Main Street

In Lianga even today, we have little use for street names even if they do exist.  Directions for finding a particular house or any other location are always given in terms of the nearest prominent landmark or simply by diagramming through words, gestures and hand signs the general direction that had to be taken and the twists and turns that have to be made in order that one can get to where one is supposed to go.  It's a small town anyway where everyone virtually knows everybody.  Even strangers and outsiders are not expected to get really and hopelessly lost unless, by sheer stupidity or the lack of even any modicum of common sense, they deserve to.

That is why it was only when I was in my late teens when I learned by an accidental glance at a street map (yes, Lianga did have a street map even then) mounted on the wall of one of the offices at the municipal hall that the main street of the town, on which southern leg our family house was located, was named Rizal after the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.

It actually stretches straight and true the entire length of Lianga from south to north and runs parallel to the national highway just a short town block to its left.  On the opposite side lies a narrow strip of land mostly reclaimed over the decades from the sea and now cluttered tightly with residential houses except for the middle part right across the town's parish church which has always been set aside for the major structures and buildings that constitute Lianga's business and commercial center.

Look Back

My average day in Lianga nowadays starts with a routine so familiar that I often go through it it with nary a conscious thought as if I am on autopilot or cruise control.

As I get out of bed at about six in the morning, one hand immediately reaches out to flick on a switch on a power strip fixed to the wall on the right side of the headboard of my bed.  This turns on an internet modem and a WiFi router.  Then I grab my trusty Samsung tablet on a side table and, while still in pajamas, is quickly out of the bedroom and off to the kitchen to brew a cup of  hot coffee (sugar free but most certainly not decaf).

Then in the lanai of the house facing the sea and the slowly brightening horizon beyond the expanse of Lianga Bay and the blue-green waters of the Pacific Ocean, I would sit hunched over an old wooden table that used to belong to my paternal grandfather, steaming mug within easy reach, and leisurely checking my email inbox plus the day's latest news online while the sunrise of the new day breaks out in front of me.  A video call or two may occasionally interrupt my web trolling then it's on to Facebook for messages and updates from friends.

I am sure, the breathtaking sunrise vista taken aside, this routine is not exactly uncommon for a lot of people even here in the Philippines and more so elsewhere in the civilized world.  What makes it notable in my case in Lianga is that just six years ago, it could have been only not possible but the kind of stuff a local tech junkie of that time could have only dreamed about.

Shaken Again

It started with the faintest hint of shudder.  I remember I was sitting in front of my computer, eyes on the monitor, and trolling through Google News, since I was not able to watch television the whole day.  I looked up instinctively and as I turned around to check what was wrong, the shaking suddenly grew stronger.

Earthquake! The tremors became more violent, certainly the strongest I had ever felt in my entire life and as the walls vibrated and the windows panels of my room in the first floor of our house in Lianga started to jiggle in earnest, my eyes involuntarily turned to the time display on the task bar of the computer monitor.  It was about 10 minutes to nine in the evening of the last day of August just a week ago and, in those harrowing seconds that seemed to drag on endlessly, I had a mental image of myself still frozen in a sitting position, fingers still on the computer keyboard and seemingly waiting for the house to fall down on me.

The shaking went on for more than a minute, ebbing and gaining strength in a cycle as if a series of underground sea waves were pounding and crashing through the bedrock underneath Lianga and still I sat there still immobile and still.  Then it finally subsided and as everything grew still. It was only then when I managed to shake myself loose and despite a sudden queasy feeling in my stomach as if I just came off a roller coaster ride, I jumped up to check on everyone else in the house.

De Pugon

I first heard about this baked treat from my younger sister, Adette, a year or so ago.  When going to Tandag City, the capital of the province of Surigao del Sur which is some 90 kilometers north of Lianga, be sure to stop by the town of Marihatag, she suggested, to buy and try some of the local pan de pugon.  I, of course, had no idea what she was talking about.  For me, bread is bread yet on my next trip north I did exactly as she advised me to do and since then that is exactly what I have been doing every time I get the chance.

Pan de pugon, for the uninitiated, can be loosely translated from the original Spanish as "bread of the hearth oven" and refers originally to home-baked bread using the old fashioned brick oven but now is often used to lump together many types of home-style bread products using all or some of the traditional dough making and baking techniques dating back to the Spanish colonial period until the early years of the last century.

I had lived much of my pre-school years in Lianga but even in the 1970's, bread was something you bought from the neighborhood bakery which happened to be just located conveniently beside our house..  I never had the opportunity to sample  homemade bread although my mother was fond of baking cakes and other pastries.  Bread was mostly thought to be too ordinary, too time consuming and uneconomical to produce in any quantity at home.

Let Down

The term fiesta, I am told, is the Spanish derivative of the Latin word festa which is the plural for festum which means festival or feast.  In many Spanish speaking countries and those like the Philippines which had once been Spanish colonies, it usually refers to a religious festival commemorating a particular Catholic saint who is revered to be the protector or patron of a particular town or city.

Yet even in the Philippine setting, a fiesta is more than a just a religious holiday. It has also cultural and socio-economic overtones and is often connected in the past to the culmination of the local harvest season for rice, corn and other vital agricultural crops.  It is also a celebration of community solidarity and in the more mundane sense, an occasion for people to get together, to feast on good food for a change and an opportunity take a break from the hard work and humdrum that often defines the ordinary in the day to day business of living.

In the truest sense, a fiesta comes out and evolves from the shared cultural and often historical experiences of a paticular people.  It draws its reason for being from a community's desire to highlight that which unifies and binds it together, the collective qualities that makes it unique among its neighbors and peers.  It seeks to recall and glorify the struggles and achievements of the past yet also expresses the hope and prayers for a more bountiful, more prosperous future.

Best Efforts

Renato Miranda, Executive Director for the Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force (AILTF), said it exactly right when he was asked to comment in a recent news interview on the difficulties inherent in the government's campaign against illegal loggers specifically in Region XIII or the Caraga region.  The task force's "best efforts", he said, must be directed not only on confiscating illegally cut timber and other forest products but on coming up with a strategic concept or strategy that insures that these forest resources "remain standing right there on the mountain."  "Every time we confiscated logs and timbers," he points out, "it merely shows that we failed in stopping these illegal loggers from cutting down trees."

His comments were made in the wake of an extensive aerial survey Miranda and members of his task force recently conducted on the so called "timber corridor" of the country which essentially comprises a large bulk of the Caraga and Davao provinces.  The survey has resulted in clear cut eyewitness and photographic evidence of the continued rampant illegal logging activities in many remote areas of these provinces in defiance of the total log ban imposed by President Noynoy Aquino more than a year ago.

While evidence of illegal timber cutting can be found all over these two regions, one area of major concern appears to be what remains of the once extensive forest concession area of the now moribund Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP) based in Bislig City which used to be Asia's largest paper mill. This area stretches the boundaries of  the provinces of Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Sur and the Davao provinces.