The Fisherfolk of Bantayan Island, Cebu

Sunrise commits itself to a cyclical responsibility for the world to see. 

Every early morning, its soft lights knife through thatched-roof homes of slumbering heads, gagged mouths, and motionless bodies, leaving no dust in a spectrum unmasked. Sunrise is the culmination of the death of night and the first sign of the birth of day, where two long-rivaling ends meet. It is a predictable phenomenon, which could mean many things to a billion different people. It could mean just another monotonous day for the uninspired, another dreaded day for the burned-out rat, another sunny day for the optimist. Or another sweat-it-all-out day for the hard worker who has mouths to feed.

In Santa Fe, one of only three municipalities on Bantayan Island, sunrise means another day to possess and thank the gifts of water. Unsurprisingly, as being islander locals, a lot of whom are fishermen. As early as five in the pastel-colored morning, fishermen end their fishing in deep waters. In a fascinating manner, they return and help each other by carrying ashore a banca (outrigger) in cadence, which goes to show the spirit of bayanihan (cooperation) still truly lives on. The toiling fisherfolk bring their past-midnight haul of bolinao (anchovies) to their anxious wives and drowsy children, where each member correspondingly untangles the fish out from the fishing net and puts them in a pail or bucket.

Apart from finding their fresh catch straight in wet markets, they also sell them as buwad (dried fish) prepared by themselves.

It is not uncommon to see fishing as a family affair on the resource-rich island.

San Juanico: Emerald and Crimson

Five years passed before I could return, and it meant repeating myself trying to cross over San Juanico bridge riding on seismic waves left by vehicles, big and small, zooming by.

The first was a huge letdown when I later realized coursing through the full span of the iconic structure was water and sun to a plant. I did half-step. It was in 2010, a futile attempt at smuggling myself into the provincial border of Leyte and Samar. I had to leave Leyte for Samar that day, even for just a short while, like a commuter on some hurried lunch break, yet on foot. That was the bravado of the then-youngish, amateur traveler.

Regrettably, I did not make it, as I succumbed to the sweltering and parching afternoon, the audible gusts with which I wrestled every second, the approaching produce-laden trucks on convoy, or the packed fears with nameless triggers. I listened to my instincts, and stopped mid-bridge. I couldn’t go on with a mind grappled with doubts, even though the heart was pouncing hard on the former for me to reach the finish line.

The traipsing redux was a stark 180-degree turn, poised at the other end of the bridge, ensuring that I would be at the gate of Samar, first second, no matter what. So, from a Tacloban jeepney, an hour prior midday, I alighted at the Samar side of the bridge.

I asked permission from the officers stationed at checkpoint, all three of them, if I could pass under the bridge, to the land jutting on my left. I was curious to know what lay there. One of them retorted with an enthusiastic yes. All dressed up with a self-styled adventurer look -- accessorized with grimy rubber shoes, soiled cargo pants, dri-fit singlet, backpack sided with bottled water, and camera hung from my neck -- nothing was thought of as suspiciously terrorizing of me. I guessed I just had the right ingredients.

I walked over a cemented path. I had realized then that the bridge coated itself with crimson paint, for better or worse. It was never painted last time, or not that I know of. But if you ask me, the cloak change complements perfectly with the emerald waters of the strait and the lush green landscape set as backdrop; red and green are the color pair that makes us all merry. The bridge looked fiery arching over the narrow gap between the two islands.

The bank of the strait exploded into life as I drew closer to it. Bursts of laughters saturated more the already breezy, cool air down low. Mothers, fathers, a grandpa, and over a dozen children, young and old, went for a dip, cooling themselves down and asking me to take several snaps of themselves. Those children were especially calling my attention here and there, posing for my camera. Anywhere in the Philippines, cameras are indeed notoriously kid magnets.

Climbing back to the threshold of my rambling, a whiff of déjà vu penetrated my senses. I thought I felt a familiar baggage of fears resurrected itself. But it’s all imagined and no mistake. I put on prudent eyes, swift hands, and stealthy feet amid distracting grinning and waving bus passengers, Korean tourists stopping over, expectant tremors, and spastic winds.

