Mountain monkeys vanishing.

Philippine Daily Inquirer
 | May 09, 2002 | Copyright
Byline: Mei Magsino
THERE used to be thousands of monkeys roaming the mountains of Barangay Malibayo in Batangas City. Now there are less than 500 of them.
They are being hunted and killed by farmers who look at them as pests. Some monkeys end up on the dining table.
A witness to the monkeys' disappearance, Tune Cabatay, Barangay Chair of Malibayo, narrates the monkeys' ordeal in the hands of humans.
"We are now campaigning to save those monkeys and convert the Malibayo mountains to a monkey conservation park," said Philip Baroja, city environment and natural resources officer.
Baroja and his staff, the city's boy scouts and volunteers recently made a trek to Barangay Tingga Labak. They hiked through the Malibayo mountains in search of the monkeys.
But the group, which camped in the Piit River, where monkeys were supposed to drink in the morning and at noon, was not able to see even a shadow of the monkeys.
After the two-day trek in the mountains, the exhausted team found two monkeys, but neither in the mountains nor in the forests of Malibayo.
The monkeys were chained next to a barbecue stand downtown, sitting next to pork cubes roasting on hot coal.
From pets to pests
There used to be about 20,000 monkeys in the Malibayo mountains and forests. They would even cross the roads and be seen by residents up close.
In the 1960s, according to residents of Malibayo, the monkeys were not as wild as they are now. Some would even visit their homes.
There, monkeys grew as tall as three feet at a mature age. Monkeys as big as three feet are called mananer.
Some residents here also used to have monkeys as pets.
It was only when the farmers started killing them and the guard dogs began hounding the monkeys that they became wild and started getting scarcer.
Cabatay, 42, has a ready answer for the vanishing monkeys of Malibayo.
As a farmer whose crops have always been attacked by the monkeys, he said he has no choice but to kill those "pests."
"I have a cornfield that was ready for harvest last season," Cabatay said, "And the day before I was about to reap the fruit of my hard work, all I found were devoured corncobs, and ravished corn plants. Some corncobs lying on the ground had just a bite on the side and thrown away. Here, we consider the monkeys as pests. And like all pests, they have to be exterminated."
Another farmer, Amado Pagkaliwagan, 46, said his sugar apple plantation also suffered the same fate.
"Those monkeys are even disgusting," Pagkaliwagan said, "They would even pick out the ripe sugar apples even if they are already full, take a bite and throw the fruits like garbage."
Lorenzo Camacho, 52, also a farmer, prides himself with having killed not less than 200 monkeys in his field and in the mountains.
He even guides monkey hunters in the forest to track down the monkeys.
Camacho said captured monkeys could also be skinned, chopped and cooked into adobo and served as pulutan for the farmers.
"Sometimes in the fields and in the mountains, we even set traps to ensnare the monkeys," he said. "In the cornfields, when my scarecrow did not work, I killed a monkey and set the body up on the scarecrow's place. The monkeys never returned to my field."
Cabatay said the monkeys, which have now turned into pests, have nothing to eat in the mountains since the dry season started and the trees have not borne any fruit.
Next to Tingga Falls
With the success of the Save Tingga Falls Movement, the group that started the cleanup drive is now planning to save the monkeys of Malibayo.
"We are soliciting the help of the barangay folk to save the Malibayo monkeys, but it seems that we can't really blame them if they have been killing the monkeys," Baroja said. "For any farmer, a pest like that is bad for business, and should be killed. But we can't let them kill the monkeys forever. We have to do something to divert the monkeys' attention to a new food source."
According to residents who have seen the five monkey trails in the mountains, there are now an estimated 100 in the Kalansing trail, 50 in Sia, another 50 in Borbor, Kinikiputan, and Piit trails.
Monkey trails in the mountains show a white limestone path from the peak down to the nearest river where they drink at five to six in the morning and in the afternoon.
"Developing these mountains into a monkey conservation park would again entail a lot of money," Baroja said, "But Batanguenos today can turn it into a legacy for the next generation if we start preserving it now," he added.
The city environment officer said the city has been having frequent foreign visitors who want to see a piece of natural resources the city could offer. But since the city has no nature parks, nor resorts, the foreign guests are taken to a trip to Palawan or to Boracay.
The movement to save Tingga Falls and the monkey conservation park would be a future tourist destination, Baroja said.
The Malibayo mountains still teem with wild chicken known as labuyo, eagles, and crows.