Abaca, the fiber of life of Catandunganons, played an important role during the Liberation of Virac from the Japanese 81 years ago, which we commemorated last February 8. On February 2, 1945, the consolidated guerrilla forces under Maj Salvador Rodolfo launched the siege meant to deliver the final blow on the Japanese forces garrisoned at the old municipal building in Virac. In their march from Tilod in Baras to the target area in the capital town, the second most important crop of Catanduanes, coconut that is, played a strategic role. According to oral accounts, Rodolfo had the guerrillas carry bogus rifles fashioned from branches of coconut fronds called pallua in order to fool the Japanese who would have been spying from their mountain lair in Batalay, making them think that their enemies were well armed.
By the next morning, the liberation forces had encircled the enemy position from all sides except the seafront. Engagement ensued for four days but without any of the two parties getting the upper hand. On the fifth day, February 7, Rodolfo called his war council to a meeting and discussed the situation. It happened then that the major agricultural product of Catanduanes, the ever-reliable abaca, can be the crucial strategic tool to spell victory. A guerrilla named Mauricio Tacorda thought out the brilliant idea that the commodity that provided livelihood to Catanduanganons in peace can well save them in war. They took no time to gather as much abaca they could. The abaca traders in town, big and small, were only too willing to empty their storehouses of their inventories.
The abaca fiber were bundled into large bales and were positioned along the line of fire from the guerrilla fronts. Then they used it as cover for advancing guerillas who rolled the bales as the moved towards the Japanese garrison. As soon as the bales were close enough, they doused them with petrol and lit them. In time, the fire burnt the garrison building itself, gutting everything including their occupants, both enemy soldiers and prisoners. In the early morning of February 8, even as the old municipal building was still smoldering, the parish church across sounded the bells in jubilant pealing to announce the liberation of Virac.
History of the abaca industry in Catanduanes
But abaca had figured out prominently almost half-a-century earlier in another war, in 1898 during the Philippine Revolution, albeit in quite the opposite sense. It prevented the activation of war, at least in Catanduanes. According to historian Norman Owen, due to the abaca economic boom in Bicol during the last half of the Spanish era, revolutionary fervor did not take deep root among the Bicolanos. People who were enjoying relative economic well-being would not be in the mood to rise up in arms against government. And so were the Catandunganons cold to the call to fight for independence, they who for the first time in three centuries experienced some uplift of their lot courtesy of the abaca bonanza. It happened therefore that the Spanish regime ended in Catanduanes with hardly a whimper. As soon as the handful of Spaniards in Virac got notice that their colonial rule was over, they hurriedly took a boat on September 18, 1898, bound for mainland Bikol, leaving behind the local folk bewildered as to what to do now with new-found freedom.
Early Spanish chroniclers at the point of contact have noted that abaca was endemic in Catanduanes. Since pre-colonial times therefore, the Catanduanganons have cultivated and used abaca for a variety of purposes. By the first decades of the 19th century, the Catanduanganons started to get more economic premiums from abaca. This was due to at least two factors, namely: first, the decline of the Moro raids that had been pestering for over a hundred years; and second, the opening of the Philippines to world trade in 1815 where foreign ventures were allowed to set up businesses in the colony. Abaca became such a most in-demand cash crop that towards the turn of the 20th century, Bikol was among the most prosperous regions.
So Catanduanes took a fair share of the abaca boom. When the Americans took over in 1900, among the first things they did was to secure three commercial posts in the island namely that of Virac, Bato and Pandan in order to sustain the momentum of the abaca trade. The 1908 annual report to the Philippine Commission by Felipe Usero, Lieutenant Governor of the Subprovince of Catanduanes, took much space in discussions of the state of the abaca industry in the island. He reported that there were three big commercial houses in Virac that controlled the abaca trade but whose principals were based outside the island. But the Chinese too were engaged in the trade. These three and the Chinese also were also into the buy-and-sell of copra, the second most important agricultural product, even while they too managed the import of basic commodities such as rice, salt, garments, etc. In short, these cohort of business enterprises, “foreigners,” according to Usero, controlled the Catandunganon economy.
