BIBAK dormitory vignettes

IGNORANCE of what it was originally for – as home-away-from-home - of Igorot students from the then five sub-provinces of the Cordillera stepping into the city for the first time to obtain an education for their communities – must have led to its occupation by 58 illegal structures. With the tenacity of the occupants who had no valid reason whatsoever to occupy it, however,gives you the feeling it was greed, devoid of the Cordilleran’s sense of fair play that led them to hold on to the dorm with gecko-like tenacity at the expense of Cordillera students who could have used it for the purpose it was originally buit. Otherwise, the squatters would not have demanded for relocation when they could not bargain for a month, a year and a few more years to use the same at the expense of the Cordillera youth.

Some., if not all of the buildings built on the choice 5,000 square-meter lot, were turned into commercial structures or sleeping quarters, far from what it was originally intended for. as a home for students coming from the BIBAK provinces of Benguet, Ifugao, Bontoc (now Mt. Provinces), Apayao and Kalinga.

At the risk of earning the ire of the illegal occupants, the city is bent on restoring the area to what it was for, as a home-away-from home for many a newcomer from the hinterlands of the Cordillera who come to study to become nurses, teachers, engineers, doctors, policemen, accountants or journalists, Or as a center for the Cordillera youth, which is now the pronouncement of the National Commission on Indigenous peoples, now that the illegal structures have been knocked down.

The revival plan has stirred nostalgia, mostly from those who stayed in the two-building wooden dormitory for boys and girls. Having lived there, current and former community leaders, retirees from professions who learned while under its wings, can’t help but join the clamor for its restoration, as a symbol of transformation and pathway to a better, useful life when its occupants have returned to serve their communities.

For those who had lived in it during their transformative years, the BIBAK Dorm was an Ellis Island. Like the island, it is a symbol of the education of a large percentage of Igorots, in the same token that it was estimated that close to 40 percent of all current U.S. citizens can trace at least one of their ancestors to Ellis Island.

If only for this, the BIBAK Dorm must be restored. This is the sentiment of those who had lived there, in the same token that every chair and table, even the sleeping quarters of those who were detained at Ellis Island had to be preserved for these are part of American history.

One of those who helped trigger the construction of the BIBAK Students’ Dormitory was retired school superintendent Cyril Bacala Sr.. A graduate of the Mountain State Agricultural College, he was then the school’s BIBAK President.

There was no Centralized BIBAK Association then, so links among BIBAK leaders was done