“Lakbay Norte 2010: Part 3"

Day 3 (Adventure Day): Sandboarding

By consensus, our day at the Ilocos Norte sand dunes was the best adventure gig in all of Lakbay Norte. Credit that to the newness of the sport: many of didn’t know sandboarding existed until we read about it in our itinerary. There was also the suggestion of danger about the sport. What happens if you fall off the board?

But, since most of my mates were in their 20s (that is, hot and “x-tremely” daring), the danger was the addiction. Dawn on Jan. 27 again found us at the sand dunes we zoomed through in 4x4s the night before. This morning, however, we headed straight for a towering sand dune.

We were met at the top by the guys who were trying to make sandboarding the latest x-treme sport in this country and Ilocos Norte the epicenter of sandboarding. It’s easy figuring out what sandboarding is: it’s surfing on sand. The tough part to sandboarding is mustering enough courage to hop onto a teeny strip of laminated wood, position yourself on the edge of a 20-foot tall sand dune and willingly plunge downwards. Visions of a broken neck dance in your head as you contemplate your immediate future.

Sandboarding appeared easier said than done until travel writer Ida Calumpang became the first to sandboard. She reached the bottom standing up and let out a loud rebel yell. A road went up from those of us left up on top. In the next three hours, more than half the group—and most of the girls—sandboarded. The consensus: nothing to it. It isn’t as scary as it looks and we should have sandboarded from a taller dune. That would have made it more exciting.

Travel writer Margie Francisco went gaga over sandboarding, and for that reason Ilocos Norte was her top destination at Lakbay Norte. “Ilocos Norte, for sure, takes the top spot in the list! I've been to Ilocos Norte before for a history class back in college and fell in love with the architecture of the buildings in the province,” she said.

“So going back to Ilocos Norte and finding something new and out of the ordinary to do is a really wonderful surprise. Who would have thought you can go to Paoay Sand Dunes, ride the 4x4 and try out sandboarding?”

Travel blogger Ferdz Decena also believes sandboarding was the outstanding adventure in Lakbay Norte. “I definitely enjoyed the Paoay sand dunes adventure. In terms or activities it’s really fun and the photographic landscape of the sand dunes early in the morning is stunning. The Cagayan Valley spelunking and river activities is also one of my faves since it's a mix of nature and extreme activities like caving, rappelling and kayaking.”

From our sandboarders and instructors, I gathered these helpful tips:

§  Sandboard at an angle and not straight down. Slicing through the sand diagonally ensures you pick up speed—which is what makes sandboarding fun. Plunging down in a straight line means sand accumulates in front of your board. That build-up will slow you down and ultimately stop you. We saw that happen more than once.

§  Keep your butt down and your knees bent. If you feel yourself falling over, simply sit down on the sand. That will stop the board and keep you safe. Put your weight on your rear foot to keep your balance. Putting your weight on your front foot will make you tumble.

§  There are other ways to sandboard apart from the “surfing style.” You can sit on the board, but that means you’ll drop straight down. No fun there. Or you can lie face down on the board. This’ll mean eating a lot of sand, however, and sand is definitely not a nutritious breakfast though it contains minerals.

§  If you’re wearing large sandals like Crocs or Crocs knock-offs, you can “sandalboard” down the dune, said one of the instructors. That takes a lot more guts, but nobody wanted to do that. I had on a pair and no, thank you. Not this time.

Those who want to try sandboarding when they’re in Ilocos Norte can contact these organizations:

• LEAD Movement (Sandboarding and 4x4 adventure)

Glenn Guerero (0908) 8853669

• Paoay Off-roaders and Adventure Group (4x4 adventure)

Gilbert Santos (0928) 9473518

Ilocos empanada

The empanada in Metro Manila is nothing like what they’ve got in Ilocos Norte. Up there it’s a meal in itself, and is also nutