Colorful Characters (And I Don't Mean the Fishes)

Photo credit: Junjie Kho

1. I once found myself diving with a yoga instructor who wore white like a trademark and who, it was whispered around the deck, tutored presidents and CEOs. I wondered then why this supposed master at breathing was exhaling bubbles at shallow intervals, consuming air faster than the rest of us.

She was excitable, barreling through other divers for a closer look at say, a pawikan (sea turtle) or marble ray, disturbing it away to the group’s exasperation. For a practitioner of body awareness, I noted with some fascination, this woman did not seem to know how to position herself unobtrusively around marine life.

2. I also ended up diving with a deaf-mute underwater photographer who initially had trouble connecting with people (most shied away from the perceived extra effort of trying to make sense of his gesticulations). Underwater, however, where everyone was muted anyway, he was a master at the hand signals, truly in his element, the most animated and “talkative” in the group.

Dangling the promise of an underwater photo-souvenir, he confidently herded (with energetic wrist flicks) divers this way and that for the best backdrop of schooling barracudas—although I noticed, he didn’t always press the camera button!

3. While on our knees and lined up in a row on Monad Shoal in Malapascua (waiting, waiting for a manta to glide in), we were semi-aware of one local divemaster swimming to and fro from behind our backs—methodically picking up one octopus (back-up regulator) after another, seemingly examining it, test-breathing from it, even hand-signaling O.K.

Later, he confessed that he was already about to backroll when he discovered that his tank had only 1,500 psi. This being the second dive, and with all the other tanks awarded to guests, he decided to just go with it and, when he already needed to, just start “testing” other divers’ air. Ingenious.

4. On a dive in Apo Reef, three divers, including our most regular divemaster, brought down one newly bought underwater camera housing each to TEST against possible leaking-under-pressure.

Midway into the dive, what else would choose to reveal itself but a magnificent hammerhead shark!

No one in the group had ever seen one before. Tanks were banged like crazy. Arms punched overhead. Muffled screams. And they could've kicked themselves over the fact that all three camera housings contained only…drumroll please…paper.

5. We were doing Tubbataha out on the Sulu Seas for the entire last week of May when blue skies turned grey. With the onslaught of wind and rain, our charter boat pitched and rolled. I chose to stay up on deck because I figured looking out on the horizon helped with possible dizziness better than being cooped up in my cabin.

Soon enough however, one guy couldn’t help but hurl his lunch over the rail (look out down below!). Then, like a wave, up to four people followed suit with their own gagging-and-heaving. It was not a pretty sight.

So, with all that going on, no one noticed early enough that one of the chase boats tethered to the side of our “mother boat” was being tossed by swells—hard enough for it to slip under and then turn over! Unfortunately, in that very chase boat were the BCs, regs, and other gear of a group of divers supposedly scheduled to head out (before the weather turned).

Everyone was suddenly on one side of our boat, watching the submerged chase boat as it further receded under. At least two guys hurriedly suited up in a valiant effort to rescue the gear but by then these were sunk to impossible depths.

The pity for this group who lost their gear (and consequently, the chance to go out on the last few precious dives of the trip) was quite palpable.

Then came the announcement: the company’s dive shop back in Manila will outfit these guys with top-of-the-line replacements for everything they lost—down to every reel, slate or whatever equipment declared hooked to their BCs when these went down.

Human nature being what it is, pity quickly turned to envy, and there was actual talk of maybe tossing one’s own battered gear (include the rusty dive knife! and the flooded torch!) overboard “in sympathy” too.

6. In Ticao Bowl, Masbate while diving for mantas, we noticed that this outrigger boat seemed to be shadowing us. The fisherman looked like he was just going about his usual business. Most of the time, he lay on his boat, probably waiting for a tug on his lines or movement in his net.

As we chatted in between dives, one of the crew noticed activity, just beneath the water's surface, at a short distance. The local divemaster excitedly said that it could be a manta.

The fisherman and his banca suddenly leapt to life, quickly motoring off to that area. We actually saw him threw a harpoon into the water. We screamed. One of the divers, shouting obscenities throughout, pulled out a gun and fired shots in the air (which was scary in itself; he turned out to be a local law enforcer). We were relieved to see the fisherman pull the harpoon out of the water with nothing stuck at the end.

That this fisherman (from another town, the local DM was sure) trailed us knowing that we were here for the mantas (that divers unwittingly bring danger to what we love) was a sobering realization!

7. Finally, imagine us, four females just surfaced from Monad Shoal, waiting by the side of the outrigger boat for our turn to climb up the ladder. Every now and then, we'd plant our masked faces back into the water to locate just where a jellyfish was in reference to us. We were of course convinced that it kept getting nearer. There were screams. Fins were getting to ssed back into the boat. There was a mad scramble up.

Non-divers still rib us on the idea that on that very trip, we "bravely" sought out

and found our toothy thresher sharks but went jelly on the knees and girly-girly over this small creature that really, was at the mercy of where the currents took it.

But then again, someone who I thought was my friend had to point out (a parallel contradiction): they already know that I don't mind, say, rapelling over the side of a ship (an adventure race dare) but I have to be escorted across Manila's streets!

WILD BIRD CLUB OF THE PHILIPPINES

STATEMENT ON SPORTS HUNTING

We, members of the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, have recently come across several websites that demonstrate a blatant disregard for the law, particularly the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act RA # 9147.

The pictures in these websites clearly show faces of the hunters and dead birds, some of which are considered as vulnerable under the Red List of threatened birds of the world. The penalty for killing or destroying vulnerable wildlife species as stated in RA # 9147 is imprisonment of two (2) years and one (1) day to four (4) years and/or a fine of Thirty thousand pesos (P30,000.00) to Three hundred thousand pesos (P300,000.00) . The law specifically states further in Sec. 27 that unless otherwise allowed in accordance with the Act, it shall be unlawful for any person to willfully and knowingly exploit wildlife resources and their habitats, collecting, hunting or possessing wildlife, their by-products and derivatives. As such, even the mere possession of these species, evidenced by their very own pictures on their very own websites is punishable by law.

We accept the hunting of game for food, culling (in the case of overpopulation of certain species) and for ritual purposes, but we fail to see how defiance of the law qualifies sports hunters as
conservationists, especially when what they proudly display are dead birds of a vulnerable species, one that is found nowhere else in the world and of which not enough studies have determined the capacity to survive the loss of habitat and other threats.

The Philippine Mallard or Philippine Duck Anas luzonica counts as one of the many birds that are displayed on several websites as having been shot down in numbers that horrify scientists and birders alike. It is endemic to the Philippines and classified as vulnerable, with only 5,000 to 10,000 birds left. The majesty of these creatures in flight, having been often seen by many a proud birder, cannot fail to inspire. That is why the interruption of their delicate V formation by the shots of hunters including some members of the Philippine National Shooting Team makes us shudder.

Many hunters call themselves conservationists and we cannot argue with the closeness to nature that hunting may inspire, coming as it does from our very evolutionary story as a species. But it is time to take a step back and consider our common impact on the planet as
a species. It takes more than closeness to prey to know the current status, remaining numbers, range and the extent of remaining habitat, conservation status and the feeding requirements of our co-inhabitants. Conservation is painstaking work of watching, recording, watching, comparing and watching again, and nowhere in this process involves killing except for the necessary type specimen.

We understand that hunters want habitat conservation as well, for them to continue enjoying their sport. May we remind them that the law was passed because there is precisely very little wild habitat left in this country. In other countries, wild habitats are kept due
to the high fees charged for highly regulated hunting activities.

Hunters here know how quickly these wild places dwindle into settlements, farms and urban areas and this alone should be a message that unless we are able to restore the balance, revive the wild places, hunting should have no place in this country.

While hunting gives a certain opportunity to immerse in the wild, the kind of conservation that this country, the hottest of the hotspots, sorely needs is an entirely different kind. A kind that
finds out how much is left and how to save and expand on that.

Shooting at vulnerable species, posing with them in great numbers and plastering them on websites does not inspire confidence that the hunters claiming to be conservationists are indeed so or that they can police their ranks to be so.

We believe that hunters are people who can be reasoned with and if they know the score, will restrain themselves from wiping out species. We appeal to them to find out as much as they can in terms of their impact on remaining habitats, breeding populations, and act with the precautionary principle in mind. We urge them to stop all sports hunting in observance of the law until strict regulation that can aid conservation is proven by scientific and objective data and
analysis. Self-regulation by the hunters and high-level monitoring by an empowered and resource-rich State may be pre-requisites to a Philippines wherein hunting could be allowed.

Unless hunting is based on figures, unless sports hunting revenues can pay for the conservation of sufficient wild habitat, until we have a need to cull specific invasive or pest populations, and until the ranks of hunters can police themselves to strictly follow the rules, the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines cannot accept that hunting contributes in any way to conservation.

For as long as vulnerable and endemic species whose numbers are dwindling before our very eyes and whose habitats are fast being taken over by development that is unfriendly to the wild co-inhabitants of this archipelago, any form of sports hunting should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

We appeal to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and to the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau to demonstrate speedy and effective enforcement of the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act. These are crimes against the Filipino people and
future generations in the global community who may never know these creatures being hunted to extinction.

Birdwatching in Bislig

PICOP Concession
When: September 3-5 2007
Where: Road 1-4, Road 4, Road 42, Bislig airport, Road 84-A, Bagnan water reservoir, PICOP Compound
Observers: Mads Bajarias, Lu-Ann Fuentes, Zardo Goring (Sept. 4-5)
Trip Report and Bird List by Lu-Ann Fuentes and Mads Bajarias

Birding Notes

On Road 42: That Zardo, Mads and I observed the male and female Rufous Paradise-Flycatchers in the same spot and time as the Celestial Monarch pair (and even managed to flush a Steere's Pitta while walking back) says something about Road 42. We got 3 out of our 5 target birds (just as we were about to call it a day), so it was quite a satisfying result to a long day of hard work.


Road 42's steeply sloping limestone terrain makes it inhospitable to illegal settlers and too much work for smugglers (in contrast to, say, Road 1-4). A birds' haven is what happens when a previously logged area is left alone (a concession's design) to recover. As with Roads 1-4 and 4, we heard Rufous Hornbills calling but were too distant to see.


On the Philippine Eagle sighting: From the Philippine Eagle Foundation's camp (an hour's vehicle ride and two hours birding-pace walk from Bislig town center), we hiked past bird hide 1 and walked another half-hour to bird hide 2 on Road 84-A. Squeezed on a slightly-swaying platform 20 meters up a tree with PEF's field specialists Perfecto "Peks" Balicao, Neri "Junix" Baron Jr. and Jo Cruz, we surveyed the canopy below for an hour before a Barred Honeybuzzard's intimidation display gave away the location of a perched Philippine Eagle (there all along) at a far
distance. (The PEF field team assigned there for the past six days recorded daily sightings at around the same time - 10 a.m) For nearly an hour, we alternately peered through PEF's scopes as the eagle stretched and preened its wings. Even at a distance, we couldn't help but be impressed by the size of the perched Eagle compared to the thermalling Honeybuzzard.


On the forest trail to PEF camp: The foot trail to the PEF camp could be very interesting bird-wise at the right time of day. Our target bird for the day was only the Eagle so we passed through this nice bit of forest at mid-day when the birds were silent and the humidity intense. Despite these, Zardo was still able to hear and lure out a Streaked Ground-Babbler just a few meters from the PEF camp. And in our river crossing, we flushed a Silvery Kingfisher. As in all our forays, we also heard the Rufous Hornbill calling near the PEF camp but didn't get to see any.


Our target birds for the trip had been the Eagle, Celestial Monarch, Rufous Paradise Flycatcher, Steere's Pitta and Wattled Broadbill. Once again, we missed out on the broadbill, but not for lack of trying. The presence of the Eagle in PICOP is immensely good news and we hope it will continue to survive in the area.

PICOP concession
When: September 4, 2007
Where: Road 1-4, Road 4, Road 42
Time: 4:57am to 4:30pm
Cloud Cover: 2/8, 1/8, 3/8
Conditions: Sunny
Observers: Mads Bajarias, Lu-Ann Fuentes, Zardo Goring (guide)

1. Pompadour Green-Pigeon [Treron pompadora] – 1
2. White-eared Brown-Dove [Phapitreron leucotis] – 7
3. Amethyst Brown-Dove [Phapitreron amethystine] – 1, perched
4. Yellow-breasted Fruit-Dove [Ptilinopus leclancheri] – 2, perched
5. Green Imperial-Pigeon [Ducula aenea] – 3
6. Spotted Dove [Streptopelia chinensis] – 5
7. Zebra Dove [Geopelia striata] – 10
8. Common Emerald-Dove [Chalcophaps indica] – 1
9. Guaiabero [Bolbopsittacus lunulatus] – 5, in flight
10. Common Koel [Eudynamys scolopacea] - HO
11. Philippine Coucal [Centropus viridis] – HO
12. Black-faced Coucal [Centropus melanops] – 1
13. Philippine Frogmouth [Batrachostomus septimus] – 1, flushed, spotlit
14. Nightjar sp. – 2
15. Island Swiftlet [Collocalia vanikorensis] – 20
16. Glossy Swiftlet [Collocalia esculenta] – 10
17. Pygmy Swiftlet [Collocalia troglodytes] – 10
18. Philippine Needletail [Mearnsia picina] – 3
19. White-throated Kingfisher [Halcyon smyrnensis] – 2
20. Rufous-lored Kingfisher [Halcyon winchelli] – HO
21. Mindanao Tarictic [Penelopides affinis] – 4, more heard
22. Writhed Hornbill [Aceros leucocephalus] – HO
23. Rufous Hornbill [Buceros hydrocorax] – HO
24. Coppersmith Barbet [Megalaima haemacephala] – HO
25. White-bellied Woodpecker [Dryocopus javensis] – 1
26. Greater Flameback [Chrysocolaptes lucidus] – 1
27. Steere’s Pitta [Pitta steerii] – 1, flushed on Rd. 42
28. Scarlet Minivet [Pericrocotus flammeus] – 1, perched on Rd. 42
29. Philippine Leafbird [Chloropsis flavipennis] – 4
30. Yellow-vented Bulbul [Pycnonotus goiavier] – 10
31. Yellow-wattled Bulbul [Pycnonotus urostictus] – 1
32. Philippine Bulbul [Hypsipetes philippinus] – 20
33. Yellowish Bulbul [Hypsipetes everetti] – 3
34. Hair-crested Drongo [Dicrurus hottentottus] – 15
35. Philippine Oriole [Oriolus steerii] – HO
36. Black-naped Oriole [Oriolus chinensis] – HO
37. Large-billed Crow [Corvuis macrorhynchos] – 2
38. White-fronted Tit [Parus semilarvatus] – 1 seen clearly only by Z. Goring
39. Rusty-crowned Babbler [Stachyris capitalis] – 4
40. Brown Tit-Babbler [Macronous striaticeps] – 2, more heard
41. Philippine Leaf-Warbler [Phylloscopus olivaceus] –1
42. Striated Grassbird [Megalurus palustris] – 1
43. Philippine Tailorbird [Orthotomus castaneiceps] – 2, more heard
44. Black-headed Tailorbird [Orthotomus nigriceps] – 1, more heard
45. Blue Fantail [Rhipidura supercialiaris] – 2
46. Rufous Paradise-Flycatcher [Terpsiphone cinnamomea] – 3 (male and fem observed together in same spot and time as Celestial Monarch pair; Rd. 42)
47. Black-naped Monarch [Hypothymis azurea] – 3
48. Celestial Monarch [Hypothymis coelestis] – 2 (male and fem observed together in same spot and time as Rufous Paradise Flycatcher pair; Rd. 42)
49. Yellow-bellied Whistler [Pachycephala philippinensis] – 6
50. White-breasted Wood-swallow [Artamus leucorynchus] – 8
51. Asian Glossy Starling [Aplonis panayensis] – 20
52. Coleto [Sarcops calvus] – 1, more heard
53. Olive-backed Sunbird [Nectarinia jugularis] – 2
54. Purple-throated Sunbird [Nectarinia sperata] – 1 male
55. Metallic-winged Sunbird [Aethopyga pulcherrima] – 1 male seen only by Z. Goring
56. Naked-faced Spiderhunter [Arachnothera clarae] – 1
57. Little Spiderhunter [Arachnothera longirostra] – 4
58. Olive-backed Flowerpecker [Prionochilus olivaceus] – 1
59. Bicolored Flowerpecker [Dicaeum bicolor] – 1 male
60. Red-keeled Flowerpecker [Dicaeum australe] – 5
61. Orange-bellied Flowerpecker [Dicaeum trigonostigma] – 2
62. Eurasian Tree Sparrow [Passer montanus] – 20
63. Chestnut Munia [Lonchura malacca] – 6


When: September 4, 2007
Where: Bislig Airport
Time: 5:30pm to 6:00pm
Cloud Cover: 4/8
Conditions: Twilight
Observers: Mads Bajarias, Lu-Ann Fuentes, Zardo Goring (guide)

1. Purple Heron [Ardea purpurea] - 2
2. Black-crowned Night-Heron [Nycticorax nycticorax] –1 imm
3. Cinnamon Bittern [Ixobrychus cinnamomeus] – 1
4. Little Ringed-Plover [Charadrius dubius] – 15
5. Snipe sp – 2
6. Spotted Dove [Streptopelia chinensis] – 12
7. Zebra Dove [Geopelia striata] – 4
8. Island Swiftlet [Collocalia vanikorensis] – 20
9. Pygmy Swiftlet [Collocalia troglodytes] – 8
10. White-collared Kingfisher [Halcyon chloris] – 3
11. Pacific Swallow [Hirundo tahitica] – 10
12. Yellow-vented Bulbul [Pycnonotus goiavier] – 10
13. Pied Bushchat [Saxicola caprata] – 1, adult male
14. Striated Grassbird [Megalurus palustris] – 1
15. Zitting Cisticola [Cisticola juncidis] - 1
16. White-breasted Wood-swallow [Artamus leucorynchus] - 2
17. Asian Glossy Starling [Aplonis panayensis] – 40
18. Crested Myna [Acridotheres cristatellus] - 1
19. Eurasian Tree Sparrow [Passer montanus] – 15
20. Chestnut Munia [Lonchura malacca] – 10


