Bapa's Notes: Adventures

Broken Down

It’s the long beach line of white sands;this attracts many local as well as foreign tourists. The open sea which carries uninterrupted winds has made this place, a famous site for countless international boat sailing competitions. Local and foreign surfers also sought their prized waves here in Boracay.

Our enterprising Maranao brothers are also thriving here in this highly commercialized island. Boracay has been unimaginably crowded with commercial buildings and the unabated constructions of posh hotels and delicatessens seem disturbingly endless. One would just wonder how many loads of barges were transporting undetermined volumes of construction materials and numerous heavy equipment machineries from mainland Panay Island just to build all these. The impetus created by commerce in this place is just overwhelming to imagine. The attractants of foreign currencies, the presence of countless money changers are crowding within this island barangay of Malay Town of Aklan Province, the Mammon of tourism seems eclipsing all those advocacy towards social responsibility and respect for Nature.

The unabated construction of towering hotels and commercial establishments along the stretch of white-sand shore lines seems strangely incompatible, a sort of an eye sore against the natural beauty of Boracay. Caucasian as well as Asian tourists are trooping here for pure adventure and pleasure, while the locals are also here for varied purpose, but mostly for livelihood. Here is an ocean-wide difference between the underprivileged locals and the opulent foreigners. The latter could afford to travel all the way here from their prosperous homeplaces for pleasure trip, while majority of the locals can only afford this kind of trips to other countries for the same consistent reason: to earn money as OFWs.

The excessive commercialization of nature and environment will have unimaginable consequences later. Nature has its own way of surviving also; it can fight back against the artificial forces that would try to disrupt its existence. Every increment of artificial modification that man has introduced against nature has corresponding countermoves of nature and dreadfully catastrophic in scale. Nature has also its built-in capacity for survival which is symmetrical to those of earth primates.

Others' views about Boracay...

Posted at 09:53 AM in Adventures, Current Affairs, environmental issues, pinoy concern, State policy, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0)

Travel in the 90s

Traversing Zamboanga Peninsula was one of those unforgettable travels during the late 90’s. Driving through the rough roads from Ipil, Zamboanga , passing the towns of RT Lim, Siocon, Vitali then finally reaching the bustling city of Zamboanga. We wondered how our Mitsubishi L-300 Diesel Engine was able to overcome all those rugged terrains and unbearable ditches, passable only by trucks with engines like Fuso Fighters, 4BC2 Isuzu , that powered those Fish Cargo Trucks plying on the same road. On those travels, were only the roaring sound of our car engine and the music from our car stereo had interrupted the deafening silence of the inner forests of Vitali. There were instances that we had passed some trucks that were bogged down in the midst of that wilderness, some were abandoned to rot in the place. In such wilderness, some 200 kilometers away from the city, any chance of getting an early rescue and troubleshooting was next to impossible.

I can recall our death-defying climb on that notorious Tuktuk Kalaw, overcoming the slippy sludge that nearly disabled our tires' grip against the slimy unpaved road, a smoke of carbon had filled the place as our engine accelerated to counter the pull while moving upward through those slow and calculated uphill climbs.

Then another peculiar incident was when we had passed the town of Vitali, our attention was glued to a woman walking on the roadside, slung on her shoulder was an undetermined long firearm, and she was wearing a tunic and a shoal covered her face. I was wondering if she was a lady combatant, or what? Those were the days of the peaceful commencement of President Ramos’ Zone of Peace and Development of which Southern Philippines Development Authority (SPDA) was reactivated through the leadership of Prof. Nur Misuari of the MNLF.

