Catholic and Emancipated Elizabeth Lolarga

8/7/2019 Catholic and Emancipated Elizabeth Lolarga

1/13

CATHOLIC

ANDEMANCIPATEDELIZABETH LOLARGA

PERSONAL

CHRONICLES


2/13

CC a EmnCpEd 51

uus mn

Ive always had a distaste for politics, but I love my liberal, libertarian,

socialist and communist friends. Long ago, too, I learned that the act

of writing is already a political act in itself. One cannot hide behind

the journalistic code of objectivity all the time. In the end, you have

to make a choice: Are you on our side or on the enemys? Whether in

the home with the threat of domestic violence hanging on ones head

or out on the streets where cruel traps are laid, we face the challenge

of choosing, of making a stand.Dying is easy; its the living thats hard, so a wiseacre said.

Today, how I can pose like a placid fence-sitter while I await former

President Corazon Aquinos casket to pass by, not too far from the

lobby window of the Manila Diamond Hotel? Ive been here since 12

noon. People with yellow shirts or yellow ribbons tied around their

arms have been lining up the sidewalk since the sun rose.

Im on a comfortable seat; my need to constantly pee has kept me

from joining them. Yellow banners with the silkscreened image ofSen. Aquino festoon the street lamps. Manila is Cory City, Mayor Lim,

whom she endorsed as her presidential candidate in 1998, has seen to

that. Suddenly, Dirty Alfredo Lim smells clean.

My partner Rolly and friend Anna Leah Sarabia rushed out, he with

an umbrella and still-intact power of observation, she with her camera

and feistiness, to await the six-wheeler truck carrying the casket.

We never thought wed make it this farRolly, Anna, me. We had

other plans for the day. Rolly wanted to get back to Baguio to be intime for his pet dogs dinner and his 7 a.m. class tomorrow at the

University of the Philippines there.


3/13

pEsn CnCEs Elizabeth olarga52

Anna was supposed to give me a pep talk and repeat her old line

about womens rights being human rights. After which I was scheduled

for a 2 p.m. meeting with Anvil Publishings Gwenn Galvez to map

out the launching ofThe Baguio We Know, a two-year-in-the-makinganthology of essays by Baguios finest, timed for the celebration of the

highland citys centennial.

But all plans were thrown in the waste basket. We decided to bear

witness today. As we ate a hurried lunch at a nearby Vietnamese

restaurant, memories of the August 21, 1983 assassination of President

Aquinos husband Ninoy came back vividly. So did the anger at the

current lying and thieving Presidency. At one point, Anna thought

aloud, Gosh! GMA makes Marcos and Erap look like saints!Rolly tried to be facetious to deflect the tension. Perhaps, he

surmised, the Filipinos are longing for a happening like todays march.

No, I said, they had been waiting for the right time and occasion.

Anna agreed, pointing out that we are moving towards a full moon,

a lunar eclipse is going to happen. The moon, ah, for me who swears

by its inconstancy, is what moves the masses. The sun represents the

leaders. Expect something to happen to an awakened people.

It was the same Anna who said, around the time Marcoss star was

dimming, that the Filipino is like a carabaohardworking, patient,

etc. But once pushed to its limit, it gores its own master.

Two months ago, another friend said, half in resignation, half in

exasperation, that people were thinking, Gloria (Macapagal-Arroyo)

has a year to go. Lets just ride it out instead of protesting. Maybe

change will come after the 2010 elections.

Apparently, were near breaking point like the time Sen. Aquinowas treacherously salvaged, to use Sen. Saguisags so very apt

word. I never thought the line Tama na, sobra na, palitan na would

resonate again with vibrant, refreshing beauty, no longer a clich.

www.brooksidebaby.com, August 4, 2009


4/13

Ps CCs lizabeth olarga172

T sTuff f MMs

One can never have a surfeit of Palawan. Paul Theroux, described by

The Times of London as needing no more than three or four strokes of

his pen to complete the most vivid of pictures, had enthusiastically

explored the place earlier, including its tributaries and land forms,

despite the cautionary Dont go advice of well-meaning people.

