From nets to chisels, Quezon fishers carve hope from tragedy

GENERAL NAKAR, Quezon (AFP) — Former fisherman Arnel Rebate pulls out a gnarled chunk of hard wood from a pile salvaged from the shores of the raging Agos River and lets his imagination get to work.

"I will carve this into yet another torso of a naked woman," the 36-year-old father of two says, pointing to a V-shaped portion of the damp, deep brown Philippine ebony that he says will form the outstretched arms of the sculpture he has christened "Diana."

About this time last year, however, Rebate could barely look at logs washed up on the shores of Agos without shedding tears of rage and frustration.

Back-to-back typhoons dislodged tens of thousands of illegally cut timber from the slopes of the Sierra Madre mountain range, mixing with mud and floodwater in a deadly avalanche that buried the tiny fishing village of Banglos near this town some 75 kilometers east of Manila.

None of the several hundred villagers in Banglos died in what was hailed as a miracle, but the dead and missing in the towns of General Nakar, Real and Infanta would top 1,800 by early December.

The three towns were cut off from help for days — bridges were washed away and the US military had to fly helicopters for food drops as residents searched for their relatives in the mud.

The Polillo Strait to which Agos empties into was transformed into a deadly sea of logs, smashing wooden boats and small rescue vessels on emergency operations.

"It was raining hard, there was no electricity and we were preparing to go to bed when there was a loud noise. There was a clap of thunder and when I looked outside, our village had been flooded," Rebate says, his voice choking with emotion.

"Then a huge log hit the door of our wooden house and we had to seek shelter on the roof," he says. They climbed up stripped to their undergarments, casting off their outer clothing that had become too heavy after being soaked in mudwater.

They and other villagers linked hands and walked over the floating logs to reach solid ground, just in time to see their village gone.

Survivors of the landslide waited vainly for help for days, and Christmas and the New Year soon arrived with the residents still crammed in crowded evacuation centers, where food was scant and doleouts eventually dried up.

Time and necessity have since forced the villagers to re-evaluate the deadly logs.

Environmental message

Five months after the tragedy, and as hope of ever returning to the sea slowly vanished, a non-profit organization called Gawad Kalinga (Provide Care) thought of a novel idea.

Why not train the fishermen into sculptors instead of them processing the logs and driftwood into cheap charcoal?

The foundation tapped leading Filipino artist Rey Paz Contreras to train the menfolk of Banglos in wood sculpting. Trainers were later surprised to discover that the former fishermen had an inherent talent for the arts.

The men first sculpted detailed wooden replicas of fish, before branching out and finding their own artistic interpretations from the washed-up logs.

Rebate is now the president of the small group of artisans, who sell their wooden crafts in trade exhibits around the country and soon, they hope, to the international market.

"The logs that once stole our lives and left us with nothing, are also the ones that are giving us back our future. I had no idea how to raise my family after the tragedy, but now I know I can use my hands again not in casting nets, but in something entirely new," Rebate says above the whirr of an electronic sandpaper he is using to smooth out the rough edges of "Diana."

"This one I hope would sell for about P6,000. It’s a good gift for Christmas," he points out.

His works now range from simple wooden bowls to intricate carvings of women and sell from anywhere between P500 to P30,000.

As the sculptors work in a makeshift shed, a group of women are busy slicing up wood into small square pieces they hope to varnish and later sell as paper weights. Grimy children without slippers play toss-up coins in the dirt, rain hammers the tin roof.

"This is our simple life. We are grateful for the foundation for teaching us this craft, which in some way is also a therapy for us. When we carve, we somehow forget the tragedy and believe there is hope for us," says Maximo Supremo, 28, and also a father of two.

"We cannot go back to fishing because our nets get snagged on logs that are still on the seabed. The only thing we knew what to do with those that were being washed to the shores was to make them into charcoal," that are sold for only P65 a sack, he says.

He says he hopes to save enough money to set aside for his children’s schooling, and proudly shows off one of his masterpieces, an ebony sculpture of a mother cradling two infants on her chest.

"I don’t know what to call it yet. But for me, it is symbolic of Mother Nature caring for her sons," Supremo says.

The Banglos sculptors don’t cut timber and only use driftwood and logs that washed up on shore from last year in their craft. Part of the project is to also teach the younger generation to plant trees in a nursery at a plot near the shed.

The saplings will later be relocated to the foothills, where they will replace those that were cut down by illegal loggers.

"Artistic expression could be even more unique if it dictates a mission toward environmental preservation," their mentor, Contreras, explains.

"The artistic expression of the environmental preservation of the Banglos sculptors is one statement of resolve against a core issue that caused the December tragedy — that of environmental degradation," he adds.