«» Travel Notes 031: SOX and Maguindanao
Tuna and beer, lake hopping, and conversations with locals
HELLO. I’m Atom, and you’ve received my Travel Notes:
→ On the weeks I travel, I share stories, reflections, and lessons.
→ On the weeks I stay home, I share tips, tools, and templates.
HELLO!! You must be calling me!!!
Uncle Joe approached us, showing his ringing phone to verify his identity.
Neither Aedric nor I expected to be greeted with so much energy and enthusiasm.
In chat, Uncle Joe typed with perfect grammar, punctuation, and capitalization–fitting for someone who’s been a teacher all his life. Uncle Joe was the ex-colleague of my mom in Xavier School and is currently the principal of Shalom Crest Wizard Academy, an elementary school in General Santos City. Leading up to our 8-day trip to Soccsksargen and Maguindanao, my mom connected us with Uncle Joe, who offered to pick us up from the airport when we arrived.
In my head, I imagined an uptight and strict individual, someone similar to the principals and high-level administrators I’ve had all my life. Instead, Uncle Joe greeted us with the broadest smile and the most lively stories.
From the airport, he took us to the fish port, where he treated us to GenSan’s famous tuna.
Beer? Uncle Joe offered.
We had one round. He had three.
Yup, not what I expected!
The following day, we met Uncle Joe at Shalom Crest Wizard Academy.
I thought he was friendly only because we were the sons of his friend, but to my surprise, he was the same spirited character around his students. As we walked around, all his students said hi to him, and he said hi back. Everyone seemed happy.
Here at Shalom Crest, we have four core values. Uncle Joe proudly shared. Character. Compassion. Competence. Reverence. We divide our students among four “Houses,” each championing one of our core values. Education can’t just be about academic success.
I could tell Uncle Joe loved what he was doing.
From Shalom Crest, Uncle Joe brought us for lunch at DOLE Plantation’s Kalsungi Clubhouse. This was where he learned to drink, he explains. His parents were early employees of DOLE, so they enjoyed incredible benefits such as a home, schooling for their children, and a monthly credit line in the Kalsungi Clubhouse.
So it was that after school, Uncle Joe and his friends would come over to the clubhouse to eat and, sometimes, share a bottle of beer.
We said goodbye to Uncle Joe shortly after that; we would explore the rest of Soccsksargen and Maguindanao on our own.
Dito sa mga T’boli, may 4Ps tayo. Protect. Preserve. Promote. Practice.
Mark, our Lake Sebu tour guide and habal-habal driver, explained with the same passion for his tradition and culture as Uncle Joe for education.
Ang pinaka importante sa apat ay ang Practice. Paano ka makaka Protect, Preserve, o Promote kung di mo naman ginagawa ang tradition and culture mismo?
As I would learn throughout my morning with him, he sure does practice, and practice does matter.
Mark, whose T’boli name is Kame, taught us to play all his native instruments, recounted the history of the T’boli and their conflict over land with settlers in the region, and brought us to all the beautiful attractions around Lake Sebu. In return, I expressed to him how impressed I was with the diligence with which the T’boli have upheld their culture and tradition.
It helps he shares that a Mayor with T’boli heritage has always led the region. Laws are set from the top with culture and tradition in mind, while appreciation is instilled within youth from the very beginning. Just last year, Mark’s younger brother and a small delegation of students were sent to Washington, D.C., to perform their native T’boli dance and music.
Mark plays the drums in Lang Dulay’s Dream Weaving Center in the picture below.
We moved from Lake Sebu to the municipality of T’boli (not to be mistaken with the T’boli tribe). Here, we registered to hike Lake Holon before finding accommodations in Gunu Bong, which translates to “big house.” It’s a T’boli community center that doubles as a cheap homestay for guests.
By 6 AM the next day, we were on another habal-habal to the jumpoff point for Lake Holon. After a 90-minute ride and a 90-minute ascent, we reached the viewpoint of Lake Holon. We had breakfast here, then descended for lunch by the lake.