PICOP concession
When: September 5, 2007
Where: Road 84-A
Time: 5:30am to 3:00pm
Cloud Cover: 1/8, 2/8
Conditions: Sunny
Observers: Mads Bajarias, Lu-Ann Fuentes, Zardo Goring (guide)
With Philippine Eagle Foundation field specialists led by Perfecto “Peks” Balicao, Neri “Junix” Baron Jr. and Jo Cruz

1. Oriental Honeybuzzard [Pernis ptilorhynchus] – 2
2. Barred Honeybuzzard [Pernis celebensis] – 1
3. Philippine Eagle [Pithecophaga jefferyi] – 1, perched, preening
4. White-eared Brown-Dove [Phapitreron leucotis] – 1, more heard
5. Spotted Dove [Streptopelia chinensis] – 20
6. Zebra Dove [Geopelia striata] 2
7. Common Emerald-Dove [Chalcophaps indica] – 1
8. Lesser Coucal [Centropus bengalensis] - HO
9. Philippine Coucal [Centropus viridis] – HO
10. Glossy Swiftlet [Collocalia esculenta] – 5
11. Pygmy Swiftlet [Collocalia troglodytes] – 2
12. Silvery Kingfisher [Alcedo argentata] – 1, flushed while we were crossing Burboanan River
13. White-throated Kingfisher [Halcyon smyrnensis] - 1
14. Mindanao Tarictic [Penelopides affinis] – HO
15. Rufous Hornbill [Buceros hydrocorax] – HO
16. Coppersmith Barbet [Megalaima haemacephala] – 1, more heard
17. White-bellied Woodpecker [Dryocopus javensis] – 1
18. Yellow-vented Bulbul [Pycnonotus goiavier] - 30
19. Yellow-wattled Bulbul [Pycnonotus goiavier] – 4
20. Hair-crested Drongo [Dicrurus hottentottus] – 5
21. Black-naped Oriole [Oriolus chinensis] – HO
22. Streaked Ground-Babbler [Ptilocichla mindanensis] – 1
23. Little Slaty Flycatcher [Ficedula basilanica] - HO by Z. Goring
24. Yellow-bellied Whistler [Pachycephala philippinensis] – 1
25. Red-keeled Flowerpecker [Dicaeum australe] - 2
26. Pygmy Flowerpecker [Dicaeum pygmaeum] – 1
27. Eurasian Tree Sparrow [Passer montanus] – 20
28. White-bellied Munia [Lonchura leucogastra] – 7

PICOP concession
When: September 5, 2007
Where: Bagnan water reservoir
Time: 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Cloud Cover: 3/8, 4/8
Conditions: Sunny
Observers: Mads Bajarias, Lu-Ann Fuentes, Zardo Goring (guide)

1. Purple Heron [Ardea purpurea] – 2
2. Little Heron [Butorides striatus] – 1
3. Black-crowned Night-Heron – 2
4. Rufous Night-Heron [Nycticorax caledonicus] – 1 imm
5. Cinnamon Bittern [Ixobrychus sinensis] – 1
6. Crake/Rail sp. – 1 hidden in water plants
7. Spotted Dove [Streptopelia chinensis] – 15
8. Zebra Dove [Geopelia striata] – 4
9. Glossy Swiftlet [Collocalia esculenta] – 10
10. White-collared Kingfisher [Halcyon chloris] - 4
11. Blue-tailed Bee-eater [Merops philippinus] – 1
12. Pacific Swallow [Hirundo tahitica] – 30
13. Yellow-vented Bulbul [Pycnonotus goiavier] - 10
14. Large-billed Crow [Corvus macrorhynchos] – 2
15. Tawny Grassbird [Megalurus timoriensis] – 1
16. White-breasted Wood-swallow [Artamus leucorynchus] – 3
17. Brown Shrike [Lanius cristatus] – 1 male
18. Asian Glossy Starling [Aplonis panayensis] – 25
19. Eurasian Tree Sparrow [Passer montanus] – 10
20. Chestnut Munia [Lonchura malacca] – 8

PICOP compound
When: September 3, 2007
Time: 6:00am to 8:00am
Cloud Cover: 1/8, 3/8
Conditions: Sunny
Observers: Mads Bajarias, Lu-Ann Fuentes

1. Purple Heron [Ardea purpurea] – 1
2. Peregrine Falcon [Falco peregrinus] – 1, race ernesti
3. Barred Rail [Gallirallus torquatus] – 1
4. Spotted Dove [Streptopelia chinensis] – 5
5. Zebra Dove [Geopelia striata] – 2
6. White-collared Kingfisher [Halcyon chloris] – 8
7. Black-naped Oriole [Oriolus chinensis] - 2
8. Large-billed Crow [Corvus macrorhynchos] – 2
9. White-breasted Wood-swallow [Artamus leucorynchus]– 8
10. Asian Glossy Starling [Aplonis panayensis] – 50
11. Olive-backed Sunbird [Nectarinia jugularis] – 2
12. Purple-throated Sunbird [Nectarinia sperata] – 1
13. Red-keeled Flowerpecker [Dicaeum australe] – 4
14. Everett’s White-eye [Zosterops everetti] - 6

Tubbataha Dreaming

Seabird sanctuary, turtle nesting ground, divers’ dream destination—it takes the law to keep this place wild.

By Lu-Ann G. Fuentes Special to BusinessMirror

My initiation to Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park started with a back-roll, one day in May, into Jessie Beazley Reef. The first sharks of the trip were close enough to make out the white on their tips. Grey reef sharks were on active patrol, too, and we spotted no less than three pregnant sharks, bulging at their sides.

Next day, over at North Tubbataha, Shark Airport lived up to its name. By now, giant Napoleon wrasses and circling jacks were a more interesting sight than staple sharks. Six-foot teeth-baring tunas startled me more than the dozing eight-foot nurse shark. A breathtaking tower of circling chevron barracudas (at mere arm’s length at one point) capped the last dive before twilight. Two hours later, my night dive was blessed with eight turtles.

This is the Tubbataha I know—its horizon viewed from a boat deck, depths peered through a dive mask. It’s a wild place that I dream of returning to.

But Tubbataha is much more than that.

For park manager Angelique M. Songco, it’s all of 96,828 hectares (10,000 of which are coral reefs)—and every bit of it needs guarding. Apart from Jessie Beazley Reef and the surrounding waters, there’s also the uninhabited South Atoll and North Atoll. Tubbataha is a no-take Marine Protected Area (MPA) located in the middle of the Cagayan Ridge in the Sulu Sea. And it falls under the political jurisdiction of the municipality of Cagayancillo, which lies 60 nautical miles to the northeast.

My Tubbataha in May had calm seas and clear skies; Songco’s is exposed to both northeast and southwest monsoons most months of the year. She has the bigger picture: Tubbataha hosts 379 coral species (almost 90 percent of all coral species in the Philippines), 481 fish species, seven species of resident breeding seabirds, 10 cetacean species, 79 algae species, seven seagrass species, and eight shark species. And its value to conservation and the Philippine economy lies in its strategic role as a source of fish and coral larvae, serving to enrich fisheries in surrounding areas.

Conservation International-Philippines (CI-Philippines) country director Romeo B. Trono has his own take on Tubbataha. For him, it’s part of a priority marine biodiversity corridor—the Cagayan Ridge—which, in turn, is part of an even bigger Sulu-Sulawesi Seascape (SSS) Project, which also covers Verde Passage, Balabac Strait, and the “Trinational Sea Turtle Corridor” of Turtle Islands, Sabah and East Kalimantan.

“This park is the only purely marine Unesco World Heritage Site in Southeast Asia,” Trono reminded. “Its inclusion on the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance demonstrates its global role in the conservation of congregating seabird species. And the islets on the two large atolls where seabirds feed and breed are the nesting grounds of sea turtles, too.”

Cost of protection

Songco pointed out that Tubbataha’s isolation saved it from fishing pressure in the 1970s, when near-shore fisheries in the Philippines were relatively productive.

“But by the mid-1980s, fishers from various parts of the country and Asia begun to harvest its marine resources, mostly using destructive means,” she noted. “Tubbataha was declared a national marine park in 1988 yet fishers still entered it—even during bad weather to elude detection and arrest. By 1989, coral cover in Tubbataha had decreased by 52 percent compared to 1982 levels.”

Today, the sole policymaking body for the park is the 17-member multisectoral Tubbataha Protected Area Management Board (TPAMB). Its executive arm, the Tubbataha Management Office (TMO), is charged with the park’s day-to-day administration.

Detailed to the reefs all-year-round on three-month rotations are seven marine park rangers—four from the Philippine Navy, one from the Philippine Coast Guard, and two from the TMO. They are housed at the ranger station, located in a sand bar at the North Atoll.

According to Songco, through the help of various supporting agencies, they now have a radar, two patrol boats and a dinghy, radios, GPS, binoculars, bullhorns, spotlights, camera and firearms. “World Wildlife Fund-Philippines donated a patrol boat while CI-Philippines contributed an outboard motor as well as support for bird-banding work,” she cited.

A park ranger’s Tubbataha is a wild place—in a different sense of the word. He’s an engine-and-electronics troubleshooter, a seaman and scuba diver all rolled into one. Most of all, he’s a law enforcer. Used to fishers claiming to have accidentally entered the park, he boards their boats to verify illegal activity. Poaching cases in 2006 alone tallied at 33.

The most publicized case was of the Chinese poachers caught red-handed with 800 live fish—including over 200 Napoleon wrasses—inside the park last December.

“Poachers do not care about sustainable fisheries, conservation efforts, or MPA rules and boundaries,” Trono said. “They care about the demands of the Chinese aphrodisiac market. They care about making money from sea turtles, shark meat, sea cucumbers and giant clams.”

They care enough to get crafty at it. Trono gave an example: “Illegal fishers who are after topshells [Trochus niloticus], locally known as samong, arrive in the cover of night. They shut off the motor of their outrigger boats just outside park waters. They use paddle boats, with their lights-off, to silently enter the park. They stack the shells in certain areas as they go along. Before sun-up, these are collected and loaded to the motorized boat.”

Taking samong—considered rare, threatened and endangered under Convention of Internationally Trade Endangered Species—or any other rare or endangered species is punishable by a 12- to 20-year imprisonment or a P120,000 fine, forfeiture of catch and fishing permit cancellation.

But these risks are taken anyway because businessmen in Roxas town reportedly buy topshells for between P140 and P160 a kilo to be sold at P400 a kilo in Cebu. Mainly because rangers endure rough weather during stakeouts and stakeholders outside the park report illegal activity, they made some headway since 2006. Early this year, for example, five people were caught carrying 16 boxes of 700 topshells.

“Considering the park’s law-enforcement budget of P8 million a year against its threefold increase in total area to 96,828, the cost of protection is virtually P83 per hectare per year. That’s obviously not enough,” Songco said.

Back to the basics

CI-Philippines is a member of the TPAMB. It also engages local stakeholders and collaborators for its SSS Project in the Cagayan Ridge Marine Biodiversity Conservation Corridor.

“We met with stakeholders—from fishers and fish vendors to teachers and priests—to draw their thoughts on conservation, needs and expectations, and possibilities for project participation,” said William Azucena, CI-Philippines information, education and communication specialist.

Stakeholders reported deployed MPA markers that had been destroyed, the lack of MPA guard outposts, and fisheries law-enforcement teams that needed organizing. They identified areas for collaboration: from the strategic (monitoring and improving local MPAs) to the nitty-gritty (equipping the Bantay Dagat with radios, searchlights, flashlights, raincoats, uniforms and training).

To contribute to the funds for park management and law enforcement, the SSS Project determined a penalty of P12,000 per square meter of damaged reef. Azucena explained: “Production and restoration cost estimates put the park’s coral reefs’ annual economic value at about P208 to P211 per square meter.” The TPAMB has since adopted this environmental-crimes fine.

Azucena added: “We drill down to the basics for our basis. MPA networks and corresponding management systems are designed based on what we know about spawning fish stocks within this corridor and their dispersal to others. Test fishing [that monitor catch and by-catch], meanwhile, helps assess the pressures to develop the right policies.”

Big network for a big project

The inhabited islands along the Cagayan Ridge Corridor are Cawili, Arena, Calusa and Cagayancillo. “In Cagayancillo, 6,000 residents gave up their homes in line with the national decision to declare Tubbataha Reefs a no-take zone,” Azucena noted, as tourism, research and conservation are the only activities allowed within the park. “Their attempt to understand why and what for makes them conservation heroes. The challenge for us is to address the question, ‘What’s in it for them?’”

Delivering on conservation outcomes, after all, is about maximizing partnerships. For Cagayan Ridge, CI-Philippines joined hands not only with the TMO, TPAMB and Cagayancillo’s stakeholders and local government unit but also with the UP Marine Science Institute and Ocean Bio Laboratory, Tropical Marine Research for Conservation, and the Pawikan Conservation Project of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau.

A big project needs an even bigger community. “We’re inviting oil and gas corporations, as part of their corporate social responsibility programs, to participate in the development of a conservation strategy for the Cagayan Ridge Marine Biodiversity Conservation Corridor. Together, we can demonstrate sustainable management of protected areas adjacent to exploration areas,” Trono reported.

CI has already partnered with oil and gas companies—like BP, Chevron, Shell and Statoil—before.

In Venezuela, CI’s partnership activities included a marine biodiversity survey of habitats near ConocoPhillips’ concession area as well as a threats-and-opportunities assessment in the region, used to develop part of ConocoPhillips’ Environmental Impact Assessment.

CI’s Southampton-based Serpent project had been supported by oil and gas facilities to pursue deep-sea species surveys and research. A number of companies supported research on whale migration. These types of research help prioritize the deeper seascape areas for conservation activities even as they address companies’ environmental risk needs and provide a relatively simple and cost-effective outreach mechanism.

Here at home, First Gen provided over $150,000 to support the development and implementation of a conservation plan for Verde Island.

Dive operators and tourists play their part, too.

The third day found us at Black Rock, South Tubbataha, where I watched a marble ray gliding deeper, an octopus changing colors and textures as it moved, a wrass cleaning the cheek of a green moray, and a sea snake undulating across the sandy bottom.

The last four dives on Day Four at Delsan Wreck were devoted to searching for a manta. It showed itself on the very last dive—sealing it, in my mind, as an official Tubbataha trip.

But one other distinctive thing happened, too: Our dive operator reported the presence of a suspicious-looking vessel. As I watched the rangers’ patrol boat approach, I felt part of the big scheme to protect what we love.

Back to Verde

Snorkeling Snapshots: Kota Kinabalu's Mamutik & Manukan Islands

Have Camera, Will Take Anilao Test Shots

Under Verde's Spell

Last quarter, a group of us was invited to dive with biological sciences professor (and World conservation Union global marine species assessment coordinator) Kent Carpenter, who—together with co-author Victor Springer (of the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History)—determined that the peak of global marine biodiversity is right here, in Verde Island Passage. (And you probably already know that the Philippines is the world's No. 1 marine hotspot as well!)

Business Mirror ran my (ahem) resulting story on one whole page (with a banner-teaser above the masthead to direct readers to it—very cool). If you're curious about the science of it (why we're the "center of the center" of global marine biodiversity), here's the archive link

Underwater or topside (with birds as indicator for the latter), the campaign is the same—for Filipinos to realize that this country's waters and forests have a high concentration of species per unit area (and so habitat degradation—or say, an oil spill, deforestation or mining—wipes out unique biotic communities). And if Pinoys generally don't care about extinctions, we'll have to care about food security, right?

Photo by Sammy Ang

Weekend Resort Hideaways

The blue waters of Batangas—being only a two-hour-and-a-half drive from Manila—have “baptized” many, me included, into the diving community. That Independence Day weekend six years ago proved fitting as I surfaced from my open water check-out dive with a larger appreciation of two-thirds of our planet. Fortunately for me, along with that initiation into a submerged world came a built-in network all set to walk, er, fin every novice diver through it.

My own set of teachers consists of: Jay Ortiz (mobile 0917-8992000), who took me from house reef to liveaboard diving; Jimbo Jimenez (mobile 0920-9509631), first to introduce me to night diving; and Ian Paredes (0917-8395515) who gave me my advanced certification. All three are fathers, businessmen, and—long before they were either—avid divers, who, in their over-a-decade underwater exploration and instruction, can easily point to where I want or need to go next. And that includes (even before gearing up and getting into a dive banca) planning where to stay in Batangas.

With diving in its waters being possible all year round (though between November and June—sitting out the typhoon season—is best), its coastline is adorned with resorts that spoil divers for choice. Jay, Ian, and Jimbo help narrow it down by naming the ones they most frequent.

Ardent divers who naturally want to get more dives for their money go to Aquaventure Reef Club (tel. 5326681, mobile 09189291648) in Anilao. Overnight packages that include four buffet meals range from P2,700 per person for twin sharing to P3,200 for single occupancy. Day trip charge is at least P500. Jay and Ian both cite the friendly staff and excellent service. “Still the best buffet food,” Jimbo says. “Their restaurant also prepares ala carte meals,” Ian adds. Jay describes its party atmosphere as welcoming especially to new divers. An open-air bar invites sunset cocktails by the deck that lead into fun evening get-togethers.

Solana (mobile 0917-3001086) in San Teodoro, Mabini also gets the thumbs-up for its facilities, service, food, and laidback ambiance. “When you want a weekend getaway that’s similar to Palawan resorts, this is the place,” Jay says. Ian counts as bonus “the seasonal beach that forms in front of the house reef.” Their beachfront and hillside rooms (air conditioned with hot shower and intercom) have their own spacious veranda for taking in the panoramic sight of sea and sky. Rates range from $90 to $150 per head per night.

If you want to bring a non-diver date, Jay says, you can’t go wrong with Planet Dive (tel. 9063898, mobile 0927-2308008) in San Teodoro, Mabini. “Right in front of the resort is a nice reef for diving or snorkeling.” Jimbo also notes that the resort is close to the dive sites, and its ocean-view rooms are perfectly relaxing. Day trip rates range from P700 for a non-diver (includes buffet lunch, use of snorkeling gear and kayak) to P1,500 for a diver (includes buffet lunch, two boat dives, and unlimited shore dives). Overnight packages bundling four buffet meals range from P1,800 per non-diver for quad sharing to P4,300 per diver for single occupancy.