I walked and walked and walked until I reached Leyte.

No half-step no more. I had San Juanico bridge ticked off, at long last.

Safe Haven

Storm clouds loom over our scarlet cradle

-- the feelings, the dreams, and the roads.

The distressed air knows its own battles;

stubborn and wild, it unleashes its might.

Birds perch on in abandoned, broken attics,

fraught with fear or coldness or hunger.

Never to leave until the tempest dies;

never to fly until the sun comes up.

Heavy, pounded, and loud, earth is soggy,

an incurable wound for hours,

or an infant enduring its complex wailing.

Souls wander not on a lark. 

The night breaks its ribcage;

streaks of light unfold before your eyes,

pacing as a patient soldier.

And warm hands hold you tight.

Image: Aboard Tiger Airways from Singapore bound for Cebu, Philippines

These Fields of Gold

When I was young, I, with my sister and childhood friends, would pluck out some kuhol (snails) pestering the greening rice fields and earn some dough out of it. We were paid one peso per kabo (container) of kuhol. Yes, we were snailmongers. Those kuhol, especially their eggs, were such a headache, as they would proliferate in the fields like wildfire. Mom would always ask us to help every time kuhol were already eating up and laying pink eggs on rice stalks.

Dipping our feet into mud was, to us, just a game, not even close to a sore chore. I had always been with an army of friends -- the same children who after school would stay out on the street -- play all Pinoy games imaginable, and only tire out early when we had to do homework. Much more on weekends did we have to get extremely physical. Sweaty, soiled, burned, hurt. That was a part of our being hyperactive kids. We never really ran out of activity. No wonder I never had any obese friend back then.

If lucky enough, we could then catch halwan (mudfish) in rice fields. They are the kind of fish that hibernate during summer, burrow into mud, and stay there until the land gets soggy. They have an amazing ability to survive out of water for months.

I can recall the plowing and harrowing of rice fields with the use of carabao or tractor. Also, I can remember the incubation of rice grains inside a sack soaked in water. Placed inside an empty water reservoir, our kitchen would reek of urine or rotten fruit or the like because of it. After 24 hours or even longer, when the seeds had finally germinated, farmers would strew them all over a seedbed.

When the fields had finally turned gold, farmers would cut the stalks using a sanggot (sickle), place them on a mat where they would do the manual threshing with their bare feet. The grains would then be sundried for days, which would be spread on a trapal (tarpaulin) with a wooden rake.

I have very fond memories of rice fields.

Narrative: Matalom, Leyte, Philippines

Images: Carcar City, Cebu, Philippines

Lola's Hands

I see a map, a familiar one. It has a landscape contoured not with summits and abysses, not with springs and deserts, not with fields and hollows, not with flowers and thorns, not with greens and browns. It doesn't know lights and shadows, nor crests and troughs. It avoids memory of torrential rain for dry spell, or the other way around. It is not ruled by contrasts. 

It is blunt and unforgiving and commanding and brutal and honest and true and painful. Those bursting lines, those burned envelopes, those folded and cracked mantles. Veined, darkened, wrinkled. It is chaotic, perhaps a traffic quagmire to a capricious head in modern times. 

But, despite all that, it sees the odds in a new shade. Past its scars and bumps, even all calloused, beyond which, I feel its warmth and will, hopeful undercurrents that stream through its thinning vessels. It is greyed yet clear. It is frail yet surviving. It is losing but fighting. It is a character of strength battered through countless battles, living on a borderless world. 

It is a map with a landscape of inspiration thriving on life. 

Caption:

In Talisay, inside a jeepney bound for Cebu City, lola (grandmother), with a huge wicker basket filled with goods, rummages through her belt bag. 

Afterword:

I had realized that the boy sitting beside me was supposedly her grandson, as he went on sitting on his lola’s lap later during the journey. 

I wish I could articulate better how I felt and what ran through my mind when I saw her. An oversimplification of her day-long labors until midnight is a travesty.