Flying fishes

A scene in Maitum, Sarangani Province. A group of young performers' best attempt at imitating the movement of the flying fish locally known as bangsi.

The municipality of Maitum once again holds the annual Bangsi Festival come January 26-27, 2012 to honor its top produce - the bangsi and its by-products - as well as the fisherfolk community who capture and process them for livelihood.

Lebak Market: Lean and Clean

One of the cleanest public markets I have seen in these parts. The Lebak Public Market.

Lebak is a town in the province of Sultan Kudarat; among the most difficult-to-reach towns of the province owing mainly to its natural boundaries of high mountains on one side and the vast expanse of the Moro Gulf/Celebes Sea on the other. 

Recent road infrastructures however have made access to/from Lebak from/to various points in Mindanao considerably easier than before. Lebak is now connected to Cotabato City by a newly constructed concrete highway that passes through the mountain towns of Upi and South Upi in Maguindanao. Air-conditioned passenger vans now provide direct service between Lebak and the cities of Cotabato and Davao and the provincial capital town of Isulan.

Masskara Moment

How colorful is Bacolod City's Masskara Festival? This colorful. You have the whole mass of spectators - Bacolodnons and not - inching for space trying to watch and catch, with whatever gadgets they have, every tinge and hue of the festive masquerade as it traverses the main streets of the city.

Photo taken October 16, 2011. My first Masskara festival. Awesome.

Cebu City Public Library: Reborn

After more than two years of hullabaloo following the announcement of its closure in late 2008, Cebu City's Rizal Memorial Library and Museum is finally back. And with a vengeance.

Its 72-year old building which is a neoclassical architectural standout by itself has undergone a multi-million peso facelift and now houses 3 major learning spaces to serve the public -- the city public library on the ground floor, the city museum on the second, and a venue for cultural and historical functions on the third called Sinulog hall.

Now that's what we call investing for the future.

Barili in my mind

A fish wardens' shelter 'watches over' a child at play as she picks pebbles on the rocky beach of Sitio Cabacungan, Barangay Japitan in the town of Barili, Cebu.

The place is home to the brave men and women of the San Rafael-Cabacungan Fishermen Association (SANRACA), and the Kapunungan sa Nagpakabanang Kababayen-an (KASANAG-KA) - two organizations that are among those in the forefront of various coastal and marine resource management initiatives and advocacies, locally and at the national level.

I used to live and work here as a development worker in the mid-1990s. I took the photo above during my recent visit to the place, my first after some 16 years.

New Beginning

I and my family visited Tacurong City in the province of Sultan Kudarat a few hours ago. We are happy to note that the old municipal building has begun its repair and reconstruction. Signage on the roof reads a budget of close to a million pesos has been allotted for the building's rehab and improvement. The building is set to house the city's public library and museum, among other local offices.

The people of Tacurong cap their weeklong celebration of the city's 11th anniversary tomorrow, September 18, 2011, with the Talakudong Festival street dance and other festivities.

Disclosure

The Sagittarius Mines Incorporated (SMI) holds its final mine design disclosure and consultations with communities and stakeholders within and around its Tampakan Copper-Gold Project, prior to its application for an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC). Photo was taken the other day in the town of Tampakan in South Cotabato which will co-host the mining project along with Kiblawan in Davao del Sur and Columbio in Sultan Kudarat.

SMI is mostly owned by Xstrata, one of the largest and leading mining companies worldwide. It aims to dig up, primarily by open-pit method, what is described as the largest undeveloped copper and gold deposit in the Southeast Asia-Pacific region. It plans to begin construction by 2012 and commence full operations by 2016.

The Philippine national government, backed by the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, has continuously expressed openness to large-scale mining investments such as that of SMI-Xstrata. However, various civil society groups, led by the Catholic Church, have strongly opposed large-scale mining investments and have recently obtained backing from the South Cotabato provincial government when the latter passed a local law banning open-pit mining in the entire province.

Top Speed

A replica of the yellow fin tuna is carried around during one of the focal presentations of last year's Tuna Festival street dance. The Tuna Festival is an annual event held in General Santos City in the island of Mindanao, Philippines, to celebrate the city's charter anniversary. This year's festivities - the 2011 Tuna Festival - run from August 27 to September 5.

Real live tunas have been clocked at a top speed of 80 kilometers per hour while swimming the open ocean.

Mr. Madame Butterfly

A butterfly, mounted on a glass panel. I took this photo during a recent visit with my family to the Simply Butterflies Conservation Center in the town of Bilar in Bohol. The butterfly farm is among the growing number of butterfly sanctuaries dotting the island of Bohol, and is among the stops when you go on one of those regular day tours to the island-province's top tourist attractions. The farm keeps just a modest collection of both live and mounted butterflies, but is staffed by incredibly knowledgeable tour personnel who, during our visit, succeeded in making us realize how ignorant we were of many things about these amazing creatures.

