Claiming Daba-daba
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My connection to Daba-daba trods no further than the fact that it is my birthplace and the place where I was raised and where I grew up. Not having “Lumad” roots, while unfortunate, does not thwart nor defeat my claim as a true blooded Dabawnon, or Dabawenyo. After all, a bloodline whose roots can be traced to the land is never a fail-safe mark of dominion.
But I must admit that there have been times where I wished I had been a Davao native–to have that intimate, inseverable vinculum to this wonderful land of bounty and blooms, sand and sky, greens and golds. I could only imagine the honor and the pride of the Bagobo, Manobo, B’laan or of the Mansaka, Mandaya, Tagabawa, Tagakaolo, and all Lumad folk, who can claim with biological certitude that they have been borne out from the womb of this Land of Promise.
It must have been the waves of emigration and immigration sweeping the Philippines at the turn of the twentieth century that brought me into this southern enclave deep in the Davao Gulf. A thicket of family trees traces my roots to the lands of Cebu, Misamis Occidental, Siquijor and Bohol, and a family legend recounts how an officer of the Spanish regime, surnamed Bendijo, escaped persecution for embezzling tax collections due the Spanish government by fleeing Bohol then sailing to Northern Mindanao and changing his surname to that which I now bear.
Certain now that I am a product of a diaspora that created the melting pot population and culture in Davao, I am bent to concede that I am no pureblood. But, however alien my roots may be to the land of my birth and rearing, I am not constrained to yield that I am without right to declare the latter my native land.
For Davao has always been my home. And no amount of roots, branches, leaves and fruits on family trees, or of purported lineage from certain conquistadors, can prevail over the feeling of belongingness, of security, of peace, and of the urge of returning, that home provides. Indeed, home lies beyond the realm of bloodlines and family legends, which, at best, are just nice to know.
