Hidden
in the vastness of the Philippine Cordillera Mountains is a stairway to heaven,
dubbed by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) as the 8th wonder of the world. It is an engineering feat unmatched in
the world and as mysterious in how it was constructed as the great pyramids of
Egypt.
The
stairways, however, are crumbling, no thanks to modern man’s folly.
Known
as the Banaue Rice Terraces, the terraces lie at an altitude of more than 1500
meters and, if connected, can span 2,000 miles. Not even the American Society of
Civil Engineers (ASCE) can explain how, in year 1000 B.C., such an engineering
ingenuity could have been constructed without the help of modern tools and
equipment.
The
ASCE commemorated the terraces in February 17, 1997 as an International
Historical Engineering Landmark. It reasoned that, “The civil engineering
principles of hydrology, sustainable development and efficient use of water
sources and irrigation are all embodied in the careful design of this remarkable
ancestral land management program that has never been rivaled.”
The
terraces were built and maintained by the sturdy indigenous people, the Ifugaos
(current population less than 350,000). The oldest and most extensive rice
terraces in the world, it rearranged part of the Grand Cordillera Mountain Range
of the country from bedrock to topsoil.
The
terraces are pond fields set along the mountainsides with stone retaining walls
that serve as dikes and walkways. The system brings forest water from 1800
meters high down to the lowest tiers.
The
terraces are bordered by sturdy stone and mud walls that can reach as high as 20
feet and are constructed along the land’s natural contours. When one terrace
was completed, the process was repeated from valley floor to mountain peak.
How
the Terraces Were Constructed
Incredible
skill and ingenuity were employed by the Ifugaos in the productive treatment of
water, soil, rock and stone as well as the use of flora and fauna, hand
implements and human labor.
Harold
C. Conklin, in his Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao (Yale University Press),
explained that the Ifugaos have the uncanny knack of transforming and
transporting any form of rock, soil and water. “For hundreds of years, Ifugaos
have diverted stream water for irrigation up to five to six kilometers. Using
the stream’s current and sheer manpower, they rolled stones and small boulders
from mountaintops and formed these as rock walls to hold mountainsides and
create rice terraces.”
Boulders
too large to be rolled by hand with the help of water currents were broken down
into smaller pieces. Below the mountaintops, valley slopes and ridges were
reshaped by hand and well-maintained ponds were created, Conklin explained.
The
Ifugaos’ ancient terraces consist of four visible parts: a plot of inundated
enclosure (bawang) rimmed on the outer edge by low retaining dikes or
bunds called banong, and surrounded by artificial or natural slopes below
the dike on the downhill side (longyah) and by slopes rising from the
inner flooded area on the uphill side (loba).
The
terraces’ edges are marked with stones laid across a concave slope, backed by
heavy broken fill to withstand the weight of water in the pond. To allow for
proper drainage, an underground drainage conduit kept free from gravel and silt
by means of bundled sugar cane trunks protected by flat rocks were
systematically built on the sides of the terraces. The same conduit provides
water for the terraces further below the descending terraces.
“Ifugaos,
unknowingly, were crafty masters of engineering, practicing the principles of
civil engineering for thousands of years with not much more than their hands,
feet and primitive tools,” Conklin recounted.
The
height of each terrace in Banaue is from 12 to 20 feet with some reaching as
high as 50 feet. At every terrace, a layer of hard-packed earth was laid on top
of the rough gravel fill. This tamped, smoothed horizontal terrace provided
material for the first layer of earth covered for the top of the wall. Finally,
clay was used as topsoil and spread over the terrace bed at 50 cm thick.
Conklin
explained that the surface of the terraces is made to tilt slightly downward
towards the wall and not the embankment to safeguard against loss of water and
mudfish that are normally raised together with rice and yam. Mud and clay are
also pasted within the inner side of the embankments to prevent water seepage.
All
terraces have one water inlet and one outlet. To prevent clogging, each terrace
has a second outlet one foot above the first outlet. Conklin writes that, “by
steady annual cutting, filling, damming and repair work, Ifugao farmers greatly
strengthened and improved their pond-field holdings. It involved heavy work over
many seasons and even generations.”
John
Fowler’s web page entitled, “The Ifugao: A Mountain People of the
Philippines” says the Ifugao’s unique understanding of hydraulic technology
and excellent stonemasonry skills by the simplest hand tools has enabled them to
create the world’s most extraordinary system of rice terracing.