Did you know that assymetrical patterns on a butterfly's wings signify its sex is neither male nor female but, well, somewhere in between?

Book Dance

Young students convey their love for books and reading in a Dance Move contest during the 6th Book Lovers Convention held over the weekend in Koronadal City, South Cotabato.

The convention, held yearly in time with the annual National Book Week celebration, gathered more than 260 participants from 4 colleges/universities, 8 high schools, and 4 elementary schools of the SOCSKSARGEN region, and from one college/university of Davao City. This year's was hosted by the Federation of Book Lovers Club-Socsksargen and the Notre Dame of Marbel University-IBED. Participants went through 2 days and a night of educational and fun-filled activities (library tour, story-telling, and book sharing activities; spelling bee, read-a-thon, dance move and poetry in motion contests, etc.) all aimed at instilling and spreading the love for books and reading and in fostering camaraderie among book lovers and reading advocates. The convention carried the theme of this year's (76th) National Book Week celebration: Global Linkages through Books and Information Communication Technology.

The Dance Move contestants executed their routines to the tune of Gotta Keep Reading [The Black-Eyed Peas; Nasrallah-Berg, Ocoee Middle School]

Father, son, and horse

Ever heard of the parable of The Man, The Boy, and The Donkey? Well, there are no donkeys in these parts so most often we were told of the story of The Father, His Son, and (no, not The Pedicab, but) Their Horse. There must be as many versions of the story as there are many cultures around the world. But they all basically tell of how people would tend to traverse the extremes just to please everyone; and point to the moral that "no matter what you do, you just cannot please everybody."

The Islet @ Amandari Cove

Amandari Cove is a nature and swimming resort in General Santos City, Philippines. The place, more known to older people as Dacera Farms, had a major makeover early this year after new investors took over. The resort boasts of fairly large recreational pool areas for adults and children, as well as a half Olympic-size pool for swimming sporting events. It also features a restaurant, coffee shop, hotel and function rooms, picnic kiosks and sprawling grounds for party and other group events. "Amandari" means "peaceful spirits". The "Cove" in the name is probably lent by the presence of a large shallow pond at the back end of the resort where guests can have fun angling fish or riding flat-bottomed rowboats, or commune with its environs on a quiet morning. The pond itself has a unique feature - an islet off the middle connected to the nearest bank by a footbridge made of bamboo. I call it simply The Islet; but the resort staff have a different, rather curious name for it: Amandari Solo Island.

Spare Tire

The machine is a grain thresher "tirelessly" crawling its way to work along the main road near the Koronadal-Tampakan border in South Cotabato, Philippines. Walking alongside it is its equally "tireless" owner-operator.

Traversing the 8-kilometer road linking Tampakan and Koronadal, however, has remained a tiresome endeavor for most motorists as a good part of it remains unpaved and very rugged. In her last State of the Province Address (SOPA) last year, the former provincial governor had promised to have the road finally paved before her term ends in June 2010.

Koronadal is the capital city of the province of South Cotabato. Tampakan is its neighbor to the east, and is a largely agricultural municipality which hosts SMI-Xstrata, one of the world's largest mining investors.

Brown Superman

 

A coindiver - coindiving being defined as the act of retrieving coins purposely thrown into the sea by tourists or travelers; the latter doing it for amusement, while the coindiver for his/her livelihood.

Coindiving is now a common sight in many seaports around the Philippines especially where there are docked passenger ships and ferries readying for voyage. It used to be that this was an almost exclusive activity of the Badjaos of Mindanao (probably an extension of their more traditional coral and pearl diving enterprise) and that one seldom encounters coindiving scenes in ports outside of Mindanao or in places where there are no Badjaos or any sea-faring indigenous peoples nearby. Today, not only have coindivers become multi-ethnic; they are now found in all major ports in the country, and have devised new approaches to egging travelers to throw in their spares. In this photo, a coindiver at the port of Lipata in Surigao City, opted to dive off the top deck of a docked ship for a 5-peso coin.

Pikoy

The Red-vented Cockatoo, Cacatua haematuropygia, is a species of cockatoo that is endemic to the Philippines; hence it is also known as the Philippine Cockatoo. Called by many names locally (e.g. Abukay, Agay, Kalangay, Katala, etc), this bird used to be found in wild abundance throughout the country's coastal mangrove and lowland forest areas; until the 1980's when its number started to conspicuously decline.

