POPO Cosente was set to embark on a well-paying career abroad as a physical therapist until Typhoon ?Pepeng? upturned his plans.

Today Cosente is in the midst of helping his home sitio, Sto. Niño in Barangay Ambassador, Tublay, Benguet, get back on its feet through livelihood projects he courses through the people?s organization Solidarity for Ambassador Victims and Evacuees (SAVE), of which he is vice president, and the volunteer group Team Café. (This team was immediately formed by the children of the original partners of the Baguio landmark Café by the Ruins when ?Pepeng? caused catastrophic mudslides in October.)

Sto. Niño is about two kilometers down from Halsema Highway, the main artery, or 45 minutes away from downtown Baguio. The main livelihood there is sayote (chayote) and vegetable gardening and cut-flower raising. ?Pepeng? covered these plots of land and many houses in mud.

Worse, the barangay was for a time isolated from the highway by 15 road cuts. The narrow, rough road is passable now, but jeepneys don?t service it anymore. Majority of former evacuees have returned to what is left of their houses and gardens despite a technical report from the Bureau of Mines and Geo-sciences that the land may not be safe anymore.

Thelma Billao, SAVE public relations officer, says, ?This is our land. We were born here, we played as children here, we cannot just up and leave and start elsewhere.?

Cosente and other community leaders were able to identify 104 households that were lost or critically damaged and in need of help. Team Café looked for long-term projects that it could initiate with the funds they received locally and from overseas.

Coordinator Padmapani L. Perez says, ?The piglet distribution was really Nanay?s (Adelaida Lim?s) idea. Many people donated money so we had a fund that was more than enough for relief work. We could not do relief work forever. Even the evacuees expressed their unease with receiving food and clothes. They wanted to get on with their lives, but many were anxious about how to pick up the pieces. A few were starting from zero. We put our heads together to think about how we could use the funds we had for the next steps that everybody would need to take. We distributed kitchen starter kits to Sto. Niño and Coroz, Tublay.

?Nanay suggested the pigs,? Perez, an anthropology lecturer at the University of the Philippines Baguio, continues, ?knowing that pigs are an important part of life and livelihood in the Cordillera. When we broached this in a community meeting, the idea was met with much enthusiasm. They told us that they preferred black pigs because people from around Benguet and Mt. Province go to Sto. Nino to look for black pigs for rituals or clan celebrations. Not wanting to give the piglets as dole-outs, we worked out a deal with the community.?

The deal is every household receiving a piglet must contribute P1,000 to a community disaster fund to be handled by SAVE. The receiver has within six to seven months upon getting the piglet to pay that share.

Perez says, ?The P1,000 contribution was an amount determined at another meeting attended by about 70-plus household representatives. There are 104 households, all of which will receive piglets. We have one more delivery to make. We purchased the piglets at P1,800 each and the feeds at P1,200 per sack. They told us that if they choose to, they could sell the pigs in six to seven months at a price range of from P6,000 to P8,000. Once the piglets are turned over to them, they are their own responsibility. Whatever happens to the piglet, or whatever they decide to do with it, they have to make the contribution to their fund.?

Cosente says people of the Cordillera have an innate dignity and pride that make them uncomfortable with dole-outs which was why a memorandum of agreement between the piglet recipients and Team Café was drawn up and signed in triplicate, with a percentage of the profit going to a community fund. This fund was set up in case of any similar contingency (natural or man-made disaster).

The second batch of piglets was delivered a day after Valentine?s with 34 recipients ready with their rice sacks to put the animal in. The SAVE officers devised a raffle system where a recipient picked a number out of a hat, and the number corresponded with a piglet. This way nobody would complain about the piglet?s gender or size.

Apart from the piglet, a sack of starter feeds was each given away to the 34. The feeds are good for a month and a half.

Billao says a few disaster-affected community members begged off from the turnover because they were not ready with their pigpens. They will receive their piglets at the third and last distribution on March 12. The first distribution was done before Christmas with funds donated by the Filipino Community Center in Honolulu through Child and Family Services Philippines Inc.

She says the Team offered to buy organically fed pigs (a diet of pure vegetables), but most of her neighbors found it would be more expensive to do this.

Nevertheless, the Team committed to helping the sitio look for hog buyers.

Perez says, ?We are looking at nourishing a long-term relationship with Sto. Nino. We may expand operations to other sitios in Tublay. We have other livelihood projects lined up as we still have funds. We are working on the idea of rehabilitating the land and forests. If the community would like to continue our working relationship after the pigs, then we will stay on. We are prepared to operate a soup kitchen and extend help each time it is needed in Baguio or Benguet.?

Cosente, whose dream of a comfortable expatriate?s life was abandoned at the time of his community?s need, says, ?I have found more fulfillment in helping Sto. Niño. It has given essence to my every day.?