By Romie A. Evangelista

LEADERS of Cordillera’s tribal groups have vowed to help hunt down the killer of American Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell, saying the killing has given their place a bad name and brought down their income from the tourists visiting the world-famous Banawe Rice Terraces in Banawe, Ifugao, an official said yesterday.

“I welcome any assistance from any group that would help us solve Ms. Campbell’s case,” National Police Chief Oscar Calderon said.

“The elders in Ifugao are mad at the suspect because their income has been affected by the fewer tourist arrivals, and Campbell’s killing could be one of the factors,” he said.

Campbell, 40, went missing on April 8 while hiking in Battad village to see the terraces. Soldiers found her decomposing body 10 days later in a shallow grave with her feet protruding from the ground.

Police found near the grave a bloodstained piece of wood that they believed the suspect had used to bludgeon Campbell, an English teacher from Fairfax, Virginia, who had been teaching at the Divine Word College in Legazpi City, Albay, since October 2006, and who knew the local language.

On Sunday, police said a Luzon-wide manhunt had been launched for the main suspect, Juan Dontugan, 25, a woodcarver from Ifugao whom they described as 5’7” tall, fair complexioned and “strong.”

Ifugao police Director Pedro Ganir had earlier identified Dontugan as the husband of a woman who sold Campbell a Coca-Cola before she went hiking.

Calderon quoted the tribal leaders as saying yesterday that their sales from woodcarvings and other souvenir items had dwindled following Campbell’s killing, and that restaurants, hotels and inns were similarly feeling the pinch.

There are 10 cultural groups living in the Cordilleras with the name Igorot, the Tagalog word for highlander. Lowlanders once used the word pejoratively, but in recent years it came to be used with pride by Igorot youths as a positive expression of their ethnic identity.

Of the 10 groups, the Ifugaos of Ifugao Province, the Bontocs of Mountain Province and Kalinga and Apayao, and the Kankanays and Ibalois of Benguet are all wet-rice farmers whose ancestors built the elaborate rice terraces over hundreds of years.

The Kankanays and Ibalois were the most influenced by Spanish and American colonialism and lowland Filipino culture, and mainly because of the gold mines in Benguet near Baguio City.

The other highlanders in Luzon are the Kalingas of Kalinga and Apayao, the Tinguians of Abra, the Isnegs of northern Kalinga and Apayao, the Gaddangs on the border of Kalinga, Apayao and Isabela, and the Ilongots of Nueva Vizcaya.