9 Days in the Pacific

If you try to visit all the tourist attractions in the province of Quezon and you allot only one month. Then be ready to actually go to only 20 percent of the existing and potential tourist attractions. Quezon is one huge province that is dominated by rugged terrains and access is quite difficult in many places. Many municipalities are located in the coastal areas that the only practical mode of travel would be the old reliable bancas. Sometimes, an entire morning would be spent just to visit one potential attraction, and then the entire afternoon would be spent to get out of that place because there would be no more vehicles that would dare travel in the night. Plus this – if it’s a low tide, you can almost forget about reaching a particular destination. Unless you’re willing to push your banca to deeper waters.

This is one of the reasons why the entire nine days were solely devoted to the towns in the pacific side of Quezon Province, specifically the Polillo Islands and the northern towns of Real, Infanta and General Nakar. Of those nine days, half were spent in the terra firma. Our main base was the town of Real where we visited mostly backyard type of tourist resorts with the beaches generally made up of black sand. Being located in the pacific further gives the coastal sites geographic features dominated by boulders, wetheared cliffs and rocky outcrops.

Going to Real is now a breezy one hour of travel, which cuts through the scenic Sierra Madre mountain range starting from the town of Siniloan in Laguna. But back in the mid 90’s that road was more of a major rut bisected by numerous waterways created by nature during rainy seasons. And on dry seasons, that 47 kilometer-long rut became a natural powder factory that was sure to invade every nook of the nostrils of travelers and turn their generally black hair to, well blond. At that time, travel time was a long wait of four hours from Laguna.

Travel opens up your eyes not only to the beauty of the country but also to the sad realities of the countryside. It was in the streets of Real where I saw one of the most poignant events. It was in the late afternoon when everybody was minding his own business. On a dusty street were four boys who must have ranged between the ages of 6 – 11. They were walking on a single file. The youngest was holding an improvised wooden cross that he held abreast. Behind him was the eldest who held a very small coffin the size of a shoebox. The two other boys were behind them. I asked my host, “There were only four of them, and were they going to bury their baby brother?” No answer was uttered. I wanted to put some rational into what I was seeing. Their mother must have been in the house recuperating and their father must be taking care of their mother. As I observed them walking, the scene looked very surreal. Every step they made created thin clouds of dust. They looked at everybody and their eyes seemed to tell something. No, they were not asking for sympathy. Their eyes were not sad, but sharp and hard. And another surprising thing I observed was that nobody in the town minded the children. Everybody who noticed them gave one quick glance and returned to his own business. I really felt dazed watching the entire event. I kept asking myself, “Is this really happening?”

We were only on the first two days of the trip and a lot were already happening. At about eight in the evening, there was a sudden power outage. Me and my companions treated it as a slight inconvenience and slept with the buzzing sound of mosquitoes the whole night. Breakfast came the next morning and our host was thankful that the reported raid of the communist rebels in the town did not happen. So that’s why they turned off the electricity last night!

The town of Infanta had similar coastal features – rugged coastlines and black sand beaches. Except for one family’s resort that had, of all things, pine trees. I know, it’s hard to imagine that pine trees could actually grow in a place like that, but that family succeeded in that.

Night time in Infanta was spent in a local restaurant cum karaoke bar which we shared with some off-duty(?) soldiers.

The town of General Nakar was separated from Infanta by a wide, but shallow river. To get there, we had to take a tricycle from the town proper of Infanta, and upon reaching the riverbank, transferred to a dugout boat. We then transferred to another tricycle waiting at the other side of the river. General Nakar had a very small town center. Palay seeds that were left by the locals to dry dominated its cemented roads. Quite a number of pets roaming the streets were cute porky ones that ran very fast when our tricycle got near them.

Although we visited another stretch of beach, our main fare was a visit to a sub group of Aetas called the Remontados. They are coastal dwellers similar to the Agtas in Isabela, only the Remontados have a distinct characteristic. Quite a number of them have a mix of Spanish blood. Apparently, some Spanish missionaries improved or tainted the genetic make up of the Remontados. Hearing the locals (the Tagalogs) say their story on the Remontados made me shake my head for reasons I don’t know. The locals (the Tagalogs) say that the Remontados have blue eyes, wisps of blond hairs, and good height. After hearing the background, off we went to one community. The first ones we met along a trail were a far cry from what the locals described, they were typical Aetas with hardly any evidence of racial mix up. But when we came to their community, we encountered some Milli Vanillis – they were tall, with evidently white-colored skins that were hued by exposure to the sun, and facial features that could easily pass for mestizos. In fact, my female companions said that they had the looks of hunk models.

But beyond the good looks of some of their members, the Remontados we met were typical of indigenous people who lived very simple lives and relied on the bounties of nature. They used to live inside rainforests and along shores and they gathered only what they needed for the day. No hoarding of food was necessary. Nature simply replenished what little amount they gathered. But because their nomadic lifestyle may had been altered, they were forced to do kaingin farming on the mountains surrounding their community.

Their huts were very rustic and small. It seemed that their houses were built to accommodate people who are less than four feet tall.

At one point, I kept thinking that they were indigenous, alright. But honestly, I did not know how we could make them into a “tourist attraction.” When I looked at them, they fleetingly stared back at me. Their children who were swimming in the river curiously looked at us. There was no emotion. Not even an appreciation on their part. What were they thinking of us? There was nothing touristic I could make out of them. I could say a lot of things about social morality, exploitation and stuff like that. To sum it up, it just didn’t seem right.

There was one nice thing about that area, though. I did not know that somebody asked a Remontado to get us lobster in the sea for our lunch.

The following day was the start of our arduous island-hopping journey to Polillo.

We missed the daily ferry from Real to Polillo and we were forced to hire a huge cargo banca with outriggers made of solid lumber. On board, there was not much to do except bask under the sun and exchange stories. One of our local companions, Ms. Nelly, said that she tries to avoid crossing the sea between mainland Luzon and Polillo, especially after she experienced being in the middle of huge waves the height of churches (her word!). It was a good thing we crossed the sea in the middle of summer months. We didn’t have to worry about seeing religious edifices.

Like many of the small towns in Quezon, rustic is the word that easily comes to mind in describing the town center of Polillo. What made the trip very interesting to some of us males in the group was that beautiful and young lady doctor who decided to stay in the island instead of a huge classy hospital in Manila. Talk about social duties!

The Polillo islands group is actually composed of five island municipalities with the three (including Polillo town) located in the main island, and the two scattered at the northeastern section of the area.

In the Polillo town, we were ushered to two beach areas with brown sands and a typical tropical ambience. Our guides said that not much tourists actually visit their place. Only foreign individuals come not for vacation but to collect their flying lizards (was it biopiracy?). The NPAs on the other hand, although they frequent the place, only go there for rest and recreation.

In one of the beach areas, we were brought to a house that must have been owned by one of our local guides. It was nearing lunchtime and he insisted that we have our meal in that house. I was a little hesitant as the house was a very simple bahay kubo with no flooring. Surely, it would be a great drain on the meager resources of the homeowner. Our guide must have sensed what I was thinking and he told everybody that the meal would be one of the chickens we saw roaming in the area. Uhm, okay.

To while away the time, stories and jokes were exchanged. The locals’ favorite type of joke was the Probinsiyano version which made fun of people in the provinces. My favorite was about the farmer who watched an adult movie tape for the first time. The farmer became disturbed and his eyes widened when the tape showed a naked couple running along a beach. The farmer’s eyes were focused intently on the TV set. A few more minutes and the scene became more torrid. That did it! The farmer stood up an shouted, “Ado! Sa amin, nag tag-gutom, pero di kami nakain niyan!” (By golly! We had a famine in our community, but we never ate that kind!)

At last! Lunch was served. A free-range chicken we saw an hour earlier became a ginataang adobo in a snap. Although I was feeling a bit guilty while eating, the viand was really, really great.