Dive & Trek (tel. 8518746, mobile 0920-9064123) in San Pablo, Bauan gets Ian’s best-value-for-money award. As he puts it, “Where else in Anilao can you find a school of jacks, pawikan, and sharks less than 100 meters from the shore?” Jimbo confirms the appeal of “unlimited diving in what can be argued as the best house reef in Batangas.” Jay adds that non-divers, with mask and snorkel, can also experience the marine sanctuary’s teeming reef life. The resort has a seaside swimming pool, volleyball court, and conference rooms. Rates range from P1,350 (day trip snorkeling package with lunch and boat transfers) to P4,350 (overnight package includes an air-conditioned room, four meals, and unlimited dives).

Eagle Point (tel. 8133553, mobile 09178544944) in Bagalangit, Mabini is ideal for families or groups with non-divers, Ian says, because of its swimming pools (saltwater and freshwater, the latter with waterfalls and waterslide), children’s playground, game room, cable TV and other creature comforts. Jimbo says the saltwater pool houses baby sharks rescued from fishermen’s nets for rehabilitation before eventual release—raising marine conservation awareness among guests who are invited to look, even swim with them, but not touch. Overnight rates per person range from P2,800 for triple sharing in a fan room to P5,950 for single occupancy in an air-conditioned room. A day tour package per person costs P1,600.

The fusion cuisine of Pier Uno (tel. 7437576, mobile 0917-8081877) in Anilao has reeled in Jay. “They put their own touch on a variety of Filipino, Chinese, and American dishes.” Jimbo is equally captivated with the resort’s set up of Casita rooms (from P2,200 per person for quad sharing to P4,100 single occupancy) and Kubo rooms (P2,500 per person for twin sharing and P3,200 per person for single occupancy).These overnight rates in air-conditioned rooms with hot showers (plus Cable TV for Casita) include four buffet meals. “The service is amazing,” Jimbo adds, and with the parking area located right beside the rooms, “no long walks or steep steps.”

Portulano (mobile 0917-5404257) in Bauan, according to Jay, has great food and service (“feels personalized”) while Jimbo specifically mentions how the doors to the room can be fully opened for the breeze and breathtaking view. Sunrise to night sky can be enjoyed from your own private veranda. Overnight packages per person which include four meals range from P2,150 for quad sharing in a fan room to P5,300 for single occupancy in an air-conditioned room.

Built on a rocky slope in San Teodoro Mabini, the cottages of Balai (tel. 240-2927) offer tree-framed views of the sea. “Balai’s environment is perfect for guests who enjoy just hanging-out,” Ian says. “Nice open-air lounge,” agrees Jay, “and superb food.” Overnight non-diver packages (four buffet meals and hot shower included) range from P1,850 for triple sharing to P2,800 for single occupancy. Overnight diver packages (two dives a day for two days, dive boat fees, dive master services included) range from P3,300 triple sharing to P4,250 single occupancy. For those who can’t sleep without air conditioning, Balai charges an additional P600 per night.

When Jimbo wants peace and quiet, his choice is Club Ocellaris (tel. 6721451, mobile 09178901073) in Anilao. Sharing a resort meal (described as world-class) and conversation with owner-operator and instructor Boy Venus leave you in awe of the unusual and rare critters found in Batangas waters. Many photographers keen on documenting that beauty underwater consider Ocellaris as “headquarters.” And yes, the resort is named after the bright orange-and-white Ocellaris Clownfish whose symbiotic relationship with its host anemone Boy likens to us and our fragile environment. In keeping with the private feel of Ocellaris (like you’ve been invited to be a special guest in a friend’s vacation house), email boyv@clubocellaris.com to request for rates.

Jimbo has Villa Ligaya (tel. 896-6016) in Anilao on his list for their speedboats. Departing in the morning for, say, Puerto Galera or Verde Island which takes 45 minutes one-way, you can do two dives out, be back in Anilao around lunch time, and still decide if you want a third dive. An overnight package which covers buffet meals (three on weekdays, four on weekends) ranges from P1,450 for fan dorms to P3,500 for air-conditoned single-occupancy rooms. A day trip which includes a buffet lunch costs P600. Kids aged two to seven get 50% off; and if they’re younger, they’re free-of-charge.

Rockport Beach Resort (tel. 043-4080671, mobile 09175319158) is situated in a protected cove in Balite, San Luis. The motto here is “Life is good!”—which, over the years, Jay has adopted as a personal philosophy too. (Talk about positive influence.) Day trip rate per person which includes a room and buffet lunch is P600; P500 if you don’t need a room. Overnight accommodation with three buffet meals cost P1,550 with any extra meal at P350. Jay especially enjoys Rockport’s chicken pandan and lumpiang bangus. Also a plus for him is the convenience of being able to park his vehicle near the cottages.

For non-divers, any of these resorts can arrange for island hopping, cruising, private beach picnics, kayaking, trekking, recreational games, snorkeling, intro-diving—whatever you need to feel that, indeed, life is good. Certainly, every time my boat heads back to the resort after the day’s last dive, I find myself looking forward to the waiting meal and companionship, warming the heart like the comforts of home.





(Cuttlefish photo by Junjie Koh, jacks photo by Jay Ortiz)

Magic on Monad Shoal

I’ve been staring into the blue so hard I thought I imagined its outline. But there it was, magically materialized and swimming head-on towards me. Just before reaching the edge of the submerged plateau where I hovered low, it made a big, slow turn—a large eye fixed on me for some seconds. I was transfixed by the silvery sheen on its side, and then by the scythe-like tail that gives thresher sharks their name.

Because Monad shoal (a soft-coral habitat) is a cleaning station where wrasses polish off parasites from sharks and rays’ gills, mouth, and skin, nowhere else are threshers encountered as regularly. Divers from all over have this protected area on their must-go-and-see list. In our outrigger dive boat alone, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, German, Belgian, and Russian divers shared my excited anticipation.

To be in the same waters as this rarely-found creature, we operated on thresher time. Our boat left the shore just before 6 a.m. and, by 6:30 a.m., I back-rolled into the water.

I turned and kicked to head down, pulling myself lower and lower on the anchor line to steady myself against the strong current. Finally, 24 meters below the water’s surface, I found my buoyancy as I came upon the sunken sandbank’s flattish top.

Its 1.5 kilometer expanse looked relatively stark, a seemingly bare stage waiting for its star to light it up. And wait is what we did, mimicking a nearby lion fish’s suspended stillness.

Staking my spot alongside other divers, I stayed low, breathed deeply and slowly. I looked around and at our dive master, hoping for the hand-on-the-head sign for shark.

Visibility was around 20 meters horizontally. I focused my sights beyond “shark’s point,” where the sides of the shoal dropped to about 300 meters. I sensed the collective prayer (and various bargaining with God) for a thresher shark to surface from the depths—where it normally herded and stunned prey of squid and schooling fish with its whip-like tail.

Which brings me back to the beginning of my story: a thresher shark did swim in from the blue. It seemed to consider us—this wide-eyed, bubbles-creating group—and then it swerved, giving us an appreciation of its sleek powerful tail which took up almost half of its six-meter muscular body. We waited anew (again, waiting is how this works) and, soon enough, it circled into view again.

That already made my day but Monad Shoal wasn’t through with me. By 2:30 p.m., I was back in the water and on the same ledge—prostrate as befitting an admirer of otherworldly beauty. This time, we were blessed with seven sightings of two manta rays with five to six meter wingspans.

Unlike that morning’s thresher shark which turned away as it neared us, one manta ray glided beyond where the shelf dropped. Its cephalic lobes unfurled to sweep plankton into its mouth as its broad rectangular mouth filtered and feeded through the water.

Flapping its large pectoral fins like a magnificent bird of the sea, it passed an arm’s length above me and, at one point, I found myself staring up at its white belly. I was electrified alive to my very bones. More so since I happen to be one of those local divers who travel the Philippines—from Ticao to Tubattaha—especially for this specimen of fluid grace. And Monad’s manta was the biggest (and the most up-close I’ve gotten) yet.

The dive’s last manta, gliding and looping, stayed with the group until, risking deco, we reluctantly headed back to the anchor line one by one. Even as I finned away, I twisted sideways to keep my manta in sight for as long as I could—burning its image in my memory, breathing out my thanks.

Getting There
Sea Explorers Cebu head office (tel. 032-2340248, email cebu@sea-explorers.com) arranged for my group’s three-day dives, van and boat transfers from Cebu international airport, and cottage stay. Our divemaster Martin Pascobello (mobile 0927-7172692) says June is the best time to schedule a dive trip.
For non-divers, Sea Explorers Malapascua (mobile 0927-6394587, tel. 032-4370411) recommends getting directly in touch with any of these resorts: Sunsplash (mobile 0927-2741756), Hippocampus (mobile 0927-8008940), or Cocobana (tel. 032-4371040).
From Manila, we took an early morning flight to Cebu. Upon arrival at the airport, we were picked up by a van for a three-hour land trip to Maya wharf. Finally, a half-hour boat trip brought us to Cebu’s northern tip, Malapascua Island.

mantas

Whaleshark Season

Photos by Junjie Koh

Where do people go for answers? My friend wasn’t exactly into saintly intercession or parental advice. That left us with the nature quest—a common enough refuge for gaining so-called clarity. We were at our respective crossroads, procrastinating on a decision that could easily define our next five years. To get out of our own heads, we somehow convinced ourselves, we had to get out of urban Manila for a few days. And it seemed to us—as we leafed through ecotourism brochures—that an encounter with the “largest fish in the world” offered just that type of grand-scale experience that would likely, in a manner of speaking, put us in our place.

The prospect of leaping into a giant’s watery domain demanded the reassurance that learning about them beforehand afforded. Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus), butanding to the locals, grow up to 60 feet and weigh up to 40 tons. Happily for us, they feed on plankton. This migratory species finds sanctuary in the protected waters around Donsol, Sorsogon from January to May (March to April being the best times to go).

And so we went. A 45-minute daily flight from Manila to Legazpi City—some don’t mind the 10-hour bus travel from Cubao’s central terminal—followed by a one-hour ride by passenger van (taxi or buses will do too) delivered us to the Donsol tourism office and visitor center (mobile phone +63 927-2330364; butanding_donsol@yahoo.com or ecotourismdonsol@yahoo.com). We paid the registration fees (P100 for Filipinos, P300 for foreigners) and split the P3,500 group fee that covered boat rental and fees for the Butanding Interaction Officer (BIO) and spotter-guide. We brought cash because credit card facilities were not available, at least not yet. For accommodations, we were given plenty of choices: beach resort cottages like Woodland (mobile phone +63 921-9699544) and Amor Farm (+63 917-6941687) and several homestays.

With the practicalities dealt with, we made a gift of our bubbling excitement to our assigned BIO. He turned teacher. An illustration he traced with a finger showed how we were expected to maintain a distance of three meters from the whale shark’s head and body, and four meters from its tail. We were not to get in its natural path. And, by the way the BIO kept reminding us not to touch the whale shark, we could guess many must have lost their heads in the moment and tried just that. “No flash photography, no scuba diving, no unnecessary thrashing in the water…” These giants are clearly shy.

Snorkeling gear could be rented on site but we packed our own. An ill-fitting mask, we imagined, could flood upon us plunging in, and the initial shock of that could lose us the seconds it takes to zero in on a whale shark. It would be equally disastrous to be finning after a better sight of a butanding only to find we’ve slowed because a strap broke and one fin has dropped to irretrievable depths. (My friend is a master at worst-case scenarios.)

We’re also told that no more than six swimmers per whale shark are allowed and only one outrigger boat per whale shark. We joked about suddenly feeling competitive against the other groups scheduled to head out that same morning. Every BIO’s pleasure, our guide confirmed, is for his boatload of visitors to experience the amazement of staring down into the deep blue, only to realize with a jolt that he’s seeing silvery-white spots, and then finally making out the moving outline of a butanding beneath him. No one forgets that first instance of recognition. Especially because nature doesn’t always put on a show. Just the day before, Japanese tourists logged in an entire day without a single sighting.

We hoped for better luck as our boat motored through open water. We even wore our optimism: vests on, fins fastened, masks around our neck. The BIO wanted us ready to jump overboard upon his signal. A half hour later, butanding unseen, we were beginning to feel a little silly about being so dressed for the water yet remaining dry on the boat.

Just when my friend was starting to reconsider the merits of seeking saintly intercession, we got our signal from the BIO. “Talon!” And so we jumped after him, hitting the water in a graceless splash. There was hard swimming in between coughing of saltwater (a far match from the magically serene communion-with-nature we pictured) as we tried to keep up with the BIO who positioned himself ahead like a buoy to keep us oriented. We were soon confused anyway because the BIO seemed to be heading back. “Tigil! Tingin sa baba! (Stop! Look down!)” he yelled over the choppy waves.

The BIO, bless his heart, expertly deduced that the whale shark’s “grazing” direction would cut below our boat. We planted our faces in the water, not seeing very far in the “nutrient soup” that cultivated the algae that fed the krill that attracted the whale shark. Then I felt a tug from behind. Our BIO was Superman. He pulled on my vest with one hand and my friend’s vest with the other and, with a few strong kicks, he got us in place just in time to see a wide, flat head and a small eye from our angle. A capacious mouth sucked water that was strained through its gills, filtering its food. A massive blue-grey body—with its telltale pale yellow dots, vertical ridges, pairs of pectoral and dorsal fins, and muscular tail—glided ponderously underneath us. We could see it was going to dive back into the blue. Taking quick mental snapshots, cropping images here and there, was how I responded to the ephemeral quality and scale of it. Huge, I thought. The entire moment, despite taking less than a minute, was huge—the kind that makes us go: I can do the next thing now.

Later, as the day turned to dusk, our boat cruised the Donsol river lined with mangroves that winked with fireflies. We were still aglow ourselves, momentarily bonded by a powerful shared-experience. Our BIO was happy about notching that for us. He’s had days when he’s counted over 10 whale sharks in a single hour, making one-for-the-day sightings all the more precious. As a younger man, he shared, he wanted to be a seafarer to see the world. Now—with a local ecotourism industry in place that helps preserve the vulnerable whale shark and its habitat—the rest of the world comes to his fishing village and him for their take-away encounter. The whale sharks make him special. Communing with the giants does change everyone.

Happy Birthday Mama

On the flight to Beijing, I sat next to a woman who reminded me of Mama because of her build, haircut, and dress. In the course of the flight, I found they have more in common than appearance. She was a Filipino-Chinese (with a Colgate-Palmolive distributorship in Binondo) checking up on her daughter who, only a year before, immediately after college, relocated to Beijing to master Mandarin.

This mother shared that she often reminded her daughter, "Basta pagkain, wag kang magtipid," something that my own Mama used to say when my brother and I were still in college. Another familiar thing: the baggage she checked in? Full of frozen food stuff and supplies—down to the toothpaste. Care packages are wonderful.

The four-hour flight had its moments of turbulence. At one point, this woman's hand shot out and landed on my arm, holding on to it in a reflex, to help steady her nerves. So like my mother.

Later, having claimed my baggage, I scanned the waiting crowd for a familiar face. Papa whistled (this convenient thing he did when we were kids wandering off in crowded places) and I spotted him with this guy I didn't know. Turns out, my brother's company, P&G, issued him two vehicles with their own drivers. (Mr. Chao drove the Accord for the home-office-home route, while Mr. Wu drove the Odyssey to cover the kids' schedules.)That—and Papa saying, "Parang hari si Brian dito"—was a giveaway that this was going to be a chauffeured trip all the way, a radical change from my group's backpacking style.

My brother Brian, his wife Cielo (also with P&G) and their three kids (Mik, Ana, and Paolo) live in a four-bedroom, four-level house in Yosemite, a sprawling subdivision in Shun Yi District. Our typical day unfolded like this: pre-breakfast tennis with Papa, playtime with the kids and their Welsh Corgi puppy, go out after lunch (zoo, shopping, temples and other historical sites), regroup at home for an early dinner, more shared time with the kids (painting, board games, bike rides, a movie). It couldn't be more of a break from my life (living in Cubao and so far from family). It was even a vacation from my usual (hiking-diving) vacations. It was just this idyllic, get-to-know-the-kids, rebond-with-parents week.

One of my favorite times is waking up (I slept on an air mattress on the floor of the guest room assigned to my parents) to my mother retelling last night's dreams to my father. Married 36 years and he continues to think she's entertainingly funny. She has long-playing dreams in Technicolor that he still enjoys hearing about every morning.

7 Things I Learned in Beijing

Ming Tombs is the burial site of 13 out of 17 emperors of the Ming Dynasty. The part I liked most was walking along the shaded Spirit Way where mythical stone monsters guard over the dead.


Beijing Zoo, founded in the Qing Dynasty (1906), used to be called the "Garden of Ten Thousand Animals."


The Forbidden City, built in 1420, occupies 720,000 square meters and has over 9,000 rooms. It was the imperial home of 24 emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasty.
Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, when he was working on his film "The Last Emperor," shot a scene on these grounds involving 3,000 courtiers, bannermen, and eunuchs attending the coronation of three-year-old Ching Emperor Pu Yi.


Apart from the Temple of Heaven's obvious attractions—Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, Echo Wall, Imperial Vault of Heaven, among others—I found equally appealing the more than 60,000 cypress trees, 4,000 of which are over a 100 years old.


Huabiaos are typical Chinese ornamental or symbolic columns—carved with dragons and auspicious clouds—erected in front of palaces, bridges, city gates or tombs.


A pair of Chinese stone lions, a male and a female, are often seen in front of gates (from temples to houses). The male lion sits on the left side with its right paw resting on a ball, symbolizing the unity of the king's empire. The female sits on the right side with her left paw fondling a cub, representing a thriving imperial family.




Chinese acrobats are picked to start training at age six. (When I was six, I learned to furtively pass the veggies to the family dog.)

Great Wall

My mother wanted to know two things: We're not hiking all the way up, are we? And: Is there a restroom at the top?

My brother picked the easiest route: a chairlift or a "gondola" (they call it) up the Badaling Great Wall. Years back, sister-in-law Cielo took a ski-lift up the Mutianyu Great Wall and a slide down. The Simatai Great Wall, meanwhile, entails a four-hour hike up and a zipline (cable-suspended pulley) down. Choose your ups and downs.