Come 3 PM, we were back in Gunu Bong, 3 hours ahead of schedule. Instead of staying another night as planned, we moved to Tacurong City in Sultan Kudarat.
Tacurong was supposed to be three van rides from T’boli: the first from T’Boli to Surallah, the second from Surallah to Isulan, and the last from Isulan to Tacurong.
I expected each leg to last for an hour, but the van from Surallah took an hour to fill up, so we arrived in Isulan at 6 PM. By this time, no more vans were departing for Tacurong.
While unloading our bags, I asked Aedric to help me find a way to Tacurong.
We debated our options when a girl, our seatmate in the van, offered that we stick to her instead as she was also going to Tacurong. We took a trike together, where I learned she came from GenSan, where she applied to take the bar to be a midwife. During the ride, I found myself joking with our driver as well about how the roads (wider) and traffic (less congested) in Mindanao compared to Manila.
We passed Sultan Kudarat’s Capitol and Provincial Hospital.
I asked the driver and the girl where it was good to eat dinner. It’s a question I usually ask locals, but for some reason, asking it in this context—in a trike with a stranger in the middle of Mindanao—hit me differently. I realized I felt safe. I realized I was starting to feel comfortable.
It suddenly hit me too that this feeling was what I was after by coming to Soccsksargen and Maguindanao—the one region of the Philippines that continued to scare me.
Yes, terrible things have happened in this region before. And yes, trails of danger still exist (search Sultan Kudarat or Maguindanao on Google News). But that doesn’t mean kindness or goodness are absent.
Or did I speak too soon?
After a night in Tacurong City, we took a bus to Datu Paglas, where we met with Kuya Jomarie, a habal-habal driver we hired to take us to the La Palmera Mountain Ridge.
We agreed to meet at 1 PM, but at the last minute, Kuya Jomarie asked if we could do 3 PM. We reluctantly agreed as we wanted to explore the food in the Datu Paglas Public Market anyway.
Kuya Jomarie arrived at 3:30 PM.
We were tired, we were rushing, and we were careless. After paying for gas, Aedric returned his wallet to his pocket, where it slipped out without him noticing. I can’t blame him because we were both tired after hoping provinces for five days straight.
Our goal was to reach La Palmera before sunset to avoid ascending in the dark, but it couldn’t be avoided as we tried our best to look for the wallet. We gave up at 6:30 PM when it was too dark to see. No one had surrendered anything either, so we went to the police station to have the loss reported.
I guess feeling safe is one thing. Being careful is another.
It was a gentle reminder for us both not to be too complacent, not to put anything in our pockets when riding a habal-habal, and not to put all our money in one place.
Anyway, we move on! The La Palmera Mountain Ridge was beautiful.
Ano tribo nyo?
I bought a bottle of water, two boiled eggs, and some pastil from an old lady selling food by our van. We were back in Tacurong terminal, waiting for our van to depart for Cotabato City.
Intsik, I replied, already familiar with how others from the region have classified me. I explained how I’m Chinese but was born and raised in Manila.
Another thing I’ve realized on this trip is this question comes less from a place of hostility and more from a place of curiosity. Seeing someone like me commuting in their region, speaking Tagalog fluently, is a wonder to them. Afterward, they always like to ask what I’m doing and where I’m going.
I got to speak with our van driver while eating my eggs and pastil, and I encountered the same curiosity. In our conversation, I mentioned we wanted to visit the Pink Mosque before going to Cotabato City, so he offered to drop us off and wait for us!
Until next week,
Atom
P.S. I’m now in Sydney, and this post is being published six weeks late. I don’t see myself traveling around the Philippines anytime soon, but I hope to keep writing here as my adventure within Australia unfolds. If any of you plan to travel here within the next 18 months, please please don’t hesitate to reach out! Thanks so much for reading!
Are you interested in exploring the Philippines too? Here are some ways I can help...
Travel can be expensive. Here is my list of hacks to spend less on PH travel and a spreadsheet template to help you budget your next trip.
I make a spreadsheet for every trip. Here’s the guide to my Google Drive with all the spreadsheets.