Before the scattered incidences of bombings in Metro Manila, the

country already enjoyed worldwide notoriety. In Fresh-Air Fiend,

Theroux wrote: [T]he very mention of the Philippines brings to thenarrow mind the images of dog-eaters and cockfights, urban blight

and rural poverty; and Mrs. Marcoss ridiculous collection of shoes;

where the visitor industry consisted mainly of sex tours and money

launderers and decaying old white men looking for doe-eyed Filipinas

to marry, or else willing catamites in Manila, and of course the furtive

visits of European branches of Pedophiles sans Frontieres.

According to a cynical colleague, no matter what good things one

may write upon ones return from a weekend in Palawan, the fact ofthe matter is that the bombings in Bali, Zamboanga City and Metro

Manila have scared off even the most intrepid travelers.

Tell that to Theroux. For only in the Philippines did he have an

encounter such as this one he narrated:

One day I paddled about ten miles southwest to a headland and then

caught sight of an island that had been hidden from where I had been

camping. I paddled out three or four miles to this hump of rock andfound a sandy beach and some huts. A Germanic-looking man in a green

bathing suit stood on the beach to welcome me. He said Hi and grabbed

my bow line and helped pull my boat to shore.


5/13

CTC an MCPTd 173

Nice kayak, he said. It was salt-smeared and wet from the long haul

from the headland. Isnt that the kind of boat Paul Theroux paddled in

his travels around the Pacific?

Being cautious, I said, You read that book?Oh, yeah. Great book.

This happens now and thenmore often in a remote place like

Palawan than in places closer to home.

I wrote it.

Cut the shit.

So now this Palawan visitor landed at Busuanga airport aboard

Seairs 19-seater plane that was built to withstand Siberian and

Saharan winds. (This bit of info from Jingjing Romero of the media

familiarization tour organization seemed to comfort the quivering

types casting about for barf bags.)

The mid-afternoon drive afforded views of a privately owned ranch

straddling either side of what to foreign eyes must be an exotically

rough road. White egrets flew or clustered atop trees while cattle

grazed on forlorn patches of green.At the Coron pier we transferred to the pumpboat Busuanga Dream

and met guide Robert Agusto. He recited his spiel about tourism, the

pearl farms and fishing being the main means of livelihood in the

northern part of the province, and the youth comprising 50 percent

of the population.

The mobile-phone carriers sent good-night text messages to their

adored ones. (Henceforth, they would be incommunicado for at least

two nights and a day.) Midway through the ride (almost two hours) toCoral Bay Resort on Popototan Island, one realized that Metro Manila

seemed a lifetime away.

Whichever way one turned, one confronted the horizon. The sky

wore intense oranges and violets as dusk turned to eventide.

Jingjing managed to thaw the usually unsociable members of

media through an after-dinner group-dynamics exercise that involved

revealing the secret dream of the partner assigned to you.

Ones utmost wish of hitting 50 without a stroke was probablyso pedestrian compared to ones neighbors dying on top of a bull

running in the streets of Pamplona in Spain, anothers being a better

flamenco dancer than Joaquin Cortez, still anothers having Robert


6/13


Redfordwarts and allfor a lover and settling down in the south

of France.

The exercise showed that hard-boiled journalists nourished a

fantasy life of some sort. Where else to indulge it than on a remoteisland where the only rule agreed on was to keep identities off the

record?

On Saturday we rose at 4 a.m., left the resort at 5, and tried to

keep down the breakfast eaten on board the boat as it tossed in the

open sea.

Froilan Sariego, resident project manager of the Calauit Game

Preserve and Wildlife Sanctuary, gave us some welcome remarks. The

kidnappings of a few years ago had hit the tourism industry hard. Buthe belied talk that Northern Palawan was susceptible to the intrusions

of extremists. Were far from danger, he said.

Froilan quoted visiting Englishmen as saying that the grazing

areas of the exotic animals resembled the terrain of Kenya. Here

giraffes (some named Yeye, Eva, Lemuel and Baleleng), zebras, water

bucks, impalas and bushbacks are found. In 3,760-hectare Calauit,

40 percent is made up of plains, 20 percent undulating hills, and the

rest, mangroves and swamps.

The moments in the field reminded us of Isak Dinesens words:

... [T]hen the dreary bush gives way and the plain widens out;

before one lie the great tablelands, surrounded by a magnificent

panorama of blue mountains, teeming with game... The zebra are

sweet, but they look like horses of course... a most wonderful sight

is a herd of giraffe, and the first time you see them you can hardly

believe your own eyes when you see their incredible height andslenderness, like a flock of great snakes with the most strange

rocking movement.