The
Ifugaos employed agricultural engineering, perhaps as old as that of the Incas
and the Mayas. This is evident by the snaking ingenious stone line channels and
hollow logs and bamboo aqueducts used to transport water from several miles
across canyons and chasms around mountainsides.
“For
countless years, hydraulic control and prevention of excessive run-off and
erosion, the Ifugaos were able to preserve their watersheds and forest cover,
something unparalleled over the course of history,” Fowler said.
Cash
Mentality Wreaks Havoc
While
the terraces have withstood the wrath of adverse weather conditions for hundreds
of years including the Second World War that tragically affected the Ifugao,
they are now facing a threat that in itself was the reason for their
creation—poverty.
Regional
Director Faustino K. Maslan of the Department of Agriculture warned “the
terraces are slowly being eroded due to cash crop cultivation: a practice
harmful to the ecological balance that produced rice for food security and kept
the forests intact.”
“Many
Ifugao farmers are shifting to vegetable production which promises more income
in a short time compared to rice which takes six months to grow and offers less
market value,” he added.
As
it is, poverty prevails in this province of 320,000 people, which is recorded by
the government as being one of the twenty poorest provinces in the country.
“In this land, where creeping poverty is faster than rural development
efforts, farmers are left with no choice but to turn their once tourism-valued
terraces into lands for farming livelihood,” said Maslan.
Indeed,
since 1947, the terraces captured the imagination of tourists worldwide who
yearly flocked to the Philippines to get a glimpse of the so-called “eighth
wonder of the world”. The terraces are spectacular, particularly after rice is
planted where a long spiraling green meadow covers the mountainsides, and also
before harvest time during sunset when golden rice spikes cover the towering
mountainsides.
“Nowhere
have I seen such a magnificent live splendor. Most of the old wonders of the
world are unmoving, dead and ancient monuments like the Pyramids, Taj Mahal,
Borobudor, Angkor Wat and the Incan civilization,” Dr. James. K Masterton
wrote in his fascinating book Capturing the Asian World through History
in 1975.
Pesticides
Bring Giant Crickets and Worms
Foreign
tourists have contributed much to the province’s coffers until 1988 when
Maoist rebels of the New Peoples Army (NPA) made it dangerous for tourists to
travel. Today, tourism has picked up but many are dismayed by what they see.
In
1993, government provincial officials made an ocular survey of the terraces and
found that almost half of the terraces were deteriorating due to erosion,
neglect and soil run-off .
What
followed was more catastrophic because not only were factors of nature
contributing to the degradation but also men’s activities. The aggravation of
the terraces was observed when giant mole crickets were discovered gnawing away
through the mudpacks that prevented water seepage. Mysteriously, this was
followed by the presence of large earthworms that bore through many of the
dikes.
Agriculturists
such as George Facsoy of the environmental group Igorot Tribal Assistance Group
(ITAG) suspect the entry of pesticides used by vegetable farmers has caused a
shift in the natural food chain in the area causing the appearance of pests
previously unseen in this region.
“When
you eliminate rice and replace it with other crops, obviously the harmful and
beneficial insects of rice are eliminated. What you will have are other insects
brought about by exotic crops which may not have natural enemies in the
locality; such is pest regeneration,” Facsoy claims.
Department
of Agriculture officials tend to agree. Deogracias Buenaventura, former
provincial head of the agency said, “Chemicals used by vegetable farmers who
were once rice growers may have an effect on the earthworms and mole crickets.
As it is, mutation of insect species is caused largely by chemicals, obviously
referring to the giant mole crickets and earthworms”, he added.
The
problem has caused the government to establish the Ifugao Rice Terraces
Commission (ITC) aimed at rehabilitating the terraces and bringing back rice
farming into the terraces.
The
then-President Fidel V. Ramos created the Commission by virtue of the Executive
Order No. 158. The ITC formulated long-term and short-term plans for the
restoration and preservation of the Rice Terraces.
However,
since there was no government agency directly involved in the rehabilitation of
the terraces and there was no funding, the Commission was abolished.
Today,
UNESCO warns it may remove the terraces from its World Heritage List because not
much is being done to save the terraces. The International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also warns that if the ongoing destruction of the
terraces is not arrested, widespread damage may be irreversible.
Michael
A. Bengwayan
has a Masters Degree and Ph.D. in Development
Studies and Environmental Resource Management from University College
Dublin, Ireland as a European Union Fellow. He writes for the British
Gemini News Service, New York ’s Earth Times and the Environmental News
Service. He is currently a Fellow of Echoing Green Foundation, New
York, New York, USA. Your emails
will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islamonline.net.