That long and difficult off-road driving from Ipil to Vitali lightens a little as we approached the town of Siocon, there the presence of a few and far between concrete paved roads were quite a convenience, we had accelerated our speed, rising up from the sluggish 20 kph. Upon reaching Zamboanga City, after those six-long-hours, body-beating driving, we rewarded ourselves with a budget meal from that famous fast food chain, at that time has not yet arrived in our place of origin. That off-road driving was indeed a morbid test of skills. I am lucky to get a clip of those similar travel, although 20 years ago the road trip from Ipil to Zamboanga was never as easy and comfortable as shown in the short film by another blogger. I give credit to the owner of this video:

via farmerblog.typepad.com

Posted at 01:23 AM in Adventures, Current Affairs, Ipil , local history, memories, Mindanao, pinoy concern, Travel, Zamboanga | Permalink | Comments (0)

Green Sanctuary

At nighttime, and as kids back then, we enjoyed our endless exchange of stories. Under a full moonlight, and graced by flickering fireflies that adorned the towering bamboo grasses nearby, our nights as kids in the farm always exude creativity and learning. With a kerosene lamp lighted in the midst, the flow of authentic and sincere stories that were unveiled and told from a child’s heart seems incessant. Sitting on the wooden floor and in semicircle, we laughed over local stories that never lacked actions by those listless characters from among the group. We talked until the wee hours with unusual soundtracks, the soothing rhymes and a cappella songs of nocturnal insects-the crickets, the annoying mosquitoes and the croaking frogs and then that concerto was abruptly ended by a somber note sung by a helpless fowl, constricted by a predator reptile that broke inside our bamboo cage below the house.

We crafted our own scary evening surprises. Under those dark footpaths leading to the rice paddies, we constructed our bobby traps of luminous mushrooms (jack-o-lantern) along the way, usually gathered from rotten stumps of dying trees; these were aimed to terrify any bypassers. We too were once victims of those homemade scarecrows and trappings from indigenous plants, concocted by our unrelenting cousins aiming to get even at us. And we had lots of laughter as turbulent kids on that forgotten rice farm then.

In 1991, that rice farm was dismantled to give way for the more promising banana plantation. All growing seeds, tall fruit trees, and the rice paddies were razed down to oblivion. Now, only a few family photos are left as mementos of that memorable rice field that we all grew up with. The sight of birds at the back of a buffalo that was in respite, after its daylong toil, this was captured in this child’s memory. The swarm of migratory birds’ clinging like canopies of trees is vividly stored inside memory disk. There was no camera then, no digital device to capture all those irretrievable natural sights. The details were sensibly captured from our past youthful days; these were embedded permanently and unraveled only this time.

Old laughter is still inside us, and like a chrysalis of worm inside its cocoon, every time we get into our family gatherings, the dormant stories, and those memories of youthful adventures that took place on that lost paradise, suddenly it reappear like a colorful butterfly. Our grandparents are no longer around to laugh with us, but every time the endless bantering of jokes and laughter begins to fill the air, we know by heart that Lolo and Lola are always there to laugh with us. At the reeling of those animated childhood adventures, projected and viewed on that imaginary wide screen, the nostalgia about the farm brings joy and tears, and some trivial family feuds are momentarily mortified and perhaps buried towards eternity which time alone can tell.

Posted at 04:31 PM in Adventures, agriculture, children, environmental issues, family concern, friendship, genealogy, health, life, local history, memories, Mindanao, Music, Sustainable Agriculture, tagum, wildlife | Permalink | Comments (0)

Coward of the Barrio

I remember the last time I was forced to put on gloves for a boxing match. I was 8 years old then. I was left by my parents at the care of my grandparents in the farm. My uncle, a younger brother of my father had brought me into a barrio fiesta. There were many kids coming from the highlands also. There were native Aetas that were also roaming around the barrio to join the Christians' festivity.

A boxing match for kids was organized and many adults were excited to place bets. And many barrio kids were also eager to showcase their boxing prowess. My uncle at that time had no male child. Without prior notice, he brought me inside the makeshift arena and disturbingly announced that I was an experienced boxer from a nearby town. I was stunned, not knowing what to do and seeing those ferocious eyes of local kids whose muscular built-up could be mistaken as that of highschool bullies. They were naturally trained by their fathers for a fight. Boxing match was a favorite past time of farmers in the barrio then. After their body-aching toils at the rice fields, those folks had zealously groomed their sons to become a professional pugilists. Unfortunately for me, I had never been to a fistfights. If my uncle had groomed me for that, perhaps I had the nerve to fight those kids, but there was none.