The Calauit sanctuary is the first translocated project in Asia where

the fauna are free to roam and propagate, and the second such project

in the world next to the San Diego Zoo in the United States.

The formerly endangered Calamian deer, found only in Palawan,

increased from 25 heads in 1976 to todays 1,025. They multiply fast

so long as theyre not harmed, Froilan said. And 15 deer have beensent to San Diego at the zoos request.

Mouse deer are also being raised. The adult, which weighs as much

as two kilos, consumes a kilo of fig fruits every day.


7/13

CTC an MCPTd 175

According to Benito Sario of the sanctuarys information, education

and recreation unit, a female mouse deer can give birth five times in

two years and is ready to mate again after giving birth.

In a compartment, there are four to five females and one male.If all the females give birth simultaneously, the male is moved to

another compartment and a new one introduced to keep the blood

strain strong.

The young are protected with an overhead net from the crested

serpent eagle that preys on them. In Balabac Island, Southern

Palawan, where mouse deer can also be found, their numbers are

being depleted by people who catch and serve them to guests as

kilawin or papaitan.The six-by-six viewing truck took us to the top of Balatbat Hill

overlooking Tanubon, a turtle nesting island. Starting from the day

the pawikan eggs hatch, predatory birds, snakes and monitor lizards

are fenced off, Benito informed us.

The hatchlings are brought to a rearing pool after 60 days. When

they reach the size of a plate, they are considered able enough to

survive in the sea.

And thirteen sea cows (dugong) have been seen around Calauit,

Benito said.

This is Calauits quandary: will the government give the island back

to its original inhabitants, the 256 families who were paid during

Marcos time to vacate their land and resettle in Culion, or will the

project be maintained?

Because of the return of 120 families who are scattered all over the

island and are unable to harness resources for a living, except those inthe sanctuary, poaching has become a problem.

These people seem to want to wipe out the animals so that the

government has no more reason to maintain the sanctuary, Froilan

said.

He and wife Edwina, Benito and wife Nenita, Maximo Lobo-on,

Ramon Ortega, Eliezer and Tessie Cruz, Estelito and Rose Hachero,

Orland and Dinah Cruz and Rafael Gobayan have served the sanctuary

for 26 years. But they still have no tenure and, worse, their pay is lateby as much as three months.

At different periods the sanctuary has fallen under the Department

of Environment and Natural Resources, the Presidential Committee


8/13


for the Conservation of the Tamaraw, the Office of Muslim Affairs,

the Department of Agriculture, the Conservation and Resource

Management Foundation, and the Palawan Council for Sustainable

Development.Benito picked up the common thread in the field staffs story: This

was where we met and got to know one another, like the impala.

This was where our children were born and raised, and now we have

grandchildren. If the animals are endangered, so are we.

It was letting-go time at Malajon or Black Islandswimming,

feasting on crabs and adobo, looking for coves perfect for couples

fantasizing on doing a Burt Lancaster-Deborah Kerr roll in the sand

(From Here to Eternity).

The island has such a cove. Someone said, after appraising the

limestone walls enclosing it, the fine sand with no human imprint, the

waves lapping at the edge: If you film on location here, people wont

believe its for real. Theyll think its still a set.

Despite the itinerary, we played it by ear the rest of our stay.

The last evening at Coral Bay featured dining and wining under the

stars with Robert the guide switching easily from waiter to dancing-instructor mode.

Next stop: Busuanga Seadive Resort in Barangay 3, Coron, whose

dining hall and veranda face the sea. Aboard Seadive Blu, we moved

on to Banul Island.

On the water in a kayak, one paddled madly when a passenger

started to feel leg cramps. She managed to utter: I want to die gored

by a bull in Pamplona, not in a non-biodegradable rubber kayak!

Ones paddling partner managed to correct her upon our reachingshore: By the way, its plastic.

Thus are memories made, said a wise man. Its not the place; its

still the people, and one yellow kayak drifting in and out of ones

dreams.

Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 10, 2002


9/13

Ps CCs lizabeh olarga192

Dw-v Cus D

vy vCs

Two months before I stepped on Bohols soil for the first time, I received

from a friend a t-shirt showing the Chocolate Hills and a tarsier in

eye-popping colors. Although he stayed overnight in Panglao Island

and only saw Tagbilaran City in the daytime, he was profuse with

praise for the province. Maybe his gift meant that I would be able to

see Bohol at a future time, I thought then.