After the visits to the beach areas, the locals claimed that their main tourist product was located in the middle of the sea. Guess what? Corals? No. Sand bar? No…. Dolphins? No. – It was a reef (no corals – they were all dead) that was less than a meter deep. So we took a small banca (which was good for only two persons but there were four of us) and went to the site about 30 minutes off shore. And we actually swam in the area. It was a nice place to swim in the open sea. Only there were no sand or corals. The locals said that dynamite fishermen blasted the corals to smithereens. We were only wary of some seas urchins we saw in the area.

Meals and accommodation for the night was sponsored by the mayor (another savings on my P115 per diem!). It was a big bahay kubo complete with all the rural amenities like air-continuous, papag, and kulambo. Night music was provided by cicadas and tukos (a kind of gecko that sings in a melodious sound of, tuk—kho….).

I was emotionally disturbed before dinnertime when I saw the cook using old implements. I excitedly told her how surprised I was to see what she was using. She stared sharply at me as if she wanted to hit my head with the steel pipe she was holding. Oooppss, bad idea. A few soft words and explanations of ignorance eased her a bit. I went to bed uttering the words, “Did I say something wrong?” By the way, she was using the steel pipe to blow on the amber and control the flame.

Another day. It was time to proceed to a nomadic existence. The local officials of Polillo showed us the road that leads to the town of Burdeos. They said that in the reports of the Highways Department, the route was a finished asphalt road. But what was actually furnished to the top honchos in the government were photos of another road project. The towns of Polillo and Burdeos will have to wait for many more years before they actually have a good road as the “finished” road would have an expectancy of twenty years before complete rehabilitation is made. So the king of Polillo – Burdeos road was the motorbike. Yup! Those sport motorbike that can accommodate one or two paying back riders. I became excited when I found our about that one. My father used to bring me to Montalban with his 110 cc motorcycle. This time, I was going to ride a motocross, a real sport vehicle. Actually, the road was so bad that only motorcycles can pass through numerous spots.

Most bikes had two back riders. After some final checks and reminders, off we went! Equaled with fear, the excitement was really the tops of the ride. The drivers were very professional. We had steep inclines, mud, rocky portions, and yet, every bike was able to pass through unscathed. I was thinking that should those guys be given a shot at motocross sports, many Manila-based riders would pale in comparison! There was even a narrow, but deep creek that we had to cross. The biker told us to hold on and he deftly crossed the provisional wooden plank that must not have been eight inches wide.

After an hour of shaking, sliding, and muted screaming, we finally arrived at the town of Polillo. The town mayor welcomed us and let us stay in his house. He was a former policeman and he was also into numerology. He told us tales about his town and himself. He regaled us that his police work made him an expert to know if another person was lying – through the movement of his Adam’s Apple. Cool, huh?

Time was short so we immediately went on our business. The mayor got for us a small boat and we started to see what the town could offer. I was so impressed by the resources of Burdeos. Our boat was till plying the town’s river on the way to the sea when I saw a child on dugout boat showing his catch to us. It was a colorful clown fish, which he caught by a simple hook and line. Ten minutes away and I saw more of the town. There were small islands ringed by white sand beaches. A long sand bar in between two islands! More white sands. And lots of corals seen from our boat! I found another paradise!

The following day was going to be treat of more islands and secluded coves. We were on our way to another island municipality called Patnanungan. We used the same boat and passed through same islands and coral reefs. We even made a stop at one island where a limestone formation was venerated by some religious folks. The trip was very long – eight hours onboard a small (and flimsy-looking) boat over the Pacific Ocean. For lunch, we stopped at one island where one of our companions squealed with delight. She shouted, “Swahe!” All over the place were short-spiked sea urchins. She scooped up some and started eating them raw! Yukkk! She said that it was an expensive delicacy in Japanese restaurants and this was the only place where she can eat as many swahe as she can. We had fun watching her eat and we collected more urchins and put them in a plastic bag as baon. We spent some time on the island and explored some of the corals. The waters were clear and we actually saw corals with lots of colorful fishes at knee-deep areas.

It was supposed to be a fulfilling trip where we saw how a pristine natural area would look like. But it was shattered by what we saw later on. As the boat trudged on, most of the corals we saw were dead, as in white-dead. There was also a time where we seem to have traveled over a kilometer of shallow water and the entire reef was dead. I became very disturbed and began asking questions nobody on the boat could answer. “Why?” What happened?” Our boatman could not even give us audible guesses.

