A small barangay finds room for both traditions, one on top of the other
NUEVA ECIJA – A barangay basketball court freshly painted over a section of unused rice paddy has become the talk of a small farming community this month, less because of any conflict over land use and more because, by all accounts, nobody seemed to mind very much at all.
The paddy, owned collectively by a handful of families and left fallow after last season’s harvest, was quietly repurposed by barangay youth over a single weekend, with volunteers leveling the ground, pouring a modest concrete slab, and painting court lines using leftover house paint in what one organizer described as “roughly regulation size, give or take a rice terrace.”
How It Happened, According to Everyone Involved
“We asked the owners, they said sure, plant somewhere else next season,” said barangay youth leader Jomar Villaruz, who organized the project. “That was basically the whole negotiation. Fifteen minutes, some coffee, and a promise that if the rice needed the space back badly enough, we’d figure something out. Nobody made it complicated.” Villaruz added that the barangay had been playing on a cracked, uneven lot two streets over for years, and the new court, despite its unusual origin, has already become the most-used court in the area.
Landowner Nena Ocampo, whose family’s portion of the paddy makes up roughly a third of the new court, said she barely noticed the change happening. “My grandson plays there every afternoon now,” Ocampo said. “Before, that section just sat empty half the year anyway. Rice needs a season off sometimes. Might as well let the kids use it while it rests.”
An Old Pattern in New Paint
Local historians note that basketball courts built on repurposed farmland are hardly unusual across the provinces, where courts have long doubled as fiesta venues, funeral wake sites, and, occasionally, emergency evacuation centers during storms. What made this particular court notable, several residents said, wasn’t the repurposing itself but the almost total absence of dispute over it.
“Normally you’d expect at least one uncle to have an opinion,” said longtime resident Tessie Manalo, laughing. “Here, everyone just agreed it made sense. I think people appreciate that the rice isn’t gone, just moved. It’s not really a sacrifice if nothing’s actually lost.”
The Fiesta Test
The court’s real test of local loyalty came during the barangay’s annual fiesta, when organizers debated whether to use the space for its usual purpose or convert it, as tradition dictated, into a makeshift dance floor and dining area for the whole community. In the end, the barangay simply did both, running games in the morning and clearing the court by afternoon for long tables, plastic chairs, and a sound system borrowed from the church.
“That’s the thing about this place,” Villaruz said. “It’s never been just one thing. Before it was court, it was rice. Before rice, who knows, probably something else too. We just keep using the ground for whatever the season calls for. The paint doesn’t change what’s underneath it.”
Ocampo, watching the fiesta setup from her usual spot near the old planting row, said she found the whole arrangement oddly fitting. “My family fed people from that ground for generations,” she said. “Now it feeds people a different way. Still feels like the same ground to me.”
The View From the Sidelines
Even skeptics in the barangay have come around. Ocampo’s own husband, initially the family’s most vocal holdout, reportedly spent an entire evening watching a tournament from a plastic chair positioned at what used to be the edge of his family’s planting row, and has since asked, unprompted, whether the court might eventually get proper lighting installed rather than the current arrangement of borrowed construction lamps.
“He complained the whole first week,” Ocampo said. “Now he’s asking about upgrades. I told him, that’s how it always goes here. Complain first, ask for more later. At least he’s consistent.”
The Court in Use
Since opening, the court has hosted three informal barangay tournaments, a wake-eve basketball game held in honor of a longtime resident who, family members say, “would have wanted it that way,” and near-daily pickup games that now run well past dark under a string of borrowed construction lights.
Villaruz said the barangay is already discussing a second court on an adjacent fallow section, an idea Ocampo says she’d support “as long as somebody still remembers this is farmland first, court second.” Provincial coverage of barangay sports infrastructure, including similar grassroots projects, has been noted by outlets such as The Philippine Daily Inquirer in past features on rural community life.
A Model Other Barangays Are Watching
Word of the court’s smooth arrangement has reportedly reached at least two neighboring barangays currently mired in their own, more contentious land-use disputes, with informal delegations visiting to see how Villaruz’s group pulled it off. His answer, delivered the same way each time, is simple: “Ask first. Share the space. And maybe don’t paint over anyone’s mango trees. That one’s non-negotiable.”
Ongoing coverage of the court and its expansion plans continues at bohiney.com.
Further dispatches from the humor desk: The Onion.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com