Cage-bird trade and the wanton destruction of its natural habitat are the main culprits of the Philippine cockatoo's diminishing population which is now pegged as just about 1,000 individuals (from a 'high' of 4,000 in the 1990's) found mostly in Palawan, and a few in Masbate, Mindanao and Tawi-tawi.

The Philippine cockatoo is listed as a critically endangered species by the IUCN; and is protected by Philippine law under the Wildlife Conservation and Protection Act (Republic Act 9147).

The photo above was taken at the mini zoo and aviary of the Durian Garden Resort in Polomolok, South Cotabato.

Another day in paradise

Sunset as viewed from Kiamba, one of the underrated destinations in southern Mindanao, Philippines. Located in the western half of Sarangani Province about an hour's drive from General Santos City, Kiamba is largely an agricultural and fishing community and is home to the pristine waterfalls of Badtasan, Bokay-el, and Nalus; and the Tuka Marine Park, a premium site for diving and snorkeling. Recently it has also become the official home of professional boxing world champion Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao.

Just this February, the 6th Timpuyog (Unity) Festival was held to celebrate Kiamba's 62nd founding anniversary as a municipality.

The Farm @ Carpenter Hill

This is the facade of the Japanese Courtyard hotel which is among the featured services of The Farm @ Carpenter Hill in Koronadal City, Philippines. I took this photo during the Photojournalism Workshop for Soccsksargen Bloggers in December 2009. The Farm @ Carpenter Hill sponsored the venue and food for the workshop and served as the subject and backdrop during the workshop's practicum.

The Farm @ Carpenter Hill is all of hotel, restaurant, garden resort, and events center rolled into one. It is situated in a 12-hectare expanse along the National Highway just outside the poblacion (center) of Koronadal City; and is fast becoming a destination for locals and tourists alike who want to dine, unwind or celebrate life in a fabulous manner. Its Japanese-themed villas and hotel, all set up with a touch of Zen, offer perfect accommodation for transients in Koronadal and South Cotabato. Within its spacious grounds are different venues that suit every type of occasion - from the Island Cottage and the Mini Conference Room for smaller meetings to the Japanese Hall, the Convention Center, and the Grand Gazebo for big parties. Gastronomes will not find The Farm wanting either as its Aviary Bar & Cafe and its Sushi Bar offer a diverse selection of food and drinks that satisfy even those with more discriminating tastes.

For bookings, reservations and other inquiries, one may visit The Farm's office along the National Highway, Barangay Carpenter Hill, Koronadal City; or call the following numbers: +63 (083) 228 1888 or +63 (083) 228 9010; mobiles +63 918 9210425 / +63 922 8489098

The Farm's Sushi Bar

Justice!

Lighting candles for justice. On November 23, 2009, at least 57 persons were brutally murdered by gunmen in what has become widely known as the Ampatuan (Maguindanao) Massacre. Most of the victims - local politicians, their supporters, lawyers, and journalists - were part of a convoy accompanying politicians on their way to formalizing their candidacies for the forthcoming national and local elections. The incident has gained worldwide condemnation not only because of the sheer atrocity and impunity by which it was carried out (allegedly upon the orders of sitting government officials), but largely because of the huge number of mediamen in the body count (at least 25; the largest number of journalists killed in a single day in recent history).

The woman and child above are among the citizens of Koronadal City who gathered downtown on November 25th to show their indignation of the killings and say a collective prayer for the victims.

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Note (Nov 2010): Casualty figures for journalists killed in the incident have since been pegged at 34; excluding one (1) whose body is still missing.

Santa Cruz of Cagayan De Oro

I had the chance to visit some points of interest in Cagayan De Oro City just this Sunday past. I was with a group of bloggers who went for a city tour after attending the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit which happened the day before. Among the first stops was CDO's catholic cathedral, more formally known as St. Augustine Metropolitan Cathedral, the seat of the Archdiocese of Cagayan De Oro. The cathedral was originally built in 1845 but was destroyed during World War II a hundred years later. It was rebuilt in 1946.

The photo above shows the Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) located right at the facade of the cathedral. This wooden cross was erected in 1888 by the Augustinian Recollects.

The structure behind it is its modern cousin :-)

Signos?

Took this photo one late afternoon on September 30, 2009, while I was just outside the national high school campus of Koronadal City in the Philippines. This and the sudden gust of strong, wet winds and a power outage moments later, sent people into a mild panic.

The paranoia is forgiven. Four days prior to this, typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) had just swept the island of Luzon and ravaged Metro Manila and nearby areas with the country's worst flooding catastrophe in 40 years; and weather people had just tracked another super-typhoon (Pepeng/Parma) brewing east of northern Mindanao.