Trento, Agusan del Sur

Trento: the Paete of the South

If your town has no tourist attractions to offer and
trees are all that are there to see, what would you do
to make the place appealing? For Mayor Irenea “Nene”
Hitagano, the answer was to turn Trento in Caraga into
a woodcarving hub of the south, much like Paete in the
province of Laguna.

It was in exactly in Paete where the lady mayor saw
the possibility of turning her own town of Trento
around. She was then on a study tour in southern
Luzon, and eagerly jotted down ideas from the famous
woodcarving destination. When she went back home,
Mayor Hitagano went straight to work in what would
become the Paete of the South.

Trento is not far from the border of Agusan del Sur
and Compostella Valley. Unlike other municipalities in
Agusan del Sur, it isn’t gifted with lakes, waterfalls
or even picturesque mountains. Eco-tourism, therefore,
never held promise for the town, but Agri-tourism is
highly conceivable, what with wood as a plentiful
resource.

Germination is what Mayor Hitagano’s vision needed to
happen, so she wisely hired two Paete carvers to teach
woodcarving to grade school teachers and some local
carvers. The long-term goal of the community program
was to include woodcarving in the Practical Arts
curriculum of Trento’s grades four to six students.

During my visit, Ed Maraon of the mayor’s office
accompanied me to five of the schools that now
implement the woodcarving program, namely Trento
Central Elementary School, Trento West Central
Elementary School, Orios College, Sta. Maria National
High School and Pulang Lupa Elementary School.

As we went ahead with the campus tour, Ed informed me
that the specie Gmelina Arborea is often used for
woodcarving in Trento because of its smooth surface.
Apart from that, the students also utilize falcata
once in a while since this taller and slender version
of the malunggay tree is more appropriate for papers,
pencils and toothpaste manufacturing.

He also said that the young woodcarving prodigies
prefer seashells (clams in particular), fishes,
flowers and birds as models for their carving. There
is nothing too fancy or sophisticated in their work
from what I’ve seen, but there’s definitely a lot of
promise in every piece.

The more experienced wood­carvers meanwhile were
busily working for the forthcoming Woodcarving
Congress and Display of Products in Trento this year.
The annual event, which began in 2003, features a
woodcarving contest as well as fair where visitors can
purchase Trento’s signature items. Winners are usually
awarded with woodcarving equipments, which further
encourage them to better their craft.

Mayor Hitagano doesn’t dismiss future scenarios such
as regular on-the-spot woodcarving contests, as well
as venturing into other carving materials like huge
ice blocks, which Paete is already finding very
profitable. Her goals at the moment are to provide her
constituents with a new livelihood alternative and to
remind them that Trento is blessed with an abundance
of trees, which they should put to good use.

“Perhaps one day soon,” the dynamic mayor says
hopefully, “Trento will even become the woodcarving
capital of Ca­raga, if not the whole of Min­danao.” 

(First published in The Manila Times on August 27, 2004)