The morning air in Barangay Rogongon carries the scent of earth and medicinal herbs. Here, among the upland fields and the quiet rhythms of Indigenous life, a group of women tend to their gardens 鈥� not just as farmers, but as entrepreneurs, as providers, as people who finally have a stake in their own futures. Behind that shift stands one woman who has spent two decades making sure people like them are never forgotten.
At 72, Apipa Cabaro moves through Iligan City’s agricultural landscape with the quiet authority of someone who has earned her place in it. Chairperson of the Highly Urbanized City Agriculture and Fisheries Council (HUCAFC) for nine years, she is equal parts organizer, advocate, and visionary 鈥� someone who sees in every barangay not just what is, but what could be.
Roots in the Work
Long before she held the chairperson’s title, Cabaro had already spent nearly two decades in civil society 鈥� building networks, raising voices, and learning the particular patience that lasting community work demands. Those years weren’t a prelude to her leadership. They were the foundation of it.
When she stepped into the HUCAFC role, she brought with her something that policy documents rarely capture: a deep, practical understanding of who gets left behind 鈥� and why. Her tenure has since been defined by programs that answer that question directly.
Her service earned her a National Volunteers Day award in the “Pillars in Agriculture” category, a recognition that reflects not just her tenure, but the breadth and sincerity of the work beneath it.
One Barangay, One Dream
The idea behind the One Barangay, One Product (OBOP) program is deceptively simple: give every barangay the tools to develop and market its own product. In practice, it is a feat of coordination 鈥� weaving together TESDA, the Department of Trade and Industry, MSU-IIT, and the Iligan City People’s Council into a working coalition.
Cabaro serves as Co-Chair of the Technical Working Group that holds all of this together. It is the kind of role that rarely makes headlines, but without it, nothing else moves.
The results speak plainly. At the OBOP Village Expo 2025, 44 barangays stood behind their own products, from charcoal briquettes to upland rice, from biofertilizer initiatives to expanded corn production that now stretches across 1,200 hectares. For many participants, the expo was the first time their community’s work had ever been placed in front of a market 鈥� and recognized for its worth.
Among the Women of Rogongon
If there is a program that captures the full spirit of Cabaro’s advocacy, it may be the livelihood initiative she helped build for Indigenous women in Barangay Rogongon. Developed in partnership with the DSWD and local government, the program was designed from the start around two principles that do not always appear together in development work: community ownership and cultural respect.
Today, those women grow organic vegetables, raise native chickens, and cultivate medicinal plants. They are not beneficiaries of a program 鈥� they are its stewards.
“It emphasizes shared ownership and long-term sustainability,” Cabaro has said of the initiative. But more than the words, it is the model itself that says something: development that does not center the people it serves tends not to last.
A Longer Table
Across her work, one thread runs constant 鈥� the deliberate expansion of who gets a seat.
Cabaro has pushed agri-fishery programs to be more accessible to women, opening pathways to livelihood support, skills training, and enterprise opportunities where they previously didn’t exist. She has worked to bring vegetable gardening into households, making food security a neighborhood-level practice rather than a government promise. She has sat down with educators to bring agri-fishery concepts into elementary classrooms, understanding that sustainable change has to be planted early.
She is also Vice President of both the Iligan City Urban Poor Workers Association, Inc. and the Federation of Senior Citizen Associations of the Philippines, and has been recognized for her work advancing the rights of older persons under Republic Act 9994. The breadth of her affiliations is not a coincidence 鈥� it reflects a consistent belief that the margins of one community are often the center of another.
What’s Being Built
The future Cabaro is helping shape for Iligan City is concrete in the most literal sense. Plans are underway for a Halal slaughterhouse, cold storage facilities, and fish processing infrastructure 鈥� investments designed to strengthen entire value chains rather than isolated products.
The vision, as she has stated it plainly, is not modest: “My vision is for Iligan City to achieve zero hunger and become a leader in the agriculture and fisheries sector, thriving despite the challenges posed by climate change.”
That ambition is not performative. It is the logical conclusion of the work she has already done 鈥� program by program, barangay by barangay, person by person.
Still Cultivating
In Rogongon and across the barangays she has served, the harvests are real. The market stalls are real. The women standing behind their products at the OBOP expo are real.
Apipa Cabaro did not build any of this alone. That, perhaps, is the most important thing about her leadership 鈥� she was never trying to. Her work is not about standing at the center of a story but about making sure more people have one worth telling.
At 72, she is still planting. Not just crops, but the slower, harder thing: the conditions under which communities can grow themselves.