The answers though, showed themselves to us. We passed by a huge wooden boat with lots of men on it. It looked like a floating squatters’ colony. Around the big boat were about ten small bancas. We saw some of the men on the small boats wearing wooden goggles and holding cylindrical plastic containers. All of them guys gave us grave looks. We, in turn, did not take away our stare from them. I was so curious and I did not have an idea what type of fishing activity those guys were into. One of my companions got near me and whispered, “cyanide” Another shame on my career! I personally witnessed massive cyanide fishing and I just stared at those guys.

There were also small islands filled with so many people. They reminded me of a place where I grew up. On a 300 square meter lot, up to twenty families can have their own home.

It was already 3:00 P.M. when we reached an island bird sanctuary called Minasawa. It looked more like a beach resort with clear waters and white sands. I didn’t know much about birds back then so we just spent a few minutes ogling at the forest (no birds – they were still out, much like office time?). We then went to the town proper of Patnanungan where we again abused the hospitality of the town mayor. We had visited most of the islands within the town’s territory so our stay in the poblacion was more of rest and hobnobbing with the local officials. Dinnertime came and were served with the best adobong pusit I’ve tasted in my entire life. Sleep time came and the mayor told us to sleep anywhere in the main sala. The girls in our group were lucky; they got to stay in a bedroom.

Us guys were about to call it a night when we noticed that a lot of children were going to sleep in the same space we were going to use! We made the courtesy to make the children comfortable first and decided to stay for a while in the balcony and gaze at the millions of stars. The best way to look at the stars is to lie down. I did not have any pillow and the most practical head cushion I could use was my pair of slippers. Some minutes passed, we exchanged some good stories, and then we heard them – ear shattering blasts that were muted by the distance of the sources of the explosions. Great! First, we saw cyanide, then we heard dynamites! We counted the blasts and each one we hoped would be the last. There was a blast every five minutes! And it went on and on until we got tired of counting.

It was a very tiring day and I must have fallen asleep on my slippers. I woke up in the middle of the night and all my companions were gone. The blasts continued, though. The night wind was already very cold and I decided to get inside the house. The children were already sound asleep and my friends were already snoring. I tried to find a pillow and a blanket but could not get hold of any. I decided to sleep on the edge of the banig (mat) beside a child. I was forced to carefully push the sleeping child so I can have more of the banig and slept under it.

Morning came and I took the opportunity to report the dynamite thing to the first local official I met. After that very short conversation (this is how it went – me: “Sir! Meron palang dynamite fishing dito, ano?” [Sir, there’s dynamite fishing here, isn’t it?]; local official: “Ah, Oo, meron nga.” [Yes, there is]), somebody whispered really close to my ear that the guy I just talked with was the dynamite fishing lord in the area.

Off to another town! The town of Jomalig, the island municipality farthest from the mainland was less than two hours from Patnanungan. We had a hard time docking on the beach as it was a low tide and the corals were very near the water surface (this time, the corals were live ones). The boatman had to move very carefully amidst the forests of corals to avoid damaging the boat and us getting stranded. Jomalig is a very small town dominated by cattle ranches. Corals and white sand beaches ringed the entire island. We went to the island’s prime tourist area, a beach covering many hectares and with no development.

We finished our business in a couple of hours and went on our way back to Polillo. This time, our travel time was a lot faster as we did not have to stop at any island anymore.

The last day was our trip back home. Not much fanfare or disturbing scenes. From Polillo, we got on a regular ferry and landed at Real. Got a jeepney to Siniloan, Laguna. It was an ordinary trip. The road winded a lot and at one point, a young lady hitched a ride. The jeepney was quite full and she decided to hang on a bar at the end of the vehicle. I thought it was no way a woman could do that so I offered her my place and I would hang. But instead of acknowledging my, urhm, chivalry, she looked at me with incredulity and held on her ground (well, bar). Well, maybe the world has indeed changed.