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Saturday-Sunday, March 30-31, 2024 Vol. 19 No. 166
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SALT FROM THE EARTH: Sandy, a third-generation saltmaker at Panayunan in Botolan, Zambales, holds fistfuls of salt and earth, the product and raw material, respectively, in the processing of asin sa buy-o, Zambales’s artisanal salt. HENRY EMPEÑO
SALT OF THE EARTH Artisanal salt makers in Zambales keep generations-old craft alive despite hard times
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By Henry Empeño
OTOLAN, Zambales—Just after the rains when the soil is still moist but already loose enough to be worked on, the arduous task of pagkupkop starts at this three-hectare strip of land where organic salt is produced naturally from pliant earth at the seaside community of Panayunan here. Pagkupkop, which translates to “gathering” in the local dialect, involves the collection of sandy earth from a field nurtured by the salty waters of a nearby estuary. It starts with weeding and clearing the field, then plowing and harrowing it to break down the soil and to further remove any remaining vegetation. The dark soil, pried from the remnants of a bog enriched by tides in the rainy months of June until October, is raked in rows, collected and carried by hand into a palm-leaf leaching vat where saltwater washes through it to produce precious brine drops. Brine water is then collected in earthenware jars, and when there is enough for cooking, it is poured into a kawa, which is a huge iron vat sitting over a wood-fired earthen stove. Cooked in high heat for hours, the salty water soon crystallizes into salt, which is later packed in the now familiar green palm leaves. The field-clearing part of pagkupkop is done as early as November. But stockpiling the harvested earth and cooking the collected brine commences in January and goes on until June. In July, and in the succeeding rainy months, salt production grounds to a standstill, as rainwater dilutes what salinity
could be extracted from the soil. The production process starts again in November when the cycle is repeated. “It’s a backbreaking job, but that’s how it is done here,” says Editha Morayag, a fourth-generation salt maker, who learned the craft from her mother. “We get our salt from the soil. There is no other way.”
HARD LABOR: Mae Abuan rakes the brine sand for collection, as Editha Morayag prepares nipa leaves for packing salt. Nanay Helen gathers brine sand to add to her own stockpile. HENRY EMPEÑO
TRADITIONAL COOKING: The production of asin sa buy-o makes use of earthen hearth, iron vat, and native equipment like a ladle made of coconut shell. HENRY EMPEÑO
Traditional craft
PANAYUNAN is a sliver of land at the western fringe of Barangay Danacbunga, one of the six coastal villages among the 31 barangays of Botolan, the biggest town in Zambales in terms of land area. Like other places similarly named in the Sambal-speaking areas of the province (There is also Panayunan in Masinloc and Candelaria towns), it refers to a swampy place where folks catch fish by lamplight (manuyo) at night. Naturally, Panayunan is also a place where saltwater is traditionally dried by the sun to produce crystalline deposits. Botolan’s Panayunan is no exception. Only that its salt products come not from sun-baked beds but from the juice of brackish soil. Morayag remembers that as a nine-year-old growing in the Continued on A2
PRECIOUS DROP: Brine drips into
an earthenware jar after leaching from soil washed with saltwater. Two jars of brine are needed in one batch to make about eight kilos of salt. HENRY EMPEÑO
FINISHED PRODUCT: Asin sa
buy-o is organic sea salt wrapped in nipa palm leaves. HENRY EMPEÑO
NEWLY cooked asin sa buy-o HENRY EMPEÑO
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 56.2810 n JAPAN 0.3715 n UK 71.0998 n HK 7.1940 n CHINA 7.8005 n SINGAPORE 41.8353 n AUSTRALIA 36.7627 n EU 60.9748 n KOREA 0.0420 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.0063 Source: BSP (March 27, 2024)