City bumpkins to country slickers?
Posted by: Fats in: Fats, Vitamins & Minerals > Takaw at Sursur!We are back in Manila now. We arrived yesterday at the NAIA Terminal 3. Transport wasn’t as bad as we expected (it was quite difficult at the Centennial Terminal unless one uses the airport taxi which is quite expensive). Terminal 3 has metered taxi service that flags down at PhP70.00 (instead of the usual PhP30.00), as well as bus service that go to Pasay-LRT.
Our taxi decided to take the Fort Bonifacio and C5 route because EDSA-Makati was in traffic. We’ve never taken that route before so it was quite interesting to see all the development going on in the area: amidst pockets of urban poverty and sprawl, we saw clusters of high-rise condominiums and office buildings, gated and fenced residential areas, and shopping micro-cities. It felt as if the older developed districts of Singapore have been transplanted into Metro Manila.
I felt the typical awe and wonder of a country bumpkin arriving in Manila for the first time - seeing and being in the new airport terminal instantly exudes a completely different aesthetic from Tagbilaran airport.
Passengers deplaning (as Cebu Pacific often puts it!) at Tagbilaran Airport. It started to rain shortly afterwards, when we started boarding for the flight back to Manila.
Similarly, arriving in Bohol, I felt the (perhaps not so typical) feeling of wonder and awe of a city slicker’s first encounter with a curious papaya tree.
A branched papaya tree along the corner of Bonifacio Street, Poblacion, Baclayon. I have never seen a papaya tree like this before, with branches and with bunches of papaya fruits in each branch.
In Baclayon, we city slickers had to check the calendar for schedules of the tide. In Manila, perhaps one checks the movie schedules or the dates of the next great sale at SM City or Trinoma shopping malls.
Personally, I prefer the tide calendar, to do our shopping along the baywalk (where we got fresh squid for PhP70 perkilo (in Manila squid costs over Php200 per kilo)) and our “window shopping” along the sea’s mangrove-lined coast.
Wednesday morning, market day in Baclayon, the high tide brought plenty of boats to and from Pamilacan Island. The large all-white painted boats are a recent phenomenon brought by projects from the Ayala Foundation. I personally prefer the smaller colored boats.
This fellow (with a tattoo on his back “Mahal Kita Bohol”) and his friend catching fish by hand (aided by a small makeshift “harpoon”) at the baluarte. The “sea meadows” is beautiful and abundant with marine life. At low tide, one could spend hours and hours (but be careful with sunburn!) just exploring the sea coast.
I also finally found the blue starfish near the baluarte - it has attached itself just below, well hidden from human predators. Earlier I saw a kid come up from the waters carrying a blue starfish, and at first I thought that it was a plastic toy! 
Apart from the large starfish with black spots (which were the most abundant along the coast), Trevor and I found another variety, such as this below.
These starfish were more difficult to spot because they blended in with the sand and rocks. Starfish can also move surprisingly quickly. I turned one over on the sand and in less than a minute managed to turn itself back over.
I picked up these shells and placed them on the baluarte’s stairs leading to the sea. Shortly, the shells started to dart back into the water - they were all hermit crabs!
Left to right: Trevor, Chicken and Dog. Low-tide along the Baclayon coast. While there are now more houses along the coastline (some are made of concrete but most are made of wood, bamboo and nipa), there are still numerous places where one could pass through to access the sea - whether for fishing (in designated areas) or for swimming (at the baluarte, for example) and for shellfish picking during low tides in the evening.
On the sand and coral stone surface of this part of the sea, there are seaweeds and plenty of cone-shaped pointed snails, colorful crabs, sea anemones. The crabs are especially difficult to photograph - coming out of their holes and rushing back in again at the slightest movement.
A view of the baluarte from the sea during the afternoon low tide (from 0.0 m to -0.1 m around 4:56PM).
A view of the baluarte towards the town. The unfinished building at the back is the new extension building of the Baclayon Municipal Hall. In front of it it is reclaimed land (just the other side of the baluarte) being developed into a playground, basketball court and other events space for large gatherings. We were told that the area was reclaimed in 2004 (the concretized baywalk was built during the administration of Mayor Pacana in 1956-1959). In Google maps, one can see that part of the sea as it used to be, with small fishing boats with outriggers.
At the Bohol Bee Farm Cafe in Island City Mall, Tagbilaran City. Trevor took this photo - while I was stirring my coffee, producing this little “dimple” in the cup. We tried their squash muffins too - both coffee and muffins were excellent.
I will post more photos on this blog later (I managed to get another photo of the tuko too!) In the meantime, I am trying to get back to working in a more relaxed way, that is, “Baclayon style.” Often, I miss our stay in Baclayon, the people and our friends there. Someday, soon, we will be back.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Indeed, Baclayon is a truly beautiful place -with both a rich cultural heritage and natural ecology: It is also encouraging to see that the local people seem to appreciate this too. It is kept clean and tidy -and many people go down to the sea in the evening, sometimes to fish or to hunt for sea food on the shore, but also simply to sit and look or chat with friends. The sea is nourishing both physically and mentally.
However, I can’t help wondering how much its charm and beauty is tied up with poverty: How long can local habitat and cultural habits survive against an influx of money? How long can potentially expensive resort areas continue to be populated by poor fishermen and their families? Not far away is Panglao Island Beach Resort, a tarted up and expensive area for foreign tourists -which offers the tropical fantasy experience at prices which are presumably dirt cheap for westerners -but which effectively put the place out of reach for most locals -except as workers.
One is faced by a weird set of contrary movements. Local people training to get jobs that will get them foreign residence permits and perhaps help support their families by earning menial salaries abroad that are enormous by local standards. While on the other hand, the import of foreign tourists provides a major financial injection for those who remain. Both of these sources of income are are potentially harmful: The loss of locally trained skilled people is presumably a costly drain on the educational system -and the local community does not benefit from their skills. How are the local people to find doctors. nurses, teachers or engineers if they have all left to get jobs abroad -but how are their salaries to be paid from local funds if their talents are not exported to create the neccesary income?
The influx of foreign tourists can also seriously affect local conditions by driving up prices and speeding up the destruction of local ways of life simply to satisfy the desires of outsiders who are willing to pay hard needed cash for their tropical fantasies. Visitors come to see a fantasy that is constructed specially for them -but perhaps to the cost of the real lives of local people. So there is a good chance that one destroys the very things that gave rise to the dream. One also wonders how much of the generated income actually benefits those whose lives are changed by the process of “improving” the area to attract even more outsiders in. What meaning can democracy have -if the (foreign) “market” determines how everybody lives?
I certainly hope that through our own presence we have not contributed to the destruction of the place. It is sad to see how poorly developed the internal economy of the Philippines is -and how dependant it has become on the import of foreign capital, either through importing tourists or exporting local labour to more developed economies. It seems that the global economy thrives on the inhumane exploitation of such economic inbalances -and colonialism is still a main source of income for the richer countries of the world. Making a business of profiting from other people’s poverty is surely an unhealthy way to live for everybody concerned -and in the long run, not only unsustainable but also a cause of even greater suffering when the system collapses. So what are the alternatives?
November 9th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
None that i know of, and I’ve grown tired of thinking. So until someone can think of some, I’m resigned to thinking of myself as cattle to be herded and traded.