From the desk of Mayor Joji Ilio:
Banaybanay is First
Banaybanay is a barrio that one passes going to San Ramon or Lilo-an. When I was a toddler
my mother, Clotilde Yerro Ilio, who was an elementary school teacher then in San Ramon in the
early fifties, used to bring me to her school. Since we live in the Poblacion, we would start
early in the morning and walk the 3-km distance to San Ramon. To a child it seemed to be a very
long walk. I liked it during the rainy season because Bien (a sometime helper) would carry me on
his shoulder to navigate the slippery portions of the trail that was so muddy because the carabaos
also used the same trail. That trail to San Ramon is now a gravel road. It now takes less than
five minutes to San Ramon by motorcycle, the available means of public transport today.
Bien would also carry me on his shoulders when we go to Poero (a sitio that straddles the
boundaries of Banay-banay, Lilo-an and San Ramon) for the yearly catching of fish in the tanke of
our ricefields before the planting season. The water would be drained out of the fields to the
Malinao River which would then make easy catching the catfish, mudfish and gurame. This happens
in the month of May. We would start very early from the poblacion, hiking up the hill of Dagandan
down to Mag-oeak, skirting the edge of the Malinao River to Poero. This same trail would later be
made into the main road going to Lilo-an and the northern barrios of San Roque, Cogon, San Dimas
and Osman.
Those two trails were my early memories of Banay-banay, a barrio on the northwestern part of town
that serves as a gateway to other barrios. Today the road going to Banay-banay from the poblacion
up to the junction where it branches into two is already cemented. It is a relatively busy road
because all the traffic going north of town passes through this road. Passing through these two
roads though one would think that these area are just part of a larger barrio. There is no plaza
or a barrio center nor a place where there is a concentration of houses. It is a hilly barrio with
bamboo groves and amboeong trees on swampy areas along the creeks. The ricefields are located
between the hills. The largest expanse of ricefield is that stretch of land from Banderado to the
boundary with San Ramon to the north.
The Philippines' pride: Asian Games medalist Anthony Iguisquiza, a Banaybanay native
Banderado is a sitio near the mouth of the Guinhalinan Creek. This is the place at the turn of the twentieth
century where the bandit named Banderado was killed by the forebears of the Magdaels and Insaurigas families which
then and until now resides in Mag-oeak, a sitio on the edge of Malinao River.
In Banderado today resides the family of Nelson Iguisquiza. Four of his sons are/were amateur
boxers. Two gained national fame, Allan and Anthony. Allan is now retired from boxing. Anthony
had gone international, got the bronze medal during the Asian Games in Hiroshima in 1998. He will
again represent the country in Busan, Korea for the 2002 Asian Games. His mother, Marcela,
collects clippings of the exploits of Anthony from newspapers. Perhaps a gold medal in Busan
would change the lives of this family for the better. Nelson ekes a living as a farmer.
In 1979 a significant development happened to Banay-banay. The barrio was chosen as the site of
BLISS (Bagong Lipunan Sites and Service), a land development project complete with programs for
the upliftment of the poor for whom the project was intended. On a four hectare lot fifty families
ex-Banay-banay came to live permanently in BLISS. As with many programs of Imelda Marcos during
Martial Law BLISS failed in its goals. For one, families that transferred to BLISS were not
exactly poor. And the programs and projects for livelihood did not prosper. Nevertheless, the
people of BLISS were thankful that they got a free house and lot. Martial rule is long gone but
BLISS remains as a reminder of that era, a failed experiment in human settlements.
The town of Malinao is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic in religion. It is only recently that
different sects of Christianity have made inroads in the town. But as early as l974 Gervacio
Icasas, who died in 2000, begun his ministry as pastor of the Pentecostal Church. By 1984 he has
gathered a sizable congregation that they were able to build a concrete chapel in Banay-banay.
Nick Labasog, who heads the church when Pastor Icasas passed away in 2002 says that they have 80
members in the whole of Malinao, with 17 coming from Banaybanay.
Until today, the Bethel Temple, as the chapel is named, remains the only non-Catholic house of
worship of significance in the whole town of Malinao.
The total area of Banay-banay is 132 hectares. Of this area, 51 hectares are rice land, 20.5
hectares are bamboo land, 2 hectares are amboeong lands, 37 hectares are coconut lands and the
rest planted to other crops. These are small parcels of lands owned by small landowners, some of
whom reside in the poblacion. The biggest landowner is Conchita I. Yarra, who is a sister of my
father. She owns 7 hectares spread in ten parcels, some she inherited from my grandfather, the
others from her departed husband, Artemio Yarra and the biggest of which is 1.1 hectares. Other
land holdings follow the same pattern. For such small total area of Banay-banay there are 400
individual landowners. The average land area of a landowner is a mere .33 hectare per. Because
of this pattern in land distribution, there was no conscious plan among the landowners to
consolidate their landholdings and develop these lands into enterprises that would lead to greater
capital formation. These lands are used for traditional farming, whether tenanted or not. And
the farmers have remained subsistence farmers.
In a way the land distribution pattern in Banaybanay is a blessing. Because almost every family
has their own piece of land, however small, the people have not experience the classical feudal
relationship and the attending social unrest that have bedeviled areas where land concentration
is in the extreme. Ownership of land enables a family to have a surplus which it could use to
fund other endeavors which could lead to advancement. In the case of Banaybanay, as in the
whole of Malinao, education had been the way to escape poverty. Many families have members who
have broken the ties to the land and have better lives than their forbears had. They have found
their livelihood in the urban centers of the country and even abroad.
It is not surprising then that in Banay-banay, one-hundred eighty six (186) persons between the
ages of ten (10) to nineteen (19) are going to school. Only four (4) are out of school. Out of a
population of one thousand three (1003) four hundred ten (410) have finished high school, a
very high percentage of 41 %. Of the high school graduates, two hundred fifty six (256) have
finished a college course. Just looking at this statistics, one would presume that this barrio
with so many highly educated people should be very progressive in term of material possessions of
the people. The physical evidence shows otherwise. There are no big houses here, just ordinary,
livable houses found in a typical Filipino town. The concrete houses with galvanized iron as
roofing and concrete hollow blocks as walls belong to families that are better off in life.
Inevitably these are families that have members or relatives who are working abroad. In
Banay-banay there are twenty-six such families. It is the dream of many in Banaybanay to be as
lucky as the twenty-six now remitting dollars to those they left behind.
The history of Banay-banay as a barrio is not clear. Some old people say that this barrio was
once part of the barrio of San Ramon. Even the origin of the name of Banay-banay remains unclear.
Some old people say that Banay-banay is a name of the tree that were home to beautiful orchids.
Alas, like other exotic trees, no banay-banay tree exists now.
When I was in high school in Saint Joseph's Academy, in the early sixties, Banaybanay was a place
of santol trees. Groups of youths would cut classes to go to Banaybanay and climb the santol
trees for their sweet-sour fruits. It was fun. The more adventurous would engage in a contest
of who could swallow the most santol seeds. Many would go home with a bellyache.
Like the banay-banay trees, the santol trees are long gone. Felled by the chain saw machines for
lumber. In their stead are bamboos, coconut, mahogany and the occasional small calamansi
plantation. Except for the forked roads and BLISS, Banaybanay remains nondescript. It is still
the barrio that one passes going either to San Ramon or Lilo-an.
But in one respect Banay-banay is ahead among the barrios of Malinao. In the alphabetical
listing of the barrios of Malinao Banay-banay is always first.
Mayor's Corner
Malinao's Profile