Against my will, they put gloves on my pugs. I cried so hard because I was at a loss to understand my uncle’s unreasonableness. My uncle became red upon seeing my refusal to fight. Other adults around were shouting incessantly against me inside the ring and repeatedly chanting taunting words like: “bayot (gay), talawan (coward)”. I was scared. I did not have the guts to throw a punch.

I was only relieved when my aunty, got inside the arena and berated my uncle for his uncalled action. She even threatened the organizer to be reported to authorities for the illegal gambling that were taking place. It was a comfort upon seeing my fearless aunty defended me against any kind of aggression at that moment. She took me out of the ring and like a wary hen ready to brawl against anyone who would harm her chicks, she rescued me then.

Some professional pugilists confessed that before entering into that kind of job, they have experienced countless fistfights. They had been into brawling match. They confided that they had instinct to take blows and throw some of it against their opponents. Maybe this is inherently a cultural stereotyping which can be attributed to Spanish influence. I am a man if I can instill fear on others. I am a man if I can use aggression as a way of settling differences. It was a stereotyping world that defined manhood as being a warrior, a macho- image portrayal. If we cannot peacefully settle any differences, we will use force and aggression. It is always a common manly statement at the end of any unsettled issues with malefic rhetoric like: sinumbagayon na lang nato ni…(let's settle this matter through a fistfight).

I could summon all kinds of reason about such erroneous understanding about manhood. Maybe Kenny Rogers’ song was a little bit exaggerated. His song entitled: “Coward of the County” gave me an ice-cold feeling for many years, and my thoughts never missed to replay those of my own childhood experience. That was more than 30 years ago. .

Posted at 11:14 AM in Adventures, children, Games, manhood, memories, mothers, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0)

Unafraid of Shokoys

We hitched a ride on a truck, hauling logs for the saw mill in the nearby town. Logs were unloaded at the pond in the wharf for wood treatment. Our quest of traveling all the way from our town towards a neighboring town’s dock site was to test our shallow-water swimming skills as kids.

It was our wanderlust that had drove us to fulfill such risky adventure. We were in grade school then. On that bottomless log pond, we wanted to prove to other kids in our place our newly-discovered swimming skills. In the 70s, foreign vessels docked there, importing large volume of woods from the waning forest of the region.

Our lunch pack consisted of a cooked rice and a piece of fried dried fish. My swimming coach was a boyhood neighbor of my age. My share on that adventure was a five peso bill for contingency if getting a free ride on a logging truck would be impossible. Keeping that swimming escapade unknown from our parents’ intervention was part of the plan.

Upon arrival, we readily plunged into the deep pond, crowded with floating logs in the surface which had literally blocked the dark underwater abyss from the high noon sun’s penetrating light. Kids of our age were also there and fearlessly could dive from the stern of a decommissioned old tug boat anchored eternally in the wharf; its corroding steel hull was thickened by sea weeds and the spiking cluster of shells abundantly glued on the boat’s rudder underneath.

It was on that log pond that our childhood fear over the dark underwater abyss was subdued. All our unfounded dread about the mysterious deep was rectified by that experience. Those tales of unfriendly submarine creatures, those ugly shokoys and mystical mermaids that may have ruled down on that bottomless underwater, our wild thought about unknown deep water species abducting helpless mortals was disproved.

We had freely taken our first dive from the stern of that vintage tug boat. And lo! Since then, our fear about the deep sea was gone. It was as if the deep sea had embraced us, it was the deep log pond that had assured us that we were friends. The deep water had shown us and profoundly taught us not to fear the deep but to respect and enjoy the deep waters of the log pond.

It was my swimming coach, a childhood buddy who had coaxed us to dive on that deep log pond. He literally gave us a push to overcome our fear. It was he who defied his own personal fear about the deep log pond. Thanks to our coach. This note is for him.

“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,

Only a signal and a distant voice in the darkness;

So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,

Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”