The Guinayangan Republic

Crops for "palitan" sa prinza

By now, some Internet savvies here know the site Sulit.com.ph and buy and sell swapping corners. Others perhaps are adept in swapping fairly or profitably with goods and stuffs. Weather you swap or doing it for fun, or making it as way of throwing things you don't need in place of more valuable and interesting gadgets, it is still came from old way of doing it. Barter or bartering.



Daing na Kalaso

I found that if you love blogging, and you cited nice information and excerpts something from it, you will always bring it to shareable thoughts, hoping it could benefit others. Either for plain fun, or just a mere passion from it. I was telling my sister the other day to send me dried fish or dried squid or whatever kind denizens of our sea. Since I’d been longing for it, when my nephew returns to our town, I asked him for it. Hoping I could make him refrain from busy school days, to relax a bit and attend Manlayo Fiesta. Thankfully he did. I open up the package right away and smell the awful rare scent of “Daing na Kalaso”.I was suddenly fondled by idea and out-of nowhere the scent infused me to remember the “Palitan, sa Prinza”. When you were a kid every little thing was kept in your memory. It only needs a certain triggers to bring it up. Sometimes, recollecting something and blogging makes other reader evaluate how old you are. In my case I am afraid that “Barter sa Prinza” is a thing of the past or still a mainstream of daily lives of people from Guinayangan. That makes me a bit odd telling unrelated events of stories


Prinza overlay from Google Earth Satellite photo, several houses now occupying the once "Palitan" trading field


During the 80s , every Saturday my sister Aileen packed these “Daing na Kalaso, and other Dried things from my father's small “Tuyuan”. I wasn’t really care about what she had been busied for that day. I was having a wonderful time with our "just had puppies" dog, I was busy counting puppies, identifying spots and unique marks on their body, I was thinking I could name them when they grew up. When suddenly the other brown puppy moved away from breast feeding session. And rushed away to my Sisters busy area of packing these Dried fish. Perhaps the puppy had irritated his nose with the smell of “Daing” . Annoyed and irked by its presence, biting and pulling newspapers that my sister use for packaging. My sister said “Do you know you can be barter for sack of banana or cassava?” as she was gesturing a finger to my little puppy. Or a “balde”(6 gantas) of corn, “You love corn don’t you?” My sister asked me. I became interested.”Oh that’s cool!” I love my puppy but I feel bad about my dog as I carefully made a box with vented holes to made him breath for he has a whole night to stay there. I was sleepless(not from his constant barking) and felt sorry for the puppy. He would be bartered, Oh no!

And so the following morning we rode a tricycle and off at the corner of Prinza street. Did I tell you it’s a busy day. Lots of people was rushing thru the foot of that hill looming ahead of us. So we briskly walked while I was holding the box of puppy. As we passed the last house on the street. It was a beautiful site. Just like a trading ground of all things I don’t know the exact size of the trading field but with my eyes remembered its almost occupied the foot of the hill (see my google map) . And we bartered , My sisters has extra sacks for the “Palit” it will be a busy morning I said, I was thrilled of how much traded crops we could take home with a basket of dried fish and (oh no, my Puppy). From 8 am to 11 am we bartered like real traders. I remember few pieces of dried “kalaso” bartered to a basketfull of cassava. Oh that was great. A kilo of dried squid for about half a sack of sweet potatoes. ’Couldnt be happier. Dried fish is fully traded, and the final items for barter my poor puppy. I remember a group of Aetas seemed no one was trading with them with their odd looking features inhibit them from good barter peer exchanges. I don’t mind them at all, my sister said lets go toward them," Do you know that we can trade with them nicely, better than everyone else around?"" "Oh really?" and off we went in their directions . I cant remember how my sister bartered with them I was turn-about giving farewell to my puppy, peeking through vented holes of the box. In the corner of my eyes I saw a successful bartering between them and my sisters, with the Aetas smiling revealing their browned teeth colored by constant chewing of “nga-nga”. I handed over them my puppy sobbing and teary eyes. I asked my sister so what do we have in place of him (wiping my eyes). She’s pointing to 5 sacks of corns. Wow. This is great. Are they nuts? (laughing), somehow my young emotions abruptly switched to enthusiasm,that was so many bunch of corns!.What do we do with that bunch of corn?. And we go home like swanky successful traders. In the afternoon we grilled the corns and boiled some of them and eventually sold them to Manlayo.

"I keep wondering why those indigenous people traded that much corns for a puppy."


When I reached High school, often times I visited some turf of my friend Ruel. They had about hectares of corn fields, we timely visited the harvest season. His mother usually made us Corn Cake(Maja) I am beginning to missed those.”You got lots of corn plants rows in here, how do you protect those, from you know?”I asked Ruel’s brother “We have dogs. Untied to guard the field.” Ah! now I know. I was goofed then(LOL) by the Aetas. We only had just 5 sacks then,but it was a field of corns they valued for a dog. A lesson for me had learned from there. Don’t underestimate the Aetas and the power of bargaining.


My sister Allen


So, I phone my sister asking if there still a barter “Palitan” in Prinza. I was hoping I could make a relevant point before I wrote this article. She said “Di na uso yon!”.”Now those people are exchanging by house to house in place of trading area”. Concept of bartering still applied but the essense dies there. How such a good traditions died up like that?. Historically other places in the Phillippines called Bartering as “kambyo”, “kamkalatse”, or “tuwayan”. But it still exists as of today in Mindanao Region. The most recent I can remember “Palitan” still do exists in Guinayangan was year 1990.

I missed that old settings, nothing beats the enthusiasm when you were a kid with such memories. Unlike today you can “swap” over the internet. Usually a line in Google Adsense like “ Shitzu swap for PS3(Play Station)” things like “Playboy Magazines” swap for Nokia E71. An old setting was gone but trading essence still there. I guess we really have to let go of something old for something new, but for me, it is no way “new” because it is something borrowed.

-By Cornelio Cinezal

Repost from simpleoddmind.wordpress.com

Some of the Photos are courtesy of mindanao.com and ilocano.org
Map Courtesy of Google Earth