"Watch closely, anak," Crispin’s father said, his weathered hands moving carefully over the sungka board. "In this game, the stones are like the seeds we plant. You gather and nurture them, making sure they grow.”
Only a boy then, Crispin watched as his father scooped the stones from one pit and spread them across the board. The movement looked familiar, like how his father tended to their land—careful and deliberate.
“You have to care for the land, anak,” his father once told him. “What you give to it, it gives back.”
Fifty years later, Crispin stood on a hill overlooking Adam’s Point, remembering his father’s wisdom. The battle for their land had been long and hard-fought. It began when the state, under the guise of progress, forcibly handed control of their lands to corporations, claiming that the fields would be better off for something bigger and more profitable. Despite being promised compensation, the farmers were eventually left to dry.
But farmers like Crispin’s father resisted, knowing that giving up their land meant losing their future. They banded together and carried out Bungkalan, collectively tilling the land to feed their communities and assert their rights.
What started as peaceful resistance soon turned violent. Farmers were branded as insurgents, terrorists, and enemies of the state. Crispin’s father was among the many others who fell while defending their lands, which had withered under neglect, the soil dry and cracked.
But what many didn’t realize then was that in their sacrifice, they had planted more than crops—they had planted hope.
Inspired by their courage, other farmers drew strength from their actions. Through their united resistance against state-controlled corporations, they reclaimed their land. Now, despite decades of hardship, the fields of Adam’s Point were beginning to flourish into what they once were—Kaboloan, the land of their ancestors reborn after generations of struggle.
Their efforts showed that the real power rested not in the hands of those who forcefully tried to take their lands, but in the hands of those who planted, protected, and shared its harvest.
“They bled for this,” Crispin whispered, as he knelt and ran his fingers through the rich and damp soil, with tiny green shoots pushing stubbornly through the earth.
The game his father had taught him wasn’t just about stones, it was about cultivating life and protecting what mattered most. As Crispin held the sungka board, ready to pass the game on to his own children, he felt the weight of their land’s history and the promise of a brighter future.
The fields of Kaboloan were blooming once again. ●
