenly. Berto had four days to wait counting until Tuesday. After that, he did not know what to do.

Melissa was his main concern for she was graduating. That was still four months to go. He estimated the harvest in December would not last them more than a month. He would have to find a job, or maybe Lagring, to keep the children in school. Without water, the land could probably be planted to other crops, maybe corn or cassava or vegetables. They had always planted rice and did not know other crop technologies.

It was not time to despair. It was time to think. Time to make survival plans.

That night after supper, Melissa brought up the subject of her schooling, and asked if it was still important for her to graduate.

“Of course, it’s important,” said Berto.

“But what’s the point when I won’t be able to go to college anymore?”

“Well, at least you will have finished high school.”

“Tatay, at the moment what is important is that we survive this crisis. I can always go back to school if it’s really that necessary.”

“Why, what do you intend to do?” Lagring butted in.

“I can work. I’m 18.”

“No, no. Finish your high school. Let us do the working,” said Berto.

“Tatay, it’s useless. I cannot concentrate on my lessons anymore just thinking where our next meal will be coming from. I will still fail and won’t be able to graduate.”

Berto thought her daughter was right. But he still could not get over the thought that her daughter could not finish her high school because of the problems in the farm.

“Are you serious about this, Melissa?” asked Lagring.

“Nanay, you know very well that I am. I have never been more serious. Let me help us survive this crisis.”

“Well, if that’s the case, you can start looking for work on Monday,” said Berto, in resignation. .

Melissa smiled for the first time that day. At 18, she was ready to face the world and its challenges. Berto felt a tinge of pride for her daughter. He thought the act was heroic, no less.

When Monday came, Melissa was up early, took a bath with water impounded from rain, ate her breakfast and left after asking money for her fare to the neighboring town eight kilometres away. She said she was applying as a sales lady at the mall and taking the exams the management was giving that morning. She had folded her school uniforms the day before and kept these in the deepest part of her trunk of clothes.

But Rey was nowhere to be seen. He was supposed to go to school today but he left early and did not eat his breakfast, muttering he was seeing a classmate early. But his notebooks were still on top of a small cabinet where he usually kept them. Apparently, he had also brought some extra clothes along, but he did not say where he was going.

“Berto, did Rey tell you where he was going? Isn’t he supposed to be in school today?”

“That’s right. But he never said anything. He just took off.” He shook his head and was puzzled. But he had his suspicions which he dared not talk to Lagring about it yet. The boy kept his thoughts to himself. On some occasions though, he allowed his father to have a glimpse of what he thought. He did not want to alarm Lagring. She would be raging mad and swearing to high heavens if she had but an inkling on what his son was up to these days.

“Probably they are just working on a school project. He said so last Friday,” he lied, hoping to pacify Lagring.

“What project? He never mentioned any project.”

“Not to you but to me he did. It had to do with a school play. They would be practicing every night. That’s probably why he brought some clothes along.”

Lagring would not be pacified, he could see. Her forehead was knotted.

Tuesday came. The day the mayor promised to send somebody to their farm. Late in the afternoon, there was no shadow of anyone from the mayor’s office. Lagring was right. The mayor had lied. There was no point on raising his hopes on his promise anymore, no hope for the extraction activity to stop.

He went to Lando and then they went to Siloy again.

“You were right, Siloy. We can’t trust the mayor. We have to solve this problem ourselves,” Berto said.

Siloy looked at him, then at Lando.

“It’s that company or us,” Siloy said after a few seconds.

“Keep this to yourselves. We can’t trust everyone these days. The mayor has his own eyes and ears. We’ll have to ask the help of some people. People we trust. People like us who have vowed not to take things sitting down. There’s no other way.”

Berto pressed Siloy’s arm and clenched his left fist. Lando appeared to have lost that faraway look and his gaze became more steady. Siloy took their hands in a firm handclasp, nodding his head. The pact was sealed in silence.

It happened a week later. It was Siloy who brought the news. Two trucks of Solid Rock were burned down, while a backhoe that was being used to extract sand and gravel from the riverbed was no longer serviceable. The engine refused to move and several spare parts were missing. Its personnel were told to go home by heavily armed men and never to return. Their living quarters were also torched. According to Siloy, the men of Solid Rock were jittery when they passed by his house, carrying with them their beddings and other provisions. They had no desire of returning. They did not want to risk their lives, they said.

Both Berrto and Lando looked at each other, shaking their heads. Lagring was silent for once. She reserved her comments to herself.

Two days after the incident, Rey showed up in their kitchen, looking for food. He said he was hungry.

.