Rise, rice, rise!

It was a breathtaking sight in the early ‘70s when, as contributing editor for Hong Kong-based Chic magazine, Blancho Gallardo consented to give me an assignment to oversee a pictorial in Sagada. Andrea Zecha was then the publisher of Chic. Two models and myself with Noli Yamsuan set out for this adventure. Wow, what a muddy — then stony — drive on a narrow road, travelling hundreds of feet above a precipice. I was so afraid when my vehicle had to maneuver a U-turn that I got out of the car to join the pickaxe-wielding Igorots who were widening the path of the road we were on.

The evenings were a breathtaking sight with fog, moist, low-flying clouds, heavenly cold and calm nights by the fireplace, recalling the greens of the rice terraces. What a perfectly intense shade it was and all at the same height, like a crew-cut!

How did this wonder of the world come to be a marvel of the earth — later infested with worms upon my return in the ‘90s? Early people traveling and settling here from the Tonkin Gulf in the South China Sea had knowledge of dry and wet agriculture. They knew about domestication of plants and animals and pursued hunting and trapping activities. There is reason to believe that they planted rice because they were terrace builders, these dwellers who lived on shelters raised on stilts above the ground. Professor Henry Otley Bayer, whose grandson is a dear friend of mine from Baguio and from whom I acquired Mr. Byer’s pipes and gong handles, wrote that the mountain peoples of Northern Luzon arrived in the Philippines on outrigger vessels with sails. He labeled them as “Austronesians” — those who settled on mountains and valleys in search of land to settle and plant rice as subsistence. The areas they had left behind were, in all probability, over-settled and planted with owners’ rice; so they preferred to search for a new homeland.

These “proto-Philippinesens” — a term used by Prof. Arsenio Manuel signifying those inhabitants who lived prior to the word “Filipinos” — arrived in unoccupied hospitable areas suitable for their needs and experience in planting rice. He identified two groups of migrants. One group landed in the Lingayen Gulf area and proceeded to follow the course of the Agno River and reached the Kayapa area, now part of Quirino Province where they settled and built rice terraces. After a couple thousand years later, they abandoned Kayapa and proceeded northward where they settled and built the Banawe rice terraces of the ancient world — truly a majestic human creation built entirely by hand.

The other group discovered Manila Bay and found it quite favorable and rich with excellent food resources. A splinter group followed Pasig River and explored Laguna de Bai basin and found the Majayjay uplands suitable for building rice terraces. For reasons unknown, these primitive engineers abandoned their work in the same manner as they deserted Kayapa.

Rice, to Filipinos, as it was for our ancestors, is more than a basic cereal. It has a “starring” role on our plates, served with tuyo, daing, alamang and bagoong and all salty-based foods that offer a desirable contrast to the blandness of rice or buro, a dish of fermented rice mixed with fish my grandmother from Arayat, Pampanga made for Sunday lunches. Rice is so versatile: it can be ground up to make puto, the mildly sweet putong polo, the banana-leafed encased manapala, puto with meat or flavoured ube, puto in cakes, eaten with dinuguan or served as puto with salabat.

From rice flour comes bibingka, which generally signals Christmas for us. After the dawn chill of the Misa de Gallo, our noses take us to where bibingka is sold at makeshift stands; the flat soft cakes are cooked over coal on fragrant banana leaves, sometimes with a dash of native white cheese and salted eggs which makes them “espesyal.” The best bibingka was found at one time in Ferino’s, now at Via Mare and the Baguio Country Club.

Another favorite is the lavender-colored puto bumbong made by stuffing the puto into small bamboo tubes to steam it; then it’s ready for merienda. The anise-flavored puto lusong eaten with piping-hot panara, the puto maya and suman budbod, biko and puto sulot are all made from rice.

Rice further lends itself to sweetening recipes. There’s the suman of our fiestas — sa latik, sa lihiya wrapped in coconut or banana leaf, in slabs or cylinders, in pyramids and such other favorite kakanin as tamales, maja blanca, sapin-sapin, espasol, kutsinta, palitaw, etc. Peping’s cousin Isabel from Paniqui, Tarlac made the best tamales, maja blanca and espasol, but like everyone else, she’s left for abroad.

Rice is also found in such other forms as kipping, the edible colorful decorations made into the form of leaves hanging outside houses commemorating the feast of San Isidro Labrador in Quezon province. There’s angkak and toasted pinipig served with chocolate — yummy! — and the Ilongo baye-baye.

Rice washed in our homes has its use as a broth for sinigang  — mmmm! Even am, a broth gathered from boiling rice, ground rice or lugaw, provides sustenance for sick babies.

All in all, many Filipino dishes use rice as a major or minor ingredient. Foreign influences introduced us to other rice dishes, such as the Chinese, the Spanish, the Italians.

Rice is our staple food, something our taste buds have been accustomed to since childhood. Sure, rice makes us fat; if we don’t eat it, maybe our tummies may become flat. But we need rice! Its grains give us energy… and we’re addicted to it. The Filipino populace has increased tremendously, so all the more rice retains its everlasting role at our dinner tables. I remember Peachie Prieto Santos telling me once how she loved tutong rice. She joked that it made her bust grow. Want to give it a try?