The Great Wall zig-zags its way from east to west across the northern edge of the ancient Chinese Empire. (New sections continue to be discovered—an 80 km stretch was found in Ningxia in 2002.) There's a woman's poem that describes how young men were forcibly stationed to guard the "dancing dragon in earth's hilly forest." One of these soldiers supposedly wrote his wife, saying she might as well marry soon and take care of a new family but to remember her lost husband once in a while.

Time by Makiling's Measure

"Kumusta?" emailed Liza (unintentionally to the e-group, I'm betting). She must have picked up on me and Amado thinking of her (and Kitty and Lala and Drew) the Sunday before just because the two of us found ourselves on Makiling's forest reserve trails, bringing to mind some good times with that old core group.

We were also after another reunion of sorts—with the Flamebacks—but our timing was off; there was no activity on the tree that we staked a year ago. But that's okay, it was a good day to be outdoors. Leaves would sometimes fall like a light shower—very cinematic. Some stretches had beds of yellowing to brown leaves that gave a shack-shack-shack sound as we walked. Seeds were being cleverly dispersed—from satin parachutes to whirlygig pods.

Birds seemed to be preparing to pair up: plump Guaiaberos feasted on fig berries (one elongating its neck for a choice pick, revealing its blue collar); Coppersmith Barbets were on a lower-than-usual branch, allowing us to admire the red on their forecrown through a scope; and Velvet-fronted Nuthatches, those violet creepers, still surprised.

I'm also reminded of how Amado described the Orange-bellied Flowerpeckers as sporting their own Superman cape (with the male's reddish patch on the mantle) and the Red-crested Malkohas (alternately skulking and bursting out in short flights) as red-mohawked punks.

On the side of the road ahead of us were Forest Wagtails, described by the Kennedy Field Guide as rare and recorded from October to March. I'd like to think that we're lucky to have caught that "window." That way, with every migrant bird and changing leaf, I feel time passing by Makiling's measure—even in terms of who we used to go up there with. Even down to side-details like Felix (the cat) having gone on and been replaced as resident pet (and mountaineers' mascot) of the first sari-sari in the curving row of stores near Mud Springs. His kitten has the same black-and-white coloration, his whiskers also look like kids trimmed off the tips, and he's still named Felix. Our little traditions cushion the changes.

Reports on a Sinking

Witness: Gering de Luna, 58

Lola Gering didn’t like her sleep disturbed, especially not at two o’ clock in the morning. The M/V Peñafrancia’s rocking and pitching was penitence enough. Yawning, she checked what the commotion was about. Nobody seemed to mind that she was in her night dress. Fellow passengers were more intent on witnessing the unfolding drama-at-sea.

A few kilometers ahead, a ship was on fire. Rather, it looked like flames roughly shaped like a ship. “Lagablab na lagablab!” she later told me, other reporters, and anyone else who would care to listen.

She immediately sought the ship captain’s help. The captain’s first consideration was the safety of his own crew and passengers. But Lola Gering kept yelling “S.O.S! S.O.S!” into his ear. Partially to save himself from her, he called in the Coast Guard.

And that—Lola Gering would have me believe—was how the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Maritime Command, and even the fishermen, the divers, and the media learned about the fire that gutted the M/V Antipolo.

***

Reporters and photographers: Nonie, Joseph, Gerry and others

The Lucena Fishing Port Complex quickly turned into an impromptu press center.

Nonie, the man behind the wheel, was proud of his Manila Times owner-type jeep and bristled every time DZRH’s pick-up and Manila Standard’s Fiera sped past him to the scene. That was the competition, after all. It didn’t help that his jeep’s hood had to be tied down with pink straw bought from the first sari-sari store he saw. Or that the rain forced him to slow down because the windshield wiper wouldn’t work.

By the time we got there, everyone with a press pass was hunting down survivors and witnesses. Here-we-go-again thrummed in the air. I nodded to Gerry, a radio reporter I recognized from last week’s stories-trawling which included a provincial jail escape (rioting inmates hogtied their guard) and Typhoon Winnie (28 dead, scores missing). He joked that he was developing a phobia for morgues but his listeners—and maybe he was just as guilty—needed the excitement of their horror stories.

This latest disaster would be regurgitated soon enough. Getting an original point of view required strategy. Joseph, our paper’s photographer, admitted that he paid a fisherman more than his own daily allowance for a banca ride to the exact site of the fire—two miles off Lucena in Dalahican Bay. But when they got there, Joseph found only floating debris.

Nearby, the ABS-CBN 2 people boasted of actual footage of the fire that they had taken from a helicopter.

Meanwhile, a pack of us hounded a Coast Guard officer. He said that a full week before the M/V Antipolo’s engine burst into flames, they had already requested its owner to refit the vessel’s electrical wiring and to install fire extinguishers.

This same officer said he couldn’t determine if the owner had followed the recommendation. “You need a Marine Board of Inquiry probe to establish that?” Gerry scoffed from the back.

The Coast Guard reported about 300 passengers in all. But the manifest, according to the Navy spokesman, listed only 158. On the other hand, a commandant from the Coast Guard, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his copy of the manifest registered only 75. Later, he would admit that the Coast Guard did not make a formal head count; it had simply performed an ocular survey.

***

Survivor: Teodorico Reginio, 40

Teodorico was positive that the fire was just waiting for him to take a leak before it suddenly burst out of the boat’s smokestack.

He recounted for me, a fresh audience, how terrified he was when a fellow passenger chased him to the upper decks because he would not give up a rubber tire he had commandeered. Teodorico found it all so ludicrous: He wasn’t even sure if the tire would float to save his life.

He recalled how he stood on the edge of the deck, like some lunatic on a suicide mission, agonizing about whether he should jump overboard. Meanwhile, the flaming second level was getting dangerously close to collapsing. In the confusion, he almost forgot that he didn’t know how to swim.

When his rubber tire proved to be a dud, he thrashed towards two men in life jackets. In between coughing out sea water, he managed to promise a reward—and his dying gratitude—if they held him between them until rescuers arrived.

How quintessentially Pinoy, I thought, the way Teodorico still had it in him to laugh at himself as he described what seemed to be, in his mind, just his latest misadventure.


Survivors: sisters Nena and Ella

Nena wanted to tell her story too. When the fire hit, she warned her two sisters not to panic. The ship was a madhouse. Everywhere, passengers were jumping overboard without life jackets.

Nena made sure that her sisters—Gloria and Ella—were safely out of the ferry before she, too, hit the water.

Making their escape was not easy, she needed to tell me. Nena’s foot was caught in a length of rope dangling from the deck. The tide kept pulling the sisters back into the blaze. “Balikan mo ako,” Gloria shouted to Nena the instant before a wave washed over her head.

Nena, a strong swimmer, hooked her arm into Ella’s life jacket. She managed to keep their youngest sister’s head above the water long enough for a man in a small boat to hear her shouts and turn in their direction.

After lifting Ella into the boat, Nena turned back to search for their other sister. She couldn’t find her, but she was able to save the lives of three more people including a stocky man who almost drowned her in his hysteria.

Back in the boat, Ella was doing some rescuing of her own: a woman recently pulled out from the water went into premature labor. A baby girl was soon going to be named after her.

Sisters Nena and Ella did not meet again until much later, and by then it was to claim the body of their eldest sister at the Funeraria Constantino.

***

More drowning victims

On the road to Lucena, I counted two vehicular accidents, three sizable cemeteries, and five wakes. Yet none of these prepared me for the sight of the babies lying dead, in Funeraria Constantino, lodged in any available space, by the legs of dead adults, on wooden bunks, on the ground.

I followed a photographer inside the Popular Memorial Chapel. There was little solace even here. A cord separated the dead, lying row after row, from the living who stood around in all manners of anxiety. I noted that the only ones allowed past the rope were the embalmer and the press.

To identify the victims, a piece of masking tape with names scrawled with a marker was stuck across the chest of each dead body. A man, mistaking me for a grieving relative too, protested that his loved ones looked like labeled livestock.

He spoke of selling some of his furniture so that he could pay for the funeral but especially so he could buy his wife clothes for the wake. The manner in which she died, he added, did not reflect the dignity she wore around her while alive.

I excused myself, needing some air. But the day’s story was inescapable. At the Lucena pier, a father kept waiting for his two children, a girl in kindergarten and a fifth-grade son, to turn up. He seemed to have ignored the fact that the M/V Antipolo left Marinduque, an island 40 nautical miles southeast of Lucena, at nine o’ clock of May 15 and was expected to arrive at the pier by two o’ clock the next day. This was the next day, it was already two in the afternoon, and still no boat—and no children.

Are the dead luckier than the ones left behind? Reporter-friends mock-philosophized between swigs of beer that night, a routine thing for taking the edge off. I worried sometimes about what it cost us to develop a thick skin for the job.

The picture of a father left waiting at the dock stayed with me, and so I told the guys about him. The search-and-rescue mission would last late into the evening, Nonie assured. But, I heard myself saying, if the bodies have yet to be found, it was more likely that his children were dead. I asserted this because, while interviewing the Coast Guard, he had somehow taken it upon himself to explain that drowning victims sank to the bottom and usually surfaced days later. I finished my beer and asked for another.

Talking helped ease the familiar sinking in my gut that still came with covering the latest Bad News. Gerry was right: Audiences liked their horror stories. Distilling these through me, however, might just make me sick one day.

Somewhere in the fourth round, I learned from Joseph that a Today photographer performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a young girl plucked from the sea by a fisherman. He may have missed a photo opportunity, the guys acknowledged, but he saved a life. We raised our bottles to his lapse in objectivity. There’s hope for us yet, I thought.

In the morning, I staggered out of bed to scan the newspaper for the report that I had e-mailed. An ex-showbiz personality’s dispute with her politician-partner was splashed on the front page—relegating yesterday’s tragedy (Lucena ferry fire kills 23) in the news round up, sandwiched between briefs on rebel-surrenderees and a bus-plunge.

Racy in Boracay

They slouched on long wooden benches and throttled their Pale Pilsen as if these might scurry off. The crate of downed amber bottles by their feet suggested pleased celebration. They looked like any group of working men just done with hard labor. Except that the sand beneath their feet was gleaming white, stretching on to a tropical beach that some believe to be among the finest in the world.
The beer guzzlers are fishermen from Malay, Aklan. They also happen to be fantastic paraw (native double outrigger sailboat) racers. This particular group sailed Tequila Sunrise, finishing third in its category mere hours ago in a paraw regatta in Boracay Island. Still flushed with race rush, these men felt electric and er, we were counting on that.
We in this case confess to have been in a do-it-all-in-Boracay mode, as evidenced by the jellyfish sting from snorkeling around Croc Island, the ridiculously lubed skin from the coco oil shiatsu, the tattooed wrist, the motorbike tambutso burn on an ankle, the strained waistband after succulent seafood and sinful crepes, and the shuffle of tie-dye, sarong, and beads that we've become after a visit to the talipapa.
Not content with the damage thus far, we gawked at the tableful of San Mig devotees. Blood-shot eyes pinned us for what had better be a good reason for the intrusion.
In the vernacular, we explained as fast as we could: We sat on a boat during the paraw race, and we were amazed over how fast the wind propelled the contenders, and we could tell from the boats that got tangled that maneuvering was no easy skill, and we were wondering if they could, maybe, if they didn't feel we were being such touristy pests, teach us how to sail a racing paraw and so on and so forth.
They looked like they were thinking about it.
My friend Marla hastened to promise: We'll treat you to a case of Pale Pilsen after.
Replied a heavyset, maroon-faced man: His paraw is no ordinary fishing boat. (He dismissed the bancas lining the shore with a wave.) He'll show us. Tomorrow at 10 o' clock, Tequila Sunrise would dock at Balabag. Be there. His name's Charlie Gumboc, by the way, and he's won in fiesta races, out-of-town invitationals, and had been a paraw grand slam champ.
That's right, piped in a mustached crewmember. Chulie's a legend around here. That man's been playing with paraws long before girls started to catch his eye. Sure, kids from these parts know their rudder and sail; their Panay heritage demanded that. But Chulie, he's a natural. They call him kuto ng dagat. He lives for the sea. What's more, he's a skilled paraw builder.
Well, well, the man has a fan club. Good, we wrangled a tutorial from a master.
So off to the high seas we sailed the next day. Since Chulie was busy with the running commentary, he hand-picked to be captain the curiously named Antonio Tumaob (tumaob being Tagalog for toppling over.) Sharing the task of balancers were Chulie, fisherman Ronnie Cahilig, me and Marla (the-one-who-promised-beer and therefore precious cargo to Chulie and company).
This is how it was: pony-tailed Kapitan Antonio sat, with legs extended, on the banca. With the rope grasped between his hands, he shifted the triangular sail and foresail and in seconds, he snared wind. As we cut through the water with amazing speed, Antonio's feet danced; clamped between his toes was rope that pulled the timon (rudder). As you can imagine, Antonio is a very limber and coordinated man.
Meanwhile, our place was on the katig (outrigger), pliable but strong bamboo that served as counterweights on both sides of the boat. Two parallel poles with netting (think hammock) bridged the outrigger and boat. Marla and I sat on the netting, feeling like the day's catch, while Chulie pointed at how the wind beat the sails and how the boat's hull and right outrigger balanced the boat. As the wind ripped harder, the boat leaned heavily to the right (and we went down like a see-saw while the left outrigger hung in the air.)
Sure-footed Ronnie moved up the booms of the hanging outrigger. The boat settled. When the wind reshifted, Ronnie moved back to the other outrigger.
And that, said Chulie, is why you are called balancers.
Uh, no problem. We didn't exactly leap around with grace the way Chulie and Ronnie did. In fact, we often had to move on all fours to make sure we didn't fall overboard but hey, we were thrilled to put our weight to good use.
As Tequila Sunrise edged near another paraw, Chulie shouted: Lumbaanay na! He challenged his friends on the other boat (named C-Line) to a race over Tabon Strait to Cubay Norte, Malay. Chulie, who looked portly and fiftyish on land, shed off a decade on blue water. He was lighter, quicker, clearly in his element. Bracing against the wind, tasting the salt, staring out to sea, what more could a person want? He said a beer in hand right that second sure would be nice.

Photos by Alexies Santiago

Dry Tales from Pinatubo

The Aeta boy held up a baby python as big as his arm. He was one of seven kids, with hair like wiry birds' nests, who rushed towards us as we stepped off the jeep. We were at Patal Pinto, the starting line on the route to the crater lake campsite of Mt. Pinatubo.
A girl wanted to show us the parrot that she gently cupped in her hands. Another boy had a mongoose-like rodent that darted from his wrist to his neck, occasionally straining forward to sniff the breeze surrounding the backpacked newcomers. Wildlife central it sure was.
Their parents, seeing our interest in the animals, tried to start a bidding. "Two hundred pesos," one said. A guy in our group visibly brightened. He knew the python's market price was by the thousands, and he had an empty aquarium at home where he used to keep a garter snake before it somehow got misplaced around the house.
The women tried dissuading Snake Boy. We were not about to support wildlife trade in any scale. Also, we didn't relish sharing the ride home with anything that could slither away. "What are you going to feed him?" was the challenge. "White mice and chicks, of course" was the response. More shrieks.
Aeta families poured out of the makeshift shed on the rock platform. Some were waiting for the random jeep bringing fresh produce so they could hitch a ride to the market. Some just wanted a peek at the newest batch of pallid city folk who would actually pay for the privilege of walking for five to eight hours through sandy, scorching terrain.
Aeta guide Popoy rounded us up and then set out on jaunty steps. For someone relaxed and smiling, he covered ground fast. We hurried after him. Our sandals sank an inch into the sand, evoking shoreline images. The sun had the day-at-the-beach quality, and well, we could have used some goggles to keep the sand grains from irritating our eyes. But thinking of bodies of water where it couldn't possibly be was needless taunting. Or so we said until we came across our first rivulet. It ran across the sand like splayed fingers. The sight of it was an initial surprise. To find the trail punctuated with spring water (ground spurts, trickles from a rock wall, tiny falls) was soothing to the eye, and a hint of the large crater lake waiting for us at the campsite. Several times, we had to wade through. Water-logged hiking boots would only weigh us down so we strapped on rubber sandals. The water was gurgling warm to our toes. When we stepped out, our feet were espasol with the sand coat. I could only imagine what trekking hereabouts must be like in torrential rain. The lahar would suck on the boot like a nursing baby.
We met another group of foreign tourists on their way back. They were in shorts and tank tops. In contrast, my group wore bandannas, shades, arm protectors, tights, and a smearing of sun block. The tourists carried light rucksacks. We were armed to the teeth. Why? Two words. Cooking showdown. Dinner in the mountains always is with this group. (Anyone else can make do with canned goods if the thought of lugging stoves and pots do not exactly bring a spring to your step.) We felt less sheepish when we found out the tourists employed porters who had, among their load, an inflatable raft with oars.
We stopped for lunch and then proceeded along even stranger terrain. Someone described it as an alien planet. The artist's palette is pared down to the black, white, and gray. A series of peaks, like wave crests, needled the air. Loose sand dribbled down the side of mountains collecting like half an hourglass below. Basketball-sized rocks were melded together in a way that, my friend imagines, would stir a garden landscaper's imagination. Some formations looked like the ruins of an amphitheater or a labyrinth. Boulders were strewn across the ground like a checker game played by giants. The canyons sat solid.
No one made small talk, and that's saying a lot for our group. This felt like sacred space and we were engaged in a kind of body prayer. We marched into our own private musings. About how, for example, movement even as basic as putting one foot after another opened the body to childlike joy. Hiking for long hours taught me to take pleasure in the moment-by-moment experience. I also couldn't help mulling over the enormous amount of energy that the earth released to change this part of her face. And she hasn't settled on a look yet. One companion had been here thrice and each time the route looked different. Wind and rain still shifted sand and stone. The ancients believed that "the earth bursts forth because it is trying to grow. It is trying to return to paradise."
Guide Popoy said some of his Aeta relatives were buried where we trudged. There used to be thriving barrios here. Now there was only wide expanse. Our guy with the third eye (there's always one in every hiking group) said souls still wandered across the landscape.
Just when we thought we were never going to stop hiking, we finally stood at the big drop overlooking the crater lake. Descending required tricky footwork. Rocks kept coming loose in our hands or dropping from under our feet. Nevertheless, we picked up our pace because the light was fading fast.
We reached the campsite barely minutes before it got dark. We pitched our tents, had a fiesta of a meal, admired the stars, and, for the first time in our group history, actually cut short our socials for sleep. We still can't get over that one.
I woke up the next day to the sound of someone swimming in the sulphuric lake. After a quick breakfast and not-so-quick photo shoot, we trekked back. We made it in five hours, with visions of ice-cold halo-halo dancing in our heads. Casualty check yielded a torn shoe, a pair of sandals with both soles ripped off, another pair of sandals sanded thin, and one pair of involuntary buckling knees. We also turned two shades darker, some getting their tan in stripes (blame straps and bandannas). One last lesson for us: Our jeep didn't show up. Luckily, another jeep docked in to deliver sacks of rice. We sent our prettiest to do the haggling. Done deal.
Just before we boarded, an Aeta handed a slow-wriggling sack to our companion. This was a boy's pet, my friend whispered. Feeling our eyes on him, the Aeta made a ceremony of calling his son and awarding him the two P100 bills. Even with the departing jeep's dust trail, bewilderment was evident on the boy's face as he stared at the paper in his hands for what seemed a long time.