And now here I was, talking on the phone with Ricky A.R. Santos,

marketing and promotions director of Sandugo 2000.Ricky told me how to get to Cebu via a Cebu Pacific flight and hop

over to Bohol via a Supercat ferry. I would arrive in Cebu at 6 a.m.

and have about four hours to kill before the ferry pushes off at 11.

We were to meet at the pier. How will I recognize you? he asked. I

said Id wear my sunflower t-shirt, yellow blossoms against a field of

blue.

What to do with the four empty hours when the Queen City of

the South was just waking up? My Cebuana friend Evelyn Paul, thenin Manila, texted her pal Eileen Mangubat, Cebu Daily News (CDN)

editor, to ask if I could park myself and my stuff at her office during

those hours. For breakfast, Evelyn told me, I could cross the street and

try Kukuks Nest and Inn.

While the rest of Metro Manila was being pelted by a weeklong storm,

I was at Kukuks one sun-blessed July morn, eating breakfast by my

lonesome. The security guard at CDN let me in to read the papers from

where I gathered that there had been an encounter between the NewPeoples Army and the military in the hinterlands of Trinidad, Bohol.

At the pier Ricky spotted me easily. Soon we were off, over the

bounding sea with the Supercat ferrys videocassette recorder cued in


10/13

CtC and mCPtD 193

on Jurassic Park. The movie wasnt halfway through when we docked

at Tagbilaran pier.

See? Ricky said, gesturing at the sky. Its sunny and dry.

After a quick check-in at the Metro Center Hotel and ConventionCenter, the tallest building in the city, we boarded a van to catch

the participants of a marketing conference for the Loboc River cruise.

Onward we sped until Ricky caught sight of the jeep bearing Gardy

Labad of the Center for Culture and Arts Development. Stop! Brief

intros. Then it was go, go, go before the riverboats left.

In the riverboat a buffet was spread on a tablepuso (rice wrapped

in banana leaf and shaped like a heart), jackfruit salad, raw fish in

coconut vinaigrette, braised pork belly, charbroiled fish in pandan,

roast chicken, and crab relleno. I sipped the juice of young coconut

from its shell, which had a dainty pink hibiscus stuck near the rim.

We ate while the boat moved downstream, past thick mangroves,

children bathing and waving, and rock formations that reminded

me of certain peoples faces. According to Ricky, if we had cruised

upstream, we would have ended by a waterfall. The cruise took about

an hour and a half. There was a little difficulty docking the boat, butwe managed to reach shore where a brass band played Dont You Go,

Dont You Go to Far Zamboanga.

Next, we watched the performance of the youthful cast ofMuro-ami

on a tired-looking ferryboat with Gardy emceeing until he was hoarse.

From her perch child actress Rebecca Lusterio, who played Kalbo in the

film, smiled wanly at the crowd. To cap the jiving dance to the music of

the Street Boys, the male youths somersaulted into the water.

At the Bohol Tropics Resort, with the Dimiao Childrens Rondallaplaying in the background, I tasted my first deep-fried, coconut-meat-

covered ube balls and downed them with Four Seasons juice.

Evening found me admiring the long aquarium behind the front

desk of Metro Center, a departure from the large-scale paintings

one usually sees at these places. Hotel owner Frederick Ong chose

moving sea life instead of a still life. The aquarium simulates the

conditions under the sea with a customized chiller that maintains the

temperature. The fish are thriving.Early the next day, Gardy buzzed me, whispering, Huwag ka nang

magpa-beauty. Pack your things. Youre moving to Panglao Island

Nature Resort.


11/13


Over breakfast there we met Frederick Ong and his wife Barbara.

Here in Bohol, land is more evenly distributed, he said. The

middle class has been preserved and strengthened so we have no

social problems, unlike in Negros Occidental where you have largehaciendas.

Landscape architect Socorro Atega incorporated plants that are

more adaptable to the tropical sun and the sea breezesantans,

bougainvilleas, Shanghai beauties, red palms, coconut trees, royal

palms, champagne palms and Manila palms, the last locally called

saluwag.

From the white-sand beach decked with cabanas, lounging chairs

and a volleyball net, I saw the limestone cliff which over time hasbeen shaped by waves and strong winds. The sun and rain have

painted their colors on the rocks, Frederick said.