It appears that the peak of the abaca boom happened during the tail-end of the Spanish period. In Usero’s annual report, he complained that during his time abaca prices had progressively gone down from the levels a decade ago. He blamed it to the scheming of the “foreigners” which he called “usurious” (he must have meant “manipulative”). Such trend of abaca’s decline continued way into the next decades. From the records of the Supreme Court, we found a case of libel filed against Eustaquio Joson et al. in 1927 by the incumbent lieutenant governor and representative, for purportedly accusing them through posters displayed in public of being the cause of the low buying prices of abaca and high prices of imported rice.
By all indications, abaca never recovered its former glory. The Bikol region devolved into economic decline. Albay particularly, from being most prosperous at the break of the century, would later join the ranks of the poorer bracket of provinces in the Philippines. And Catanduanes couldn’t have performed better. It remained just too dependent on abaca. In an earlier 1905 report to the Philippine Commission by the governor of Albay, Catanduanes was described as “one large lati planted to abaca.” Its rugged topography could only hold abaca trees and wilderness of forests. In later years, abaca production would be supplemented by large scale logging, which contributed to the overall economic blight.
According to Norman Owen, the fate of Bikol vis-à-vis abaca was a case of “prosperity without progress.” While the abaca production in the region became commercialized and hooked to a lucrative international market, there was failure to put up “developmental foundations” whereby gains from the abaca industry could have been used to build up the system that can sustain steady growth of the broad economy. Owen added that such is the typical fate of third world political economies that develops too dependently on the first world.
Catanduanes: Abaca Capital
On April 15, 2022 Catanduanes was declared as “Abaca Capital of the Philippines” by virtue of legislation. And why not? The province had become the largest contributor to the country’s output which supplies some 87% of the world market. But this claim to fame must be contextualized. It was made possible because the other major abaca-producing provinces have since shifted to other products as demand for the commodity plummeted through time. It was that Catanduanes, having continued its dependence on abaca, has come to corner a big share of a dwindling market.
Recent years have seen the critical drop in the buying prices of abaca to such levels that saw storehouses of traders almost empty. Farmers and strippers left the fields and their homes for Manila to seek alternative livelihood. In the midst of all that, the provincial LGU, the tourism office particularly, had been staging the annual Abaca Festival that had gone more flamboyant and extravagant in reverse proportion to the health of the abaca industry. Perhaps a valiant (and vain) attempt to resuscitate the industry, but the measure was more to attract tourists than to solve the problem.
So, what to do with our premier industry? Surely, it is worth saving; Catanduanes has gained almost to itself a market niche, albeit a shrinking and unstable one. For another thing there is a whole socio-cultural way of life around the abaca that has come to define our collective identity. It had become an aspect of heritage. But since it is about economics, it needs serious wrecking of brains to fix. It may be maintained only side by side with plan to diversify and break away from dependence on one commodity. CATANDUANES HAS TO REINVENT ITSELF.
Meanwhile, the plight of the people dependent on abaca must be top priority; it is about sheer survival of the big majority of Catandunganons (about 60%). Indeed, the sitting governor won by a promise, among other things, to uplift the life of the abacaleros. More than half a year into his term, what has been done along this line? Does abaca figure out in the current flurry of high profile (if indeed controversial) government undertakings? Do the abacaleros get the urgent attention they need now?
So abaca played pivotal role in our lives, in war and in peace. At present, we are at a crossroads as to what to do with the fledging abaca industry. We might as well be in another sort of war: one against hunger. One thing to bear in mind: the abacaleros are not just one more sector to consider; they are THE folk that largely define our collective lot. Abaca remains to be the determinant of our economy. Our growth depends on the abaca industry gaining health. On this matter, there are a couple of things to remind ourselves: firstly, genuine economic growth is production-driven and equitable distribution of premiums; so no more additional LCCs, they are only illusory indications of progress. Secondly, our efforts must go beyond flamboyant, festive, romantic but token tributes to the nobility of abaca.
If we cannot fix the industry to a sustainable level, we might as well give it up and move towards a transition to alternative sources. Can we imagine an abaca-less Catanduanes? Can we live with a de-abacanized island of our affections?