Photos by Amado Bajarias

Out-of-her-element Dept.

This weekend’s adventure was hair-raising. Moussed up to be exact.
My video-producer friend, Maricar, has stylist skills she wanted certified so she signed up for a two-month course at Frank Provost in Makati. Her finals last Saturday involved producing various looks: avant garde, fantasy, bridal, and glamour. She roped me in for the glamour category. That might as well be fantasy, I said. I barely wear make-up, am usually pony-tailed, in pants and flats. Maricar was undeterred.
Our other friends were perfectly casted.
Portia was as svelte as any Cat Woman. Leah, two daughters later (but you wouldn’t know it), would be in her wedding gown again. Fine-boned Kin was Audrey Hepburn.
As for me, let’s just say Maricar was a friend and I was going to be whoever she needed me to be—even if that meant high heels and a long dress (that had to be borrowed from Leah). Bring your attitude, texted Kin, this is serious stuff. We would just have to fake it.
Frank Provost—bastion of instant makeovers—was a salon on the first floor, an institute on the second. I turned the first flight of stairs and spied women, seated in a row, with creams and foil in their hair. I reached the second floor and almost bumped into someone in a mini-skirt and push-up bra. She was rushing down the corridor to the ladies’ room. I knew then I had just entered another dimension. She came from one of two rooms assigned to students who have been furiously brandishing make-up brushes since 8 a.m.; they had to deliver four perfectly dolled-up models to a fashion photographer in the adjoining studio before closing time. Portfolios—and careers—were being created here. Birthing pains were inevitable. Maricar was feeling the countdown. It was 3 p.m. and although she had Cat Woman in the bag, she was still working on Audrey Hepburn—while her bride and her supposed glamour girl loitered in the corridor to peek into the studio’s glass partition. We watched a bronzed woman, seemingly naked under the malong she held up. She was in the zone. Her hair blew in the wind, or rather from the hair blower poised near her face by the photographer’s assistant. That must feel hot, we thought. Her features didn’t betray that. Beauty and illusion came hand in hand.
In and out of the studio were several brides, a prom princess, a Chinese empress, a Cleopatra, a Marilyn Monroe, and an Elvis. Regal seemed to be the emerging theme. Clearly, I was out of my element.
We distracted ourselves. Kin networked with the photographer for the company’s next annual report requirements. Leah considered speaking with the aspiring stylist slash talent agent; the office is sure to need talents for future shoots. I watched model after model work it, looking for the key to their ease. One was dressed (in a dark overcoat) and made up (raccoon-eyed) like The Crow from the comic book. He was all goth and flight (leaping and twisting) startling us into laughter. Another had green feathers framing one eye, an exotic bird. She was fierce, everyone fell for her.
It was her stylist-student who ran a talent agency, which explained why her group of models were stunners. Kin looked at them and said, “they’re so young.” I looked at them and said, “they’re so tall.” When it was their turn to pose for the shoot, they owned the space, looked straight at the camera, parted their lips ever so slightly for just the right effect. They’ve done this before.
We, in turn, had our moments of feeling anxious, stiff, and self-conscious. Like deer caught in the headlights. Leah said the photographer’s step-by-step instructions (“Jut your shoulder forward, elbow in front, align chin with shoulder, tilt head, look to the right…”) resulted in a pose that was too unnatural for comfort. Kin said she’d rather be behind the camera, doing the weighing in and directing.
I did okay the first few clicks, then my face would stiffen and my smile would feel plastered. The photographer would wrap it up, I would relax, then he’d say, hold that, and clicked away before I turned into stone again.
But I've got no real right to whine; it was Portia who had to project with cat ears and claws.
The photographer smelled our fear but I hoped his camera wouldn’t register it. There ought to be some usable shots from the many click-click-clicks I hazily registered, I consoled myself, not wanting to be an embarrassment to Maricar who had such faith. Her faith moved mountains, reluctant models, and stern mentors.
The teacher, making her quality control-rounds, was a formidable presence. She corrected color, blending, brushwork. She talked about focal point, highlighting, not going beyond the line, cleaning up as you go. I heard her say to the photographer, "They were all beginners; I had to be hard on them during the first few sessions, look at them now." She asked students who completed their finals, "How does it feel?" She spoke of psychological boost, how flawless results gave a student the confidence to tackle the next challenge. She kept saying, with much satisfaction, "I’m not a bad mother." Her kids had been armed, ready to fight it out in the battlefields of hair and make-up.

The Hunt

With a back roll, her world turned liquid. She felt her weight cradled in blue, then buoyed as if the sea wanted to spit her back out. She turned and kicked to head down, following the dive master’s earlier instruction to immediately fin towards the bottom before the current swept her off-target.

The current was a shock. She felt its pressure—her mask pressed on her face, her wetsuit compressed, her ears hurt. She continued to fin down, blowing gently against pinched nostrils to equalize, until she could make out the bottom.

She threw a reef hook under a stony coral shaped like a wrinkly brain, then reeled herself close and parallel to the seafloor, taking care not to disturb sea anemones and soft corals or kick up sand. Visibility was poor enough as it was. Time to rally and get her bearings: She told herself to breathe deeply and steadily, to rela-a-a-x and be mindful of where she was.

She was in Manta Bowl in Ticao Pass, Sorsogon on a cold-water month of July. The site is a depression on the seascape where the currents of San Bernardino Strait deposited a ready buffet of plankton and small crustaceans. Manta rays—filter feeders—served themselves. She, in turn, hoped to feast her eyes on one.

An overnight bus trip from Manila followed by a short banca ride got her here. She supposed some distance and discomfort were the currencies for beholding the rare and otherworldly. A real bargain, she had decided. The cephalic lobes that jut out like horns from the front of a manta’s pectoral fins earned it the name devil ray in folklore. Just another misunderstood creature from the two-thirds of our planet that largely remain a mystery.

She’s on the side of those who say Earth is misnamed; we’re more Water than Earth. The oceans give our marbled globe its gleaming blue color. She thought it would be a crime not to go-and-see for herself.

And she has always understood that being a visitor demanded all the courtesy due to the homeowners. Don’t touch. Take nothing. There are enough cautionary tales too. Like that diver whose body was fished out of the water, whose death was a puzzle, until one of the rescuers found a textile cone shell in his pocket—such a tiny exotic souvenir, such a highly venomous mollusk residing within.

While micro-life (with its constant plays on defense, offense, and interdependence) fascinated her—shrimps that resided between the poison-tipped spines of urchins; vividly-colored nudibranchs that ate lethal sponges to ingest the toxins; the odd partnership between the blind goby shrimp (which cleans the burrow) and the goby fish (which acts as “seeing eye”)—the giants of the deep remained the undisputed superstars.

Whalesharks and manta rays were the stuff of stories swapped during decompression breaks in between plunges. Encounters with them stirred excitement (and good-natured declarations of envy). These were chalked up as triumphs, detailed in dive logs, described to death, or simply filed away to one’s self as a defining, bigger-than-life moment.

She wanted that story for herself.

Tethered by her reef hook, she rode the current like a kite. She streamlined her body for the least resistance. The current felt at times like tentacles wanting to flick off her mouthpiece—nothing malevolent, more of a childlike curiosity on what that would do to her.

She considered for a moment the 50 feet of water pressing down on her head. It was easy to let go in a panic, to imagine that she couldn’t suck in enough air through the hose, which leads to hyperventilating, then kicking to the surface faster than her slowest bubble—breaking that slow-ascent rule which saved from a case of the bends. It’s a mind game, as always.

She coached herself to accept the ripping current as the constant, to give in to it, work with it, even enjoy it. Nature being what she was (a ticket to it didn’t assure a show), this was also a waiting game.

After a while, she got the hang of it. At the dive master’s signal, she took out the reef hook, drifted with the current a few seconds before zeroing in on another hard coral and anchoring back again. Then wait anew for a manta to appear. Repeat as long as she had air in her tank.

She inspected her air gauge, and then consciously checked in on her breathing. The tank of compressed air keeping her alive held 21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen, the same mix on land. The first time she was handed the mouthpiece to breathe from, her diving instructor joked, “You’ll probably feel a bit giddy; we’re not used to breathing clean air.”

It struck her as funny how something as basic as breathing was among the first things that a diving student had to be drilled on; urban-dwelling had made us shallow breathers. Underwater, however, erratic breathing affects buoyancy; yo-yoing in the water gave away a diver’s anxiety or overexertion—a transparent medium, water.

The sea, however, can choose to withhold: no manta sightings yet. Prayers are needed, she thought, and some bargaining: Dear God, give us this day our manta, and we’ll be content and undemanding for the rest of the year. She wasn’t really a churchgoer but every time she was underwater, where everything was constantly being washed new, she found herself in awe of the Great Designer—such vastness, such beauty, such tenacity of life even in a crushing environment.

This was the last dive of the second day, before she had to board that overnight bus again to make sure that she is back behind a cubicled desk tomorrow, perhaps without a manta encounter to hold close to her chest and feel blessedly singular by.

She let the current dissolve that worry. Her life in the city would take over soon enough. For the moment, her environment was water. She had to tune into its secret gardens, reminded right then of what the late naturalist Loren Eiseley once wrote: If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. She certainly had every motivation to be here, where life started, where man’s ancestors crawled out from. Just look at how we haven’t stopped inventing ways—diving bells, rebreathers, submersibles—to go back home to Paradise Lost, our coral Eden.

Not that life here sailed any smoother. Drama came built-in with life after all. Pressures and predators simply prompted unique adaptations—that she can surely take survivor lessons from. Despite her occasional lapses in grace (flight takes practice), there are times underwater, during especially good dives, when something inside her would shift—she felt connected to every living organism, when the so-called tapestry of life was a tangible thing. The salt in their environment flowed in her own veins. She shared their needs for space, oxygen, nourishment, reproduction (well, maybe not the last one. She always contended that her brother had already fulfilled their mother’s grandkids’ quota.)

Now, if only she could tap on that sense of kinship and ask, say, the foraging parrotfish if it had seen a manta lately and to point the way.

Already, she felt the countdown with every movement of the needle on her air gauge; her window was narrowing, chances whittling away. She was still flying with the current, steadied only by her reef hook, already comforting herself with the dignity of at least showing up and trying.

Somebody banged a tank. This late in the search, she thought, there better be only one trigger for that alert. She squinted, willing herself to scan as best as she could the plankton-rich waters.

She was going to kick herself if she was the only one who didn’t spot that manta, if there was one. She already imagined the whoops and high-fives on the boat later, and it would kill her if she wasn’t one of those joining in. She traveled this far, slept on a speeding bus, hauled bulky gear. She deserved, no, needed that picture, that specimen of fluid grace burned in her memory so that on bad days she could drum it up to keep her afloat.

She pulled herself sideways and countercurrent with her reef hook, picking her way carefully from one hard coral to another—a horizontal rock climbing of sorts—towards where the dive master was. He was pointing ahead.

Where is it?

The manta finally came into view, its wingspan wider than her arms outstretched. She noted with excitement the black and grayish blue blotches on its upperparts and its all-white belly. It swam by flapping its large pectoral fins—there’s why they’re referred to as birds of the sea! Its broad, rectangular mouth was agape, filtering and feeding through the water—unfurling and spreading its cephalic lobes to sweep plankton into its mouth.

She wondered where this manta came from. Madagascar, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, Bay of Bengal, Philippines, Palau, Fiji, New Caledonia, Southern Brazil, the Azores, Senegal, Liberia—their water columns are highways that go on and on. The mountain ranges and valleys that we know of only hint of what is underneath our oceans. To travel the tropical seas of the world, to have such access—it captured her imagination.

That mantas are regular visitors in this tiny bowl is a wonderful thing. That she was here when this particular manta chose to feed is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

She breathed out her thanks. She was an aquanaut looking up into an expanding world. She felt like her heart was going to swell and balloon her higher. Stay low, be still—she reminded herself on how to behave around a wild creature if she wanted it to grace her with its majestic presence a bit longer. Making sure she was clear of the manta’s looping, gliding path rewarded her with the pleasure of watching it execute slow somersaults. This is what she came for. To be astounded and enlarged by rarity and otherworldly beauty.

Back on the boat, spent from recounting and relishing their luck, she noticed a pair of fishermen in their own small boat nearby.

She was to learn later that the neighboring islands’ fishermen—knowing that divers were after the sight of mantas (and that mantas occasionally breach the water to presumably court, play, or dislodge remoras)—trailed dive boats.

The dive master pointed again, some excitement in the water a short distance across from where they were. From the corner of her eye, she registered how the fishermen in the other boat jumped to their feet to start the motor. She was soon going to see for herself just how the fisherman, astride and braced on one side of their boat, threw a harpoon towards a shadow rippling beneath the water’s surface.

(Photos by Jay Ortiz)
mantas diving

Escape

The shape of her life may just be a rectangle. She works in a cubicle and goes home to a studio—compact spaces being the default setting, it appears, of most young people living on their own steam and still establishing their niche in Metro Manila. No wonder she earmarks a budget for outdoor pursuits, she’s starving for space.
She found it a bit funny then that en route to realizing a dream of diving Tubbataha Reefs in the Sulu Seas, the remotest dive site she could go in the country, she remained cooped up—in a closet-like cabin within the live-aboard MV Island Explorer—for one week.
She gamely considered it her penance because, in truth, her mother would be horrified if she knew just how much her eldest daughter paid for a slot on board, how utterly impractical and self-indulgent of her. “Invest your money!” Their mother, nearing retirement and feeling more than ever the urgency of setting things up so that she would not have to depend on a daughter’s monthly allowance, often reminded her and her sister.
This daughter, however, found the future just that: a long way off. She cared about living largely now, while her joints were flexible, while her heart was strong. The way she saw it, she was investing—in her soul. Her greatest fear has always been gradually shriveling to fit the confines of her physical spaces.
Already, she had made little compromises: like the cat she ended up as an indoor pet instead of the large dog that her parents’ house—with its wrap-around lawn in Surigao del Sur—was never without; canine comfort that she was accustomed to and would have still wanted. However, she thought a small space would be cruel for a dog—and for people, it can be argued, except that living close to where one works dictates resignation to the high-rise idea.
Another example: she recognized in herself her mother’s penchant for hoarding, honed by—her daughters were often reminded as well—years of having to support herself through school and after. “Don't just throw stuff away; you never know when you can recycle something.” “Keep mementoes, you may forget.” “Buy a back-up just in case.” She had to muffle her mother’s voice in her head, however, because a studio gets choked with clutter fast. In her case, that passed-down compulsion-to-collect manifests in books. (Having a teacher for a mother instilled in her that anything she wanted to know, or be, or do can be aided along with a book purchase.) Her shelves sagged from titles like “Southeast Asia on a Shoe String”; “Small Spaces, Big Style”; or “The Right to Write”—reflecting tempered aspirations. It pained her to choose which books to periodically give away (to restore some order in the room); It almost seemed like abandoning a mission.
Even as she acknowledged this kind of minute adjustments in preference she makes, however necessary for a more livable set-up, she sometimes resented having to. She asked herself now and then how she managed to get herself pigeonholed that way. Working to pay the amortization and bills that came every month without fail is not going to be the theme of her life, she told herself. Books offered their own escape, sure, but she required the authentic experience; the kind that engaged mind and body like when she’s hiking a forest trail or snorkeling into a cave, the kind that makes eyes go wide with delight, or perhaps with terror—accidents come with this territory after all—but either way, at least, electrified her alive to her very bones.
This was how she insisted on the value of being out in the wild. She especially loved the single-mindedness of being on a dive live-aboard. It was all about the diving—from the pre-breakfast dive to the post-dinner night dive. The interruptions were the socializing-over-meals and sleep, and even then her dreams were of finning against the current alongside the reef drop-offs, lulled perhaps by the ship moving on overnight for the next morning’s dive site.
Everyone, quite literally on the same boat, tried to get along; confined spaces not leaving much room to hide from, say, someone annoying. The tight cabins encouraged congregating on the deck between dives. It struck her that unlike in her building, where she may never (neither was she interested to) meet everyone who lived on her floor, she got to watch, if not talk to, her “neighbors” on the MV Island Explorer.
She was never that interested in watching people. Birds and fishes, yes, she had to learn to carefully watch and remember shape, color, characteristic behavior through binoculars or goggles so that she could later look these up in corresponding guide books and find a name to match. Now, on a boat this size, without special gear or even active interest, she was forming an opinion of her dive buddies.
There was the Japanese deaf-mute underwater photographer, for one. It was clear that he initially had trouble connecting with people, who generally shied away from the perceived extra effort of trying to make sense of his gesticulations. Underwater, however, where everyone was muted (breathing through a regulator), he was a master at the hand signals, truly in his element, the most animated and voluble in the group. Dangling the promise of an underwater photo-souvenir, he confidently herded, with energetic wrist flicks, divers this way and that for the best backdrop of schooling barracudas although, she noticed, he didn’t always press the camera button.
There was also this yoga instructor who wore white like a trademark and who, it was whispered in awe around the deck, tutored CEOs and presidents. She wondered then why this supposed master at breathing was exhaling bubbles at shallow intervals, consuming her tank of air faster than she should. She was excitable too, barreling through other divers for a closer look at some pawikan, consequently disturbing them away to the group’s dismay. For a practitioner of body awareness, she thought, this woman did not seem to know how to position herself unobtrusively around marine life.
But then again, that is why she likes the great outdoors so much. The great equalizer, it eventually gives us all away to anyone who cares to watch.