Our next stop was Our Lady of the Assumption parish church in

Dauis. Gardy uncovered the well at the foot of the altar. He explained

that the second and present church was built around the well in the

late 18th century while Fray Joseph Nepomuceno Paves constructed

the convent and original, old church in 1753.

The belief is, if the water in Dauis is exhausted, people can still

get water from this well, he said. He dreams of mounting a dance

drama behind the church with its stupendous ancient windows and

door as backdrop.

The intact frescoes of the saints and Holy Family were painted

sometime in 1907-1910. The convent features landscape paintings

on its ceilings. Fr. Felipe Diga, parish priest, was there to meet and

inform us that of the towns 14,000 population, 11,000 are RomanCatholics.

In Baclayon, we admired the Parish of the Immaculate

Conception established in 1596 when the formal evangelization and

Christianization of the Boholanos began. Because of Moro raids, the

construction of the church was often halted. The original was made

of wood and nipa.

The diocesan museum curator informed us that the coral stone

church was built in 1727. The builders used the tabique Pampangomethod: Limestone, mud from the sea and millions of egg whites. The

Recollect fathers added the portico facade, organs, paintings on the

ceilings, belfy and watchtower.


12/13

CtC and mCPtD 195

Inside the church, Teatro Bol-anon, the provinces first community

repertory theater ensemble and founded by Gardy, presented an

excerpt ofDagon sa Hoyohoy (Talisman in the Breeze). Bohols first

full-length musical composed by Elvis Somosot, it is based on thelife of anti-Spaniard rebel Francisco Dagohoy. The talisman, made

of feathers, scales and a pearl, was reputed to have guided and

empowered him.

We ventured close to the retablos. These were originally put up by

the Jesuits and are made of hardwood gilded with gold leaves. There

is an upstairs tribuna, an inconspicuous mezzanine where priests and

their privileged special guests used to stay so as not to be exposed

to the public while hearing Mass. We toured the adjacent churchmuseum with its floors of molave planks that are pegged, not nailed

down.

Our group detoured to the nearby light tower, an unprepossessing

sight except that it was where actor Cesar Montano proposed marriage

to singer Sunshine Cruz over a candlelight dinner one moonlit night,

the Loboc Childrens Choir serenading them.

In Loay we paused at the ancestral house built by Aniceto Clarin

and his seora Margarita in 1840. Inside are five four-poster beds,

all still in use, generations-old crystals, a reproduction of Lunas

Spoliarium and countless memorabilia.

The current lady of the house, Antonietta Clarin, led me to a room

that has an altar for the ivory statues of the Holy Family which she

believes ensure that the house is safe.

Lunchtime caught us in coastal Dimiao, the cleanest and greenest

municipality in the province. The mayors staff prepared fried fish,menudo, seaweed salad, squash and stringbeans cooked in coconut

milk, and heaps of rice.

Dimiao is where the 17th-century St. Nicholas Church stands in

the center of town, where white-sand beaches, part of Chocolate

Hills, the twin Pahangog Falls and caverns are found. The Ermita

ruins are there. These are catacombs or graves that are the subject of

an archaeological study by the National Museum. The next phase will

be their restoration.Back in Tagbilaran, we visited the Bohol Museum inside the late

President Carlos P. Garcias house on F. Rocha Street. Inside are CPG

memorabilia, former first lady Leonila Garcias ternos, a skeleton of a


13/13


500-year-old Boholana recovered in 1970 at a pre-Spanish burial site

in Mansasa, Tagbilaran, and a 500-year-old remnant of a house post

dating back to the Dapitan Kingdom, a pre-Hispanic settlement in

Bohol, and discovered in Guiwanon, Baclayon, in 1993.On my last day I met Alma Taldo, the slight, soft-spoken conductor

of Loboc Childrens Choir. She let me listen to a CD of her wards

singing, among others, the folk ditty Bol-anon (If you want a

partner in life, choose a Boholano-he will love you till forever). The

ages of the 17 girls and seven boys range from 8 to 14. What heavenly

and earthly tunes are included in their repertoire (Ave Maria, Panis

Angelicus, Our Father, Negro spirituals, Lollipop Tree).

I missed their live performance by an hour or so before the river

cruise, but their voices haunted me as I returned to Manilas floods

and driving rain.

Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 20, 2000

Documents

Catholic and Emancipated Elizabeth Lolarga