PIONEERING: A LIFE  FOR THE STOUT-HEARTED  AND THE ADVENTUROUS

by Augustus Ulat Saboy

[Note: In many ways, Gus Saboy was a pioneer: He was among the first batch of Cordillerans to study at Silliman University; he was among the early leaders of the BIBAK; he published the first, albeit short-lived newspaper in Kalinga; he initiated the establishment of the Radyo Ng Bayan (DZRK) in the province with him as the first radio station manager; he was the only Cordilleran journalist who covered the first-ever overseas goodwill mission of the Philippine Military Academy in Taiwan; he wrote countless resolutions and other local government documents for numerous government officials in Kalinga (although he was never acknowledged for it); as provincial administrator during the early years of the province); he led the establishment of the Kalinga Provincial Government Employees Association (KAPGEA) cooperative which eventually secured residential lots for its members at the area behind the capitol (though he never accepted an offer for him to own a lot there, believing that the area should have been used originally planned -- a regional government center; he supervised the relocation of the old capitol building to the first plateau during which, according to now Kalinga Provincial Board Member Frederick Pangsiw, some of those around him insisted that the building should "face the sun" to which he said, "No, it should face the people" and so it was that the new government building came to face the send plateau below it. - SMS]

[Excerpted from his column “One for the Road,” in the maiden issue of The Kalinga-Apayao Pioneer, the first community newspaper in the history of the province, which he published and edited]

Pioneering is one great venture in life which only a few could plunge headling into. It is venture for the stout-hearted, the restive leader endowed with hardihood and ever-charmed by the boundless realm of adventure. The development of a nation and its ensuing growth have been made mainly possible by pioneers who laid siege to the uncharted frontiers of the country, turning no-man’s lands into burgeoning communities, productive farmlands, and into other progress-generating ventures. And these are they – the pioneers who have, by their own fortitude, foresight and idealism, established for history its succession of Ages and Eras. In this mundane world, the pioneers are the immortal heroes, whose only epitaph is the mach of progress mutating onward, as generations succeed other generations.

***

With this maiden issue of the Kalinga-Apayao Pioneer, we blast off into the frontiers of journalism to join the hardy pioneers of this infant province as partners in the Province’s journey to full growth and development. As a “new leader in the frontiers of highland journalism,” we also join our established predecessors in this field of public service – the Baguio Midland Courier, the Mountaineer and others – as a new partner in helping bring bout a rapid socio-economic development of the mountain provinces. Our emphasis in the task that we are bound to do as integral segment of the Fourth Estate, however, will be on the rural development of Kalinga-Apayao Province. For we believe that it is in this particular field where community journalism draws its inspiration and ideals. It is this same sector of the provincial domain that gave our reason for being.