(Pawikan photo by Jay Ortiz, barracuda photo by Junjie Kho)

Jungle Jaunt 2

In the larger timeline, people have been hunter-gatherers longer than we’ve been zapping pizza in the microwave but we seem to have lost the knack overnight. The age of 24-hour food delivery has made pansies of all of us.
At one point during the Subic jungle trek, I was convinced that the vegetation conspired to look like each other. Half the time – okay, more than half the time – I gave wrong answers to Mang Pete’s pop quizzes. Once, I tugged a plant this way and that for closer examination when the ever-patient guide finally intervened, “You shouldn’t be caressing that toxic plant.” I jumped as far as I could. I was a goner for sure if I ever found myself hiding out or trapped in some jungle – it could happen.
Away from patches that itch, Mang Pete pointed out mamugtong which is said to cure stomach pains, diarrhea, and malaria – and which tastes like ampalaya, naturally. The resin of dipa, applied like iodine on insect bites, is anti-malaria as well. Chewing the roots of dayangdang helps with snakebite and stomach pain.
Chicken feathers are moistened in water where labtang roots are boiled, and rubbed on the torso for gas pains or wounds. Pulped covergrass sooths minor burns.
I interrupted Mang Pete’s litany with an inquiry about aphrodisiacs but, apparently, this did not fall under survival medication.
“The resin of the kalibutbut cleans wounds and stops the bleeding, “Mang Pete continued, “while scraped inner bark of the imamali is pressed on the wound like band-aid.”
I declared professional curiosity and asked about hallucinogens.
“Bark from a tree called tsaang gubat is boiled and drank for kidney trouble and nausea,” Mang Pete responded, pointedly ignoring my query. “Labtang is supposed to regulate the menstrual cycle and so shouldn’t be given to pregnant women.”
No one can say I didn’t try.

No respectable kitchen is without its flavors and spices. Layu fruit tastes like kamias. Bawkok’s crushed leaves and fruit, and santol fruit substitute for vinegar for delectable sinigang. In place of sugar, dip for fresh honey from the beehive.
Living in the jungle is no excuse to smell bad. Gugo’s cleansing formula is not exactly a secret. Still, it was magic to see how the bark lathered luxuriantly and fragrantly in the stream. Bayabas stalk, like we’ve been taught in scouting, is a tooth picker and scrubber.
Next, the dreaded lesson on orienteering. Mang Pete consulted the second turn of a vine. That’s always east, he pronounced. To know where you’ve been, bend a stalk every few steps. At every crossroad, leave a broken branch blocking the route you didn’t take.
Always look up, down, and around. It’s never wise to step on or under any thing that stings, bites, or claws. A sturdy stick you can lean on while walking helps announce your presence to snakes taking a siesta among the tall cogon. It also balances like a third leg when stepping on mossy rocks set in streams. For jungles with wide and rapid rivers to cross, a lauan trunk dug in the center makes a sturdy canoe. Around 30 bamboo poles needled with smaller bamboos at the short end result in a highly buoyant raft.
Banaba leaves are also worn as ponchos and hats to protect from tree snakes. Keep hat secure with trapper rope. For instant camouflage, tutog-ulo’s leaves which have tiny hooks stick to clothing like Velcro.
When climbing uphill, advised Mang Pete, keep your torso low and don’t rely on vines or roots to pull you up. Finally, to keep malaria-carrying mosquitos off, smear all exposed flesh with mud.
One discovery I was happy to make myself: a rain coat-clad body is an excellent specimen catcher. Before the first hour was up, I swiped off a walking stick, worms, several furry caterpillars, unusually large grasshoppers, and the rest I’d need an entomologist to identify. But how is that a survival technique? Ah, Mang Pete did say roasted grasshoppers taste like shrimps.

Jungle Jaunt

There were signs of wild boar all through Subic Forest. Pepito T. - who's taught jungle survival to grim-faced US troops for 30 years and camera-toting civilians like me for the last 10 - pointed these out to eyes more conditioned to spotting 20-foot golden arches than minute disturbances in the soil. There were fresh tracks ("See those little prints, she has piglets..."), shallow diggings ("She's scrounging for food, looks real hungry..."), and a tree bark violently ripped by animal teeth ("Must have sniffed human scent, they want us to know this is their territory...").
"How big is she?" I wondered, maybe a little too loudly. Mang Pete quickly assured that wild boars normally stay out of people’s way. “Although,” he just had to add, “if a baboy ramo ever stares at you with hackles raised, snorting in a funny way, climb up a tree quick.” Mang Pete knows what this is like. “They’ll want to charge between your legs to throw you off balance.” Mang Pete’s quite a matador during these encounters. He waits until the last minute, then steps aside and hacks away with his bolo. “Killed three this way,” he grinned with pride.
Mang Pete, trapper and hunter extraordinaire, credits his survival skills to generations of native Filipinos before him. As a boy during World War II, he hid in this very forest and learned to survive on roots and to chase away bats and boars for the best rock overhangs to curl up and sleep under. Food was just as scarce during peacetime. His Aeta elders taught him how to zero in on drinking water, identify leaves you can flavor soup or dress a wound with, and to watch out for lethal viper snakes with the nasty habit of falling off branches.
Decades later, Mang Pete still treks through the woods – this time escorting gaggles of tourists. Uniformed with a hard hat and yellow poncho over an olive-colored T-shirt tucked in camouflage pants, boots, and his trusty jungle bolo in a holster, he looks ready for anything. This is the same man who taught escape-and-evasion techniques to US pilots bound for the Vietnam war. His calling today: to transform city softies into regular Lords of the Jungle.
Money is toilet paper in the jungle, he wanted us to understand. There are no convenience stores here. Everything you need is free and available. You just have to gather, hunt, and trap. (I muffled an “Oh, is that all?”) On cue, a labuyo or wild chicken and her brood came running across the trail 10 steps away. “How do you know,” I asked, “that’s not somebody’s dearest pet?” Mang Pete give me a look that clearly said I was being silly and had to be drilled on the basics on life beyond burger-and-fries country.

For four hours, Mang Pete led us through the Subic Forest to point out how everything you need to keep breathing outside of cable TV is for the picking. Consider:
Banaba, which lined the forest grounds with purple flowers, has leaves as large as elephant ears. Aetas layer these into branches forming a squat A-shaped frame. Not only do banaba leaves serve well as walls and roof, they also cushion your back against hard ground.
When waterfalls, streams, or springs dry up, just chop off a bamboo. Aetas refer to it as their fridge. The moisture that collects on the stem filters into the hollow. Pristine white insides mean clean water. You can even use a young bamboo shoot for a straw. Dit-an from the rattan family stores water similarly.
Mang Pete also demonstrates how a slice on the trunk of the tubay tree quickly fills with water and drips into the bottle he hung below. If you leave a container overnight, you’ll have five gallons by morning. After that, all you need is a bark from the kapang tree and you’re all set to boil a potful of coffee.
As for traps, twist fiber from a balete tree. Let dry for a day and you have rope strong enough to trap a small bayawak or labuyo. During the hot months, set your traps near the water. Don’t put too much bait or the animal will likely have its fill and leave before it steps into the loop.
There is also hooked vine Mang Pete calls wait-a-minute (because it catches your shirt and stops you on your tracks for a – yeah – minute) which he flings around in a cave until it catches a bat’s wing. He also uses the vine for fishing. But of course, if you’re a novice, you could just as easily hook your own skin. Sometimes, Mang Pete pours water that had been boiled with labtang fruit in fish-rich streams. This gets fish drunk, Mang Pete swears, that he just scoops them out of the water.
Mang Pete cooks bats in their own oil (“Tastes like liver…”). Bayawak and labuyo are favorite barbecue fare. The streams are home to shrimps and snails. I asked what snails taste like. “Frogs,” was the answer.
There’s no avoiding vegetables: leafy paco, young shoots of tutug-ulo and the fleshy ubod which we would never have imagined was beneath the spiky exterior.
Mang Pete cautioned against carelessly picking up any root and stem to taste-test. Mushrooms with ringed stalks are poisonous. Edible varieties like the one called u-ong is usually dark brown and ridge-free. A root bulb called kalut grows bigger than a human head and tastes like kamote—but only after being half-cooked and submerged in flowing water for six hours then cooked again for maximum detoxification.
Banaba leaves are handy as plates, but nothing beats the bamboo for versatility. Mang Pete picked a year-old bamboo (as indicated by the still brown rings) which he said lent aroma to the cooking. In less time than it takes to boil an egg, he chopped and carved – and ended up with glass, fork (which suspiciously looked like a back scratcher), spoon, and a deep cup to cook rice and meat in which could double as plate later.
Stay away from decaying bamboo, he barked. Hornets live there.

Playing on the Edge 4

Not everyone has a white water river in their "backyard" so Fiya S. takes her kayak to the open sea instead. Turned on to kayaking by her parents who run a water sports business, she counts herself among those who enjoy facing the sea alone. For her, the riskiest thing about kayaking is being unable to predict the weather and water conditions. You could get stranded. You could topple out and find it difficult to haul yourself back in.
"Amateur kayakers who want to go distance paddling should go with a group of experienced kayakers so they improve their pace and don't lose track of time," she advises. A week before any kayaking event, she goes to the beach and paddles three to four hours at at time. "I tend to be defensive when friends think I'm just showing off. I tell them that this is something I do for myself. I don't want to be so cautious that I'll end up wondering 'what could've happened if I pushed a little bit more?' I'd like to test my limits."
Being on the water clarifies her world. Workable solutions and reflections on life-so-far come to mind. "I feel detached but safe. The salty breeze makes me happy, the occasional dolphin sighting even more so." As long as there is a stretch of water before her and she feels up to the challenge, she feels she can keep going. "A kayak is an explorer's tool after all. In Batangas, I was able to dive off a cliff because my kayak got me there."

Jerome G. thought it was going to be another kayaking-with-the-tourists day. But the foreign tourists had other other ideas. They demanded to be brought to the river they saw from their Davao-Cagayan de Oro plane.
"I knew it was the Bubunauan river, one of the tributaries of Cagayan de Oro river. I haven't surveyed it myself. I might as well have been a tourist too." As the kayak ride progressed, Jerome grew tense as he worried about waterfalls and drains. As he identified the river as a high-risk class 5, he knew accident and even death was a possibility. Luckily, the worst that came out of that unplanned ride were minor injuries and two badly damaged kayaks.
"The higher the class of rapids, the greater the gamble," is the obvious explanation. Jerome shares how you get a fighting chance: Know all the river's curves. Have the right kayak. Wear a life vest, helmet, knees and elbow pads. Prepare physically and mentally. To handle fear in kayaking, says Jerome, practice paddling in calm water. Try class 1 and 2 first, and then, 3 and 4 several times to get a feel of it. When you think you're ready, dive to class 4 and 5. Stay calm, enjoy the trip, and trust your guide.
Jerome enjoys caving and mountaineering (he headed the civilian team that was first to arrive on the Cebu Pacific Air crash site) but kayaking, he feels, is perfect for him. "Other outdoor sports allow you to rest anytime," he says, "but as long as the kayak is on the water, it will continue to move downstream. You'll have to keep paddling."
He also loves being in control. In kayaking, a decision made is a risk taken. "You must be ready for the consequences of picking a path. You may go down the rapids sideways or on your back. If your kayak collapses, the stormy rapids will grind you against rocks and boulders. You have to be quick about what to do next."
Jerome's affair with the water started with the rather placid activity of fishing. But ask him how he jumped from one fishing location to the next - "by maneuvering inner tubes down the rapids." Soon enough, he met foreigner after foreigner who came to his river loaded with equipment. In 1996, he and his friends made their first raft made of rattan, inner tubes, and canvas. They promptly joined a competition and - what do you know - finished 4th.
Jerome continues to kayak along the Cagayan de Oro river. "A good ride for me is when I remain parallel to the river, otherwise I get swayed and soaked." He says his danger alert flashes everytime he rides the rapids. "My heart pounds a lot. So I consciously breath in as much of the fresh air as I can. The insistent sssssh sound of the river has always struck me as a kind of careful reminder: to make sure I get through this alive so I can keep going back."

Playing on the Edge 3

Just call himThe Weekend Warrior, Mr. Skydiver says. He doesn't relish parrying charges of reckless behaviour and attempted suicide. To illustrate, he was 17 (his excuse) then, versed in the martial arts, and an occasional movie stuntman. While hanging out, an insider announced that an outfit needed a skydiving double. "Done that," The Weekend Warrior bragged to no one in particular. He might as well have volunteered for the task because a few days later, a stunt coordinator approached him about the job. The Weekend Warrior froze in his seat; our hero has never skydived in his life. He wasn't certified, he demurred. "We'll make you sign a clause absolving us of liability," he was told, not very assuringly. So The Weekend Warrior demanded what he thought was an outrageously high amount. "It took them two seconds to take the price I was willing to kill myself for," he recalls.
Terrified but not ready to come clean, he prepared himself for the task by talking to a friend of a friend of a friend...over the phone. For the next two nights, he faced the mirror and did pulling-the-chute motions.
On the big day, he was briefed that the character he was doubling for was suppose to be doing this for the first time. And so, can he please exhibit total fear and panic. "Not a problem," The Weekend Warrior said through clenched teeth.
He jumped off the plane, screamed at the top of his lungs, spun uncontrollably in all directions, and landed on a rice paddy a mile away from the landing site. The wind dragged the chute - and him - a few more meters as carabaos ran for their lives.

Years ago, Nelson G. and a friend saw a taxi cab with "Skydive" scrawled on the side. They chased after the bemused driver just to ask him how his cab got named. Bingo: the cab's owner was a skydiving instructor and you can pretty much guess what happened next.
"You know how it is when you and your friends sometimes sit together and wonder what you should do next?" Skydiving was still uncharted territory for him. "It's been described as orgasmic, even better than sex." Nelson wanted to get into it, of course.
He describes free falling as "God-like. You've flown. You've cheated genetics." Besides, parachutes are equipped with a computerized mechanism on the reserve chute. If you faint, panic, or fail to do anything at all, your chute will automatically open at 1,200 feet. That alone eliminates the ketchup-stain-on-the-ground scenario.
And then there's the man on an easy chair whose sole task is to watch you come down. He'll try not to intrude but if he sees you gliding off target, he'll introduce himself to you - via the radio strapped on your chest - as your ground control. He'll help you maneuver towards your landing spot.
Nelson skydives during the weekends but it influences the rest of his days and the way he handles his business and relationships. "When you freefall from 20 to 70 seconds, it may not seem like much to the outsider, but when you're up there and executing group formations, there's a lot to do in 20 seconds. Imagine what you can do in 24 hours."
Nelson grants that doing something that 99 percent of the population won't get to do is a huge ego boost. "But at the same time, when you're 'flying' at 200 mph, with just the air between you and the ground, you realize how small a speck you are." An easily squashed gnat.
You're on your own when you jump. Says The Weekend Warrior, "Other guys look around and enjoy their free fall. Me, I'm looking at my altimeter and praying to God that my chute will open. Your hurtle down at an amazing speed. You're freezing. You're whole face contorts. And, hey, your lips flap in the air."

(Photo by Gina Umali)

Playing on the Edge 2

Deep in the Cagayan Valley cave of Quibal, Jong N. and his group were ragged of breath. They thought nothing of this; they've been hiking and scrambling over rocks for hours. At a rest stop, one of them flicked his lighter.
Jong, shifting into instructor mode, was going to ask his companion to pocket his smokes. (If the cave happened to have high levels of methane - released by guano or bat droppings - the lighter flame would have blazed, cathing who-knows-what on fire.)
He saw, however, that the flame danced a feet above the lighter. "It turned out the oxygen was dangerously low. We quickly backtracked before any of us started fainting."
Jong knows low oxygen means whacked-out mental functions. Simple arithmetic suddenly requires the concentration of a rocket scientist. Not good when you're suppose to have already computed exploration time - you'd want to be out of that cave long before the back-up of your back-up lighting conks.
"You don't go in alone," says Jong. He usually delegates a team whose task is to wait outside. "Exploring passages can take the whole day. You forget how long you've been inside." If his group is overdue, even if they're not necessarily lost, a rescue automatically takes place.
Jong can't say this enough: "It's easy to lose your way inside." Know what you're doing. Prepare to handle any situation. But don't get overconfident. He admits to making this mistake. "I thought I knew the chamber like the back of my hand. I went in alone. On the way out, I circled the area twice and still couldn't find the exit. I sat down, told myself to calm down, and ate my last JellYace." He found the exit, rejoined his group, and got a scrubbing.

Jong recommends that you learn the different knots and the single rope technique, how to rappel down, ascend on a rope, map a cave with a survey tape, compass and inclination-measuring clinometer.
Jong says he has spent days just mapping chambers. "Caves are beautiful. You have, in effect, discovered buried treasure." He describes the crystal white stalactites and flooring in a Cagayan cave chamber named Heaven, clear pools and rocks textured like drapes in Cagayan Valley's Quibal cave, and a frozen calcite waterfall in the Mona Lisa chamber of Cebu's Cantabaco cave.
Caves are natural time capsules. Among the charcoal graffiti are anti-Spain setiments left by Panay Island's katipuneros on the walls of Iloilo's Dingle Cave. The wife of The Great Plebeian Andres Bonifacio, they say, wrote on the walls of Pamitinan Cave in Montalban.
You don't get to see these by buying a ticket. "In Cagayan Valley's Lhoret Cave, you have to rappel down 180 feet down and you're nowhere even near the entrance. Odloman Cave in Negros requires you to rappel down a height equivalent to 10 storeys."
Jong says he is more scared of caving than his other pursuits: rock climbing and mountaineering. "Admitting to fear is good. You're not likely to take things for granted. Besides, it's natural to be scared of the dark and the unknown." From inside the cave, you can't tell if the weather has changed. You can be trapped in a flash flood. He's seen tree trunks lodged in ceiling caves - proof of rising water.
Spelunker Jay A., who has similarly explored many local caves including those little known by other cavers, says, "Other than the perpetual darkness, enclosed spaces can wear you down - physically and psychologically. But it is in such surreal places that we learn more about ourselves and what we're capable of."
Spelunking isn't just strolling. Jay enumerates the different movements. "Caveman" mimics the posture of the man-ape when passing through low passages. If your legs are strong, you can do the "Duckwalk" to pass even lower passages. "Crawl" means, well, getting on your hands and knees. "Slither" is dragging your entire body caterpillar fashion to move in horizontal passages with a vertical clearance as low as 10 inches. "Scaling" is climbing vertical shafts, ledges, and crossing over boulders. Talk about total body workout.

Every ground is new ground in caving. Jong explains, "In mountaineering, you can see a good distance of course. You can choose your best route. In caving, you only see the patch of ground where your light falls. In scuba diving, when you want to surface, all you need to do is go up. In caving, you have to go back the way you came in."And it's not always solid ground.
Jong spoke of a cave in Antipolo where you have to hold your breath for a few seconds to blindly swim through a passage barely two meters in diameter before you can continue trekking. "And that's not even remotely close to cave diving. There are few cave divers in the world and the ratio of cave diving-related deaths is alarmingly high," he shares.
Jong promotes caves preservation any chance he gets. Since the ivory trade was banned, some locals harvest stalactite for tourists. "It would be impossible for us to bodily guard all the caves." Some go to the extent of barring cave entrances. But Jong thinks that smacks of ownership. It's better to take the time to educate the locals. For example, consider cave capacity when showing off the chambers to minimize the impact. Also, respect the local folklore and custom. In Sagada, for example, local elders forbade Jong and his team to explore one cave. They deposited their dead in it and considered it sacred ground. Jong didn't need to be told twice.
Jay, who often orients first-time cavers on conservation rules, says, "Don't disturb the subterranean wildlife. Remember that you are the visitor. Bats and spiders have been living in those caves long before you stuck your neck in. Snakes will not strike if you do not startle them. Just get out of their way."
Jay stresses an often ignored rule: Never vandalize or deface the caves. "Although cave walls are cold and hard, the cave environment is fragile, no less delicate than the rain forest. Stalactites and stalagmites grow at an average of one inch every 100 years. Forget 'souvenirs.' Don't break off in a second what took more than one human lifetime to create."

Playing on the Edge

If you don't live on the edge, you're taking up too much room. Mountaineer, rock climber, backpacker Roel T. repeats this slogan he heard from ESPN's coverage of the X Games ("where the prime qualification for participants seems to be a willingness to up the percentages for limb fractures, spinal injury, or death.")
What drives people to rappel down caves, climb up cliffs, and generally dance on the margins of disaster? We've all heard of an endorphin high, sure, but doesn't a nice run around the park pop that lid too? While most mass up at the malls come weekend, there's this band of people trooping to Montalban's crags and caves, Anilao's dive sites, and er, the skies.
Maybe those who ride the rapids and leap off planes are wired differently; maybe they require more to jump a current. Nice won't do. We're talking about blissing out - heart-bursting, body-tingling, mind-altering pleasure. All natural, of course.
Roel says, "In a society where alternatives to the 9 to 5 grind are limited, taking risks and facing up to a self-imposed challenge gives a sense of being in control. We all need to bust loose. We thrive by stoking on adrenaline and taking routes that require boldness."
As Roel did when he clung on the West Wall of Mt. Maculot (a 900-foot sweep of vertical to overhanging rock), a dangerous rock climbing quest which juiced this thought: "Death lurks in places where fear and risk abound. It is also the place to linger and feel the surge of life."
Pleasure is a biological reflex, somebody once said. We'll do anything for that warm, liquid burst. And so there will always be those who court our most primal fears: falling, drowning, the dark and unknown. They move the body with an energy that seeks to connect with the natural world. It's their version of everyone's drama: to be bigger than the space one occupies.
"The extreme athlete's slogan has more to do with creating space than with taking up too much room," says Roel. "Boldness and a willingness to take risks can break barriers and make our world as large as it really was before convention and mediocrity made it small." Rock climbers, spelunkers, skydivers, kayakers are simply possessed by what trips their light fantastic.

Rock climber Gax I. is 20 feet up on one of Montalban's crags. He reaches for a foothold and slips. The spring-loaded camming device he earlier wedged between the cracks support him; he hangs in mid-air. But the metal gets chipped, slides off the marble, and Gax finds himself staring at the fast approaching ground.
The cam must have broken his fall because - other than rope burn, the throbbing on his head where the cam chose to ricochet, and having the air knocked out of him - he still had all his body parts intact.
"Climbing changes your outlook," says Gax. "Each day that leaves you unscathed is a second chance for anything." Roel, who happens to be a former head of the U.P. Mountaineers Rock Climbing Team who established the country's first sports route, says this about falling: "18% chance of incurring a spinal injury, 78% for limb fractures, and a 20% chance of dying." Ulp.
Climbing instructor Jong N. says, "You get so addicted to the physical exhilaration of getting away with it that you can't wait for the next climb."
Loose rocks and soft limestone aren't the only risks that climbers are alert to. A snake once crawled up Gax's arm. Another time, he was almost at the top of his route when the wind chilled. He turned his head and saw a curtain of rain gliding his way. Needless to say, climbing on wet slippery surface is asking for it. Best to call it a day.
Gax swam, trekked, played soccer, tennis, and badminton when he happened upon rock climbing photos. "It looked terrifying." That hooked him. Friends joked that he was too heavy for it. As climbing center owner Santy L. says, "You don't want to be carrying excess weight when you're climbing a cliff." So Gax climbed artificial walls four days a week, hit the crags of Montalban during the weekends, joined sports climbing competitions, and what do you know, he ended up, at one point, being ranked the no. 1 sports climber in the country.

The most powerful tool in climbing, says Santy, is between your ears. The greatest physical body is of little use if you can't think under pressure. "Climbing demands great presence of mind. You can fall great distances. Even if your protection may hold, the limestone crag where you hooked your protection may not."
Jong agrees, "Climbing is mental. You learn patience. Falling just when there's only one hold to go is incredibly frustrating." You just keep coming back to that one wall like a man a-courting.
For example, Gax and his friends have camped out in Montalban, subsisting on instant noodles, just so they can climb all week. And Santy worked nights in Palawan for six months so he could spend his days climbing near the falls. "When I challenge myself with a difficult route, I stick around for up to eight hours just to finish it. If it keeps defeating me, I stay overnight on the site, consumed by the thought. And, as if by divine providence, a sequence will come to mind."
Roel once bivouacked 200 feet up the West Wall of Mt. Maculot. The next night, there was no ledge to sleep on, so he tied himself to the wall, hanging by his harness. "During the night, the wind kept blowing, buffeting us with cold gusts as we swayed from our anchors," he recalls. All for the sheer love of climbing.
A climber is beautiful to watch. Says Santy, "Power Up owner Joey Cuerdo calls it the dance of the vertical. I call it physical chess. One may do it with brute strength. Another - skinny as a pole - does it with grace. And you go, 'why can't I do that?'"
Gax says he takes pain to execute his movements. He imagines himself on the wall and anticipates reaching the top without a fall. "Sometimes, I neglect to look around because I'm too busy internalizing the sequence of moves." He fears getting distracted, reaching for the wrong handhold, wasting effort, and getting what he calls Elvis's legs or sewing machine legs (trembling either way).
Jong says danger becomes manageable when you know your belayer (a partner who feeds the rope as the climber ascends) can handle pressure-cooker situations. "So that even when you buckle, your partner has you covered. I'd choose the person I'd ask to belay for me. My life will literally be in his hands." The climbing community is said to be close because every climb is an exercise in trust.
Santy says, "A partner who knows when to encourage you and when to back down can be valuable on days when you're feeling freaked out. Even if you don't hit the ground, you can fall 30 feet, pulling your protection and shearing your rope as you go down. When the rope finally catches, you just hang there, waiting to regain the color on your face. A partner prompts you to climb again because you don't want to end the day with failure. It only becomes harder to go back the next time."

The first batch of rock climbers are passing it on. Santy makes it a point not to bring anyone outdoors unless they've become comfortable at indoor climbing. "If they're scared of a 30-foot artificial wall, they'll pee through their pants on an 80-foot rock wall. Anything can happen outdoors. Who would want that on their conscience?"
The instructors can't be there all the time. "When you teach someone, don't leave anything out. Otherwise, everytime they fall, you wonder if you taught them enough."
It's natural to be competitive especially at such a young sport. Santy is a top-ranked sports climber in the country himself. "My students keep reporting to me about this and that route that no one has finished and they expect me to do it. There are days when I just want an easy climb, but my friends pin me to a difficult route. They're watching." To make up, Santy has a secret place where he climbs strictly for fun. He hopes to mature to the point where he can climb an easy routeand not worry about, "Why is he on that wall?" comments.
That's not to say that the climbing community is dead serious all the time. In fact, you wouldn't meet a more gung-ho and down-to-earth troupe. Even the names they give their routes betray their brand of humor. "Boogie" was a tribute to the knee-shaking first ascent. "Coffee na lang dear" was named because the climbers, still flushed from the success of their climb, met a group of hunters on their coffee break. "Banzai" refers to the plaque on the rock wall with the Japanese script that no one could make sense of. And, oh, there's a route called "Funky Shit." The climber had the runs that day (too much information, huh). "Romancing" is short for Romancing the Stone because - you guessed it - climbers hug the rock all day.
Just the spot for deep mulling, Santy says, climbing is almost a religion. "As a beginner, you go, 'Lord, get me safely on the ground. I promise, I'll really be good.' But later, as you grow more confident, you become aware of the greatest peace."
Santy says climbing is like no other sport he's tried and those include rally driving, soccer, volleyball, mountaineering, and even representing the country in martial arts. The challenge - between you and the route, and not you and the next climber - is constant. You can climb the wall until you're 60. And it doesn't feel like exercise because, well, you're not exactly counting reps.
"In basketball, every shoot you make is a point for the team and you entertain a mass audience to boot," says Jong. "Climbing seems selfish by comparison. It's a highly personal effort." No public announcer noting the, ahem, thrill of victory and agony of defeat. But the rewards are trophy enough. Self-reliance, pushing your limits, accumulating experience, taking it one bit at a time, having fun - without these, you won't get far in climbing, or, for that matter, in life.

Pigging Out

Kids lined one side of our van, pressed their palms on the windows, and peered in at us with half-mad grins. They drummed their fingers on the roof as they - I swear I'm not making this up - chanted a child's rhyme. I felt like we were plopped into a bizarre art-house film.
But that episode - I was soon to learn - was no stranger than later events. To be blunt, there were pigs on the streets. Specifically, there were poled lechon primped up as a ballerina, student, fast-food attendant and - how uncanny - a congressman. Their crisp, glistening bodies were propped on a swing, bicycle, hammock. Covering their pointy little ears were a sports cap, construction hat, motorcyle helmet, even headgear fit for an empress. Stuck on their hooves were implements of war defining the times: from a sulong-mga-kapatid bolo to a sulong-Ginebra Gins basketball.
What in Ms. Piggy's name was going on here?
June 24 is the day to honor Saint John the Baptist, and let it never be said that Balayan, Batangas doesn't know how to throw a celebration. This is Ginebra San Miguel country, after all, where 300,000 cases of gin is consumed every month. Besides, San Miguel was the day's major sponsor - now there's a clear red light to party.
And party hard. For example: there was enough water squirted, sprayed, and splashed from toy guns, garden hoses, bottles, and tabo to convince us that Balayan will find itself with a water shortage and a flu epidemic by tomorrow. But was that enough for them? Nooo. They brought out the red-hot fire truck, parked it by the plaza, unfurled the hose, and made sure no one had a dry shirt on his back.
I suppose everyone felt like they were back to being kids, caught in a virtual downpour on the streets, socks getting squishy. There was a kind of tug-of-war going on in the crowd: half fleeing from the streams of water, half rushing to it with chests out. Either way, there was loud shrieking.
Except maybe for this family who unwrapped a bar of soap and furiously lathered their limbs like it was nobody's business. Meanwhile, the all-important bottle opener was being passed around. The spirits-swigging started in earnest.
As lechon after lechon paraded by, an arm would shoot from the crowd and pull off a bit of skin and meat here and there. The discreet pinching of pulutan, however, soon turned into an out-and-out feeding frenzy.
Some owners were not pleased to see their prized pigs - carefully fattened for weeks, roasted, costumed for the big day - disappear in record time, all before being judged for the fairest-of-them-all competition.
One slim man with a pageboy hairstyle hugged his lechon in desperation, kicking off the carnivores. He didn't stand a chance. The pig's head was torn off like some trophy and flung to the onlookers. The crowd cheered like crazy. There were drums, of course. There are always drums (as there are painted men in grass skirts dancing with abandon). People surfaced from the free-for-all with greasy lips and chins, skulking away with generous, aromatic portions. Streets were greased. Bones were being thrown into the air.
It's easy enough to connect the townspeople's need to drench anything that moves to the feast of St. John but what's lechon got to do with it? Mayor Benjie Martinez admits that the Parada ng mga Lechon is an embellishment on a celebration which dates back to the 1900s. "You know how we Filipinos are," he said, "it's never a feast unless there's lechon on the table." And on the streets, it turned out. In the 12 years that families and company sponsors have been showing off their crisp, golden-roasted entries, it's inevitable that someone would stumble upon the idea of dressing them up. How else would their lechon stand out from the 99 other offerings? Pasiklaban is as Pinoy as, well, bagoong balayan.

(Photo by Alexies D. Santiago)

Going to the Birds

The last time I went home, it was for my sister’s wedding. One of the unlikeliest people ever to be caught wearing a gown, I was suddenly tasked to be maid of honor. On that trip, however, I was on one other mission.
Home, you see, is Bislig on the eastern coast of Mindanao and the main point of access into the vast PICOP concession area. Its 182,682 hectares extend from the lowland forests to the higher altitude forests on Mt. Pasian and Mt. Agtuuganon. PICOP harvests only from its forestry areas—planted with seedlings grown from nurseries—even as its wardens strive to protect the old-growth forests from illegal loggers and settlers. Against such odds, the Key Conservation Sites in the Philippines by Mallari et. al. identify these forests as a popular birdwatchers’ destination.
Other birdwatchers, I’m told, earmark at least four days to explore the intersecting Roads 1 and 4 to tick as many birds off their wish list (they’ve traveled a long way after all). I figured I could politely disappear from the wedding party (which had its own itinerary of island beaches and inland falls) for one day of birdwatching.
So, I hooked up with guide Felizardo Goreng who’s been scoping the local birding areas since ushered into the whole business of it 10 years ago by bird-guide author and bird-tour operator Tim Fisher.
Zardo is like any "student" in that he often catches himself quoting his teacher. "Tim Fisher says any place with Rufous Hornbills is a good place." He has since taken that idea further, explaining in the vernacular, "I've asked settlers not to shoot the Hornbills. They see that I keep coming back here, with a jeepload of new faces every time. I always say, these people travel a long way to see our Hornbills."
The Rufous Hornbills' nesting tree is visible from Road 1 (ironically due to settlers' clearing activities) but it is alive and standing. We watched a male Rufous Hornbill (nestled on a cavity entrance, sentry-like) for a satisfying while. An immature one, known to play nanny, was on a branch. That entire morning, we noted too, Mindanao Tarictic Hornbills kept making themselves heard, as if trying to spit something stuck in their throats ("aaakh, aaaakh").
Zardo is an old-timer. Used to people handing him their bird wish list (one guy even offered a dollar for every bird on his list they found), he’ll ask a day before what birds you want to see. He’ll suggest how you can make the most of your birding time—right place at the right time especially counts here. Ready or not, he’ll show up at your door just before 4 a.m. And once you’re birding on the road, occasionally veering off into mud trails and back, the driver in the pampasaherong jeep will trail him and you at a distance—for shelter when the rain really pours (it usually does), and, we suspect, for security too.
Zardo readily admits he’s bumped into and exchanged nods with armed insurgents before going their own ways. There’s even one road which Zardo fondly dubs the "Red Zone" because on birding trips when this area was his 5 a.m. stop, he said he particularly enjoyed the Rufous Hornbills and Rufous Paradise Flycatchers. (And, well, he added, "Red" applies to the New People's Army presence too.) Just a fact of (birding) life in these parts, no worries.
Over stories-trading lunch, he tells of a certain foreigner-birder who arrived years ago at the height of a jobs’ strike, employees massing up at PICOP’s gate to bar entry. Confused and frustrated, this big man threatened to punch anyone who’d lay a hand on his scope, camera, recorder; and then, when Zardo arrived—explaining through the din that this person was not connected to PICOP—that birder threatened to punch Zardo too just because of that less than ideal situation. But no matter, said Zardo, he got his guy through the crowd, and the birding that followed which “according to that birder, all but made him roll on the ground in ecstasy” made up for the hassle. Apparently so, because this man came back years later—with a group at that.
Zardo also related how once, he was going to meet with another foreigner-birder at a pre-designated area. At the last minute, they decided to link up elsewhere. Turned out, there was an exchange of gunfire—an “encounter” is how its termed in these parts—at the original meeting place and time. Upon learning that, Zardo says, they just had to drink (the hard stuff) to their being alive!
With that seeming possibility of being the next cautionary tale, not to mention the four to five hour-drive from Davao airport to get to Bislig, the birding had better be good, you're bound to interject. Let’s just say that on our single day of birding (even without a field recorder for enticing, and with rain until mid-morning) at the intersecting Roads 1 and 4, we listed over 70 species. Among these were our “blue troupe,” specifically Blue Fantail, Short-crested Monarch, and Black-naped Monarch.
That day’s offerings are resplendently named: Naked-faced Spiderhunter, Violet Cuckoo, Crested Goshawk, Black-chinned Fruit-Dove, Pompadour Green-Pigeon to cite a few. All these paid for in patience—not at all my biggest currency! Best catch of the day was the Silvery Kingfisher (stunning us with its black-and-white elegance as it repeatedly dove into the water from its perch), deigning to share the same pond with a Rufous Night-Heron and a sunning turtle.
We closed with a late afternoon visit to the shutdown Bislig airport where we sat on the roof of the jeep waiting for the twilight(and for grass owls that didn’t surface in flight from the marshy fields—but a large male breeding water cock, its red frontal shield visible, sure did).
There, we came across this man pumping an air gun for all he was worth, warning us not to go down the side trail because he spotted two duck-targets. We looked at each other in horror and Zardo and I both said, rather meekly, “Wag na laaang.” (Please don’t.) He disappeared into the trail. We assured ourselves that the ducks would get away or alternately, it's surely just subsistence hunting. Soon enough, a disturbed pair took to the skies. The man burst from the marshes, got on his bike, and pedaled after them. Suddenly, we felt sorry for the man; there went his family’s dinner. Just the same, it’s scary to think that this ducks-plucking attempt scenario may play day after day.
The encroaching human settlements (that cut down trees—we heard the chainsaw) made me wish again that everyone’s measure of wealth was the existing biodiversity. And it’s never as simple or obvious as blaming the logging company. I grew up being aware of the "revolutionary tax" that communist rebels charge PICOP (scare tactics include warehouses getting blown off, armories being raided, security personnel getting shot) even when, again, it is the company's wardens who chase after large-scale illegal loggers (whispered to be crooked partners of government officials—typical of how political and economic patronage leads to forest destruction). As writer Sylvia Mayuga once said, “Besides eminent corruptibility, the DENR has been formally trained for exploitation, not conservation, of primary wealth.” We got ourselves in this mess.
The light’s going fast. PICOP bird trips for me are just as marked by the birds missed yet again. Mindanao Wattled Broadbill? Blue-backed Parrot? No such luck. But then again, Zardo's last group (before me) ticked every bird off their list because they showed up for five days straight (evidence of their industriousness: his usual jeep conked out shortly after, leaving me with a substitute, decidedly bumpier, ride) so I'm grateful for this one day's offerings.
On the day of the wedding, I sat with the bride in the car speeding to church. She talked about how she prayed for sun on her wedding day but sure, she’ll take the stop-and-start showers that had everyone else worried. Doesn’t rain bring blessings? she rationalized. Just then, as we passed by the old airport, 20+ Philippine Ducks flew overhead (before that, I had only counted as little as one, as many as nine at a time). I pointed in amazement, ducks! A symbol of fidelity in Asian culture. Now there’s the bride’s auspicious sign, and a hopeful enough hint for me of recovering habitats.

Photo by Nilo Arribas, Jr.

States of Grace

People get on and off at Quiapo. It lends itself greatly to different lives and times.
Quiapo, for Bert Pasquin, among other remembrances, is the hopia that his father brought home from Uno Bakery. Quiapo was accessible to him emotionally that way (it was his generation’s Ayala; Flash Elorde’s win had not yet put Cubao’s Araneta on the mental landscape) and physically as well (Mandaluyong Transit, Pasig Liner—they all went to Quiapo). Bert’s personal route was the Punta Sta. Ana-Quiapo line, distinguished by its green and yellow with red lettering motif.
Quiapo wisened him up in the 1960s, Bert says. Walking through its streets on the way to college, Bert was distracted by a stranger who said his uniform had a smudge. Worried about staining his one of only two Oxford whites, Bert stopped to check.
Seated in the classroom later, he discovered that the Parker pen, a gift from his father, was missing from his pocket. “Buti na lang walang exams,” was the thought that crowded out however he felt about the loss. “I have to buy Bic after school.” Focusing on the practicalities muffles sentiment.
By the ’70s, grown into a gangly young man barely tipping 110 lbs on the scale, Bert found employment as a radio news writer and occasional newscaster at Radio DZMT in Sta. Cruz. Walking through Carriedo regularly to catch his jeepney ride, he had witnessed his share of pickpocketing and the chases that ensued. Bert was never apprehensive himself though; by that time, he felt at home in the din of Quiapo.
One time, shortly after surfacing from the Quiapo underpass, a man about his size growled, “Pahinging pera d’yan.”
“Wala na akong pera,” Bert casually replied.
“Eh paano ka nakabili n’yan?” the man said, pointing to the boxed pair of leather shoes that Bert bought with his paycheck only minutes earlier. “Anong ibabayad mo sa jeep?”
“D’yan lang ako nakatira. Maglalakad lang ako,” Bert said, walking away, thinking that if he senses the man trailing behind, he’ll detour to MLQU (where he studied at night) to lend credence to his statement. No one makes a fool of him after that first time; he is practically batang Quiapo.

Quiapo is a magic hour that revealed itself when he was 17, says Jayson Brizuela. In 1995, he and his friends camped overnight in a van parked on Roxas Boulevard to assure themselves a glimpse of the passing Popemobile. By 5 a.m., Monica, a girl he liked and would probably follow anywhere, suggested that they heat their packed canned goods at her Lola’s house in Quiapo. So, from Roxas Boulevard, the teenagers turned right to Kalaw, then Taft Ave., proceeding across the street of Adamson University and then of San Sebastian Church—which Jayson described as bluish-colored in the early twilight—all the way to Quiapo.
Jayson, who grew up in Las Piñas, enjoyed the scenic route. “Mapula-pula pa ang langit.” He liked how the odd hour suddenly allowed walking in a city that was usually too big to be pedestrian-friendly. After World Youth Day’s congestion at Quirino grandstand, almost-empty Manila was a relief. Even before reaching Isetann, they turned a side street, and found themselves, as Jayson puts it, “worlds away from the Quiapo that most people know.”
The door to Lola’s two-story house was ordinary enough—but the hardwood stairs that opened up to expansive wooden flooring, grilled capiz windows, and obviously antique furnishings gave Jayson a feeling of beholding something rare. “Lumang-luma na pero you could easily sense the affluence of the time. The organic wood and stone especially added to its refinement and warmth.” Jayson says he was charmed by the La Quinta (meaning country house) of the old families, before the Nazareno devotions paved downtown. “It was an experience in itself for me, like being afforded an unexpected privilege.”
While the group waited for vienna sausages and corned beef to be served, Jayson imagined that, just outside, the Quiapo-of-wholesale-commerce was waking up, and a curtain of people was drawing back in. But he wasn’t quite ready to go back to present-day Manila. Jayson was still enjoying every bit of the setting, down to the morning sunlight-filtered latticework patterns. He wanted to relish that state of grace for a little while longer.

Quiapo is the last stand, says Nini Blanco. She was 18 in 1974 when she attended her first rally as an initiate of the UP Student Catholic Action. She was listening to student leaders like Malu Mangahas and Sheila Coronel elaborate on land-for-the-landless when the police arrived. “We tightened our ranks. Kapit-bisig!” says Nini on their response. The nuns from St. Theresa’s and the religious sector protectively lined up in front of the students while heavy hoses from fire trucks were unloaded. Soon enough, water was fired away! “Nakadapa na kami, tinatangay pa rin kami sa pressure. I remember looking around and thinking, “Naku, flying nuns!
“Takot na takot ako, pero ganun pala sa rally dispersal, di ka namimili ng kaibigan. Sama-sama talaga sa pakikibaka. Kahit magkaibang eskwelahan kayo, they pick you off the ground, and help get you home. I learned some life-shaping principles on the streets that day.”
Quiapo, reminds Nini, is where trading started, the one-stop place for hard bargaining, the reason the so-called masses congregated there. And that is precisely why, she stresses, her group of students and political-willed individuals in the ’70s flocked there too—for the masses who, they supposed, weren’t fully aware of what went on in the political arena, the bargaining for power and careless trading with citizens' lives.
Plaza Miranda especially was the forum of the intelligentsia, immortalized in Magsaysay’s once posed question: “Can we defend this at Plaza Miranda?” The dominating party and opposition alike have held their meeting de advance there to court their way to Malacanang’s seat of power. Those who wanted to hold on to that power chose Quiapo as ground zero too; the bombing of Plaza Miranda unraveled events that helped usher in Martial Law after all.
Quiapo was the center of campaigning, Nini adds, because it was amid various academic institutions: San Beda, Centro Escolar, FEU, UST, to name some. “This was a time when students felt strongly about the plight of the poor, yung talagang isang-kahig, isang-tuka, yung asin ang ulam. University education opened our eyes about the landlord-tenant binds of the Spanish era, the capitalist-laborer chains during the American occupation, the haves and have-nots division that remains. We truly wanted to reach out towards the marginalized majority. The content of student conversation then was ‘Ano ang pinaglalaban mo?’, not the latest cellphone model in the market.”

Quiapo is a war zone, says Camille Buenaventura. From 1995 to 1999, she reported for work in her stockinged and blazered Danny de la Cuesta-designer uniform as a senior program officer at La Tondeña in the old Palanca building. “Ayaw naming lumabas na di naka-porma dahil nakakasabay namin yung mga SM employees. Pero sinasagupa namin ang alikabok at nakikipag-patintero kami sa pasahero ng jeepney, especially Fridays na Quiapo day.” Camille adds that kids, lying in wait on the rooftops of abandoned buildings, often packed sharp pebbles from construction sites and used them for target practice. “Hair and make up by Quiapo” was how they described their resulting harassed appearance. They’ve also been conditioned to stay alert for snatchers. They’ve had employees whose bull cap or jacket was enough for a hold-upper to brandish his ice-pick for.
That is kid’s stuff yet. Located at the back of their building was a Muslim enclave which they’ve dubbed as Ecuador for the tensions that periodically broke out. “Everytime we hear the wang-wang of police sirens, La Tondeña management would order its gates closed kasi baka may tumakbo sa loob. Sumisilip kami sa labas minsan pag ganito, nagkakagulo talaga. Pugad daw kasi ng syndicates—arms, drugs, stolen or pirated goods—kaya regular ang clampdowns.”
One time, Camille and then admin assistant Zach Zaragoza were walking home after office hours, preoccupied over trading stories, when Zach spotted in horror the end of an M16 poking out underneath the Carlos Palanca Bridge. “Nakikita mo ba ang nakikita ko?,” Zach nudged Camille. They looked around in rising panic and realized that there was no one else besides them on the streets. The police were waiting for the Muslims, it turned out. An encounter was going to take place. Bilisan natin maglakad, said Camille, chilled that they came that close to a possible crossfire.
On the bright side, Quiapo is an entrepreneur’s starter kit, says Zach. In ’97, she and Camille came to work wearing banig bags adorned by colorful scarves. Their women officemates adored their fashion statement. “Camille and I didn’t divulge that we bought these only steps away from the office, at the Quiapo underpass,” confides Zach. “We actually sold several banig bags which, bought at wholesale, gave us a P50-profit per item.”
Quiapo has a year-round answer to everything. In June or July, for example, Camille says their thoughts turn to lychees and grapes. At year’s end, Christmas decors are 30% cheaper here than in the mall. People line up for Excellente hamon and Master hopia. There is always castañas. Life is so much simpler without the sellers’ razzle-dazzle; What you see is what you get, and you get what you pay for.
But all these merchandise means that Quiapo is a fire hazard. On Camille’s way to the office in ’99, the voice on the jeepney’s radio seemed to be addressing her: “Kasalukuyang nasusunog ang Muslim area sa Quiapo at damay sa pagtupok ang opisina ng La Tondeña.” She later learned that the flames consumed their workplace, gym, clinic, canteen, and chapel. Camille says there were two whispered theories: “May mga nagshashabu na nag-iwan ng paraphernalia o kaya’y may mag-asawang nagbatuhan ng lampara. In these parts, either story can actually be true.”

Quiapo holds the stuff that boys are made of, says Pie David. In 1959, he was a 10-year-old child with a rheumatic heart who liked watching Popeye—but Wimpy’s craving for hamburgers especially captivated him. “Mommy, ano ba yung hamburger?” he had to ask. On her next Friday mass in Quiapo, she stopped by Federal restaurant near the market to treat her sickly child to his very first hamburger.
Pie has never forgotten the taste of it. “On my first bite, I could taste the burst of cucumber and tomato. The burger patty was thick, soft, and tasty. Even with the mayonnaise, the Tasty bread—sliced diagonally into two triangles—was toasted to perfect crunchiness.” He ate only one triangle. The other, he carefully rewrapped in its wax paper and hid in the dresser drawer so his brothers never found it. Every Friday, his mouth would water in anticipation for the best hamburger in the world that his mother brought home especially for him.
That Christmas, Pie’s mother took him to Federal restaurant, which he remembers shared the same street with several hardware shops then. To his delight, the restaurant had a glassed kitchen area where he watched the cook flip burger patties on the oil-brushed steel plate until they turned golden-brown. His hamburger became all the more precious upon the discovery that they cost a princely sum at P1.50. (For context, their jeepney fare was only 10 centavos.)
By the time Pie was 18, he had developed his own private food stops. While shopping for electronics in Raon, he discovered a food stand that served the best Chinese lumpia for P1.25. He liked watching how the attendant spread out the lumpia wrapper, scooped out meat from a steaming cauldron, topped his creation with crushed peanuts then sauce—which can go as spicy as the customer wants with a sprinkling of red chili. Pie also often dropped by Poland bakery for hopia and occasionally bought half-a-kilo of Chinese ham at the market. There, Pie’s budding photographer sensibilities were pleased by the colorful array of ube, macapuno, white beans, langka, and gulaman adorning the stalls. He notes, "Sa palengke, nauso ang nanghihila ng customer, ‘Mama, mama, dito masarap ang halo-halo, goto…’ Diyan ata na-coin ang expression na ‘para ka namang tindera sa Quiapo, hila ka ng hila.’ ”
Another favorite of Pie’s, found along the side of the church, was Wah Nam, which specialized in pancit canton. “Ang sarap-sarap-sarap!” he enthused. Across that, adds Pie, was La Elegancia, where jewelry sparkled, winking at them as they ate. “I had a girlfriend who gave me her ring, so I was compelled to get her a ring from Quiapo. Her response was, “Ay, bakit mo naman ako binigyan ng fake? Malay ko ba,” he recalls with amusement.
On that same street, where the pamparegla and pito-pito abound, Pie collected pampayaman amulets and fertility-symbol Christ figures with disproportionately large members. He maintains he used these as props for campus publication shoots. In line with that chosen trade, Pie bought his first Nikon at Hidalgo where photographers frequented for camera repair, buy-and-sell of parts and accessories, and even a credit line for film and developing. In that same area, Pie warns of side streets where menacing kanto boys once coerced him into a closed, seedy-looking shoe shop. They only allowed him to leave after he bought an overpriced, low-quality pair.
By ’67, and about to graduate from high school, Pie discovered “Bedtime Stories.” This stapled 5 x 4 volume—32 pages of photocopied “bastus” readings in Tagalog—was all the rage with teenagers. Sometimes, there are provocative photos. “Although what I remember is a particularly funny one of a masked grandmother ‘coupled’ with a young man.” Pie says wherever magazines were sold in Quiapo, he only has to ask, “Meron ba kayong BS?” and a copy for P20 would surface under the ubiquitous Time.
While Pie was in college, he met Rina who he would later ask to marry. One of their favorite places was Jollibee Ice Cream Parlor in Cubao and Quiapo. “Their open-faced burgers were great but we really went there for the Brown Derby—ice cream that rivaled Aurora Boulevard’s Magnolia Kiosk.” Later, as a father, he thought it his own fatherly duty to bring his son Pie-Pie, when he himself turned 10, to Federal restaurant. “He liked it well enough but he didn’t crave for it like I did. McDonald’s has spoiled his taste,” Pie thinks.


Quiapo is holy ground, says Roy Siojo, who in 1981 witnessed men walk on bare feet and move in seeming unison to the beat of the paraded Black Lord of Quiapo. He and three other fellow Ateneo Comm Arts students were positioned by pairs with two Super 8 cameras set up on two points—beside the church and along Villalobos street—to film their Quiapo documentary as a final course requirement.
Roy’s immediate thought was, “parang dagat,” a sea of faces. Men were even waiting on rafters and rooftops. The anticipation was building up and palpable. “It was almost like a concert, sabay-sabay ang reaction.” When the exalted figure was finally carried out onto the street, there was an audible gasp and cheer. There was a perceptible rippling in the crowd, bodies gravitated towards the center that is the Nazareno. Energy feeding on devotion sustained the crowd.
Roy observed that the crowd was mostly made up of the working class: drivers of jeeps, pedicabs, calesas; butchers, vendors and others who worked at the market. For many of them, it was a long-standing panata to wash their sins for the past year. From the crowd popped towels and handkerchiefs that people within arm’s reach of the Black Christ wiped on the figure before hurling these right back.
The men favored with proximity to the blessed figure secured their positions, guarding against the overzealous possibly crashing the tacit agreement between waves of people. “I’m still surprised no one was crushed underneath. I think, historically, there have been fainting from heat stroke to heart attack,” says Roy. Mostly, it was organized chaos. “A pickpocket can probably go around and earn a year’s living in one afternoon because people’s awareness lay somewhere else.” Everyone was waiting for their chance to get close.
“We were so jam-packed, we could see the beads of sweat on each other’s skin but maybe because it was January and there was steady movement in the open air, di amoy-pawis. It took some time before the Nazareno reached where I was staked-out but that pace was satisfying enough for me to appreciate the spectacle. It was my first time. I’ve never before or since seen anything like it. I never minded na nagkawalaan na kami.”

People get on and off at Quiapo. In its streets, Bert alternately lost and won against pickpockets. Jayson experienced a state of grace in an old house. Nini discovered for herself what makibaka and kapit-bisig entails, streetwise and in the bigger sense. Camille, walking on its wildside, felt like target practice and learned the art of dodging. Zach saw unlimited rewards for the enterprising. Pie found fuel for his slight frame and larger-than-life fantasies. And Roy was struck by the power of a crowd that believes. Quiapo represents itself differently to people—a war zone or holy ground; a last stand or launch pad; a rare hour of revelation, or a first time for something; a (food) trip to the past, or ticket-to-ride somewhere—leaving impressions, lingering enough to be personally pivotal. A true hub does that, allowing for a never-ending stream of arrivals and departures, with the coming-of-age encounter or inspired moment in between.

(Photos by Alexies D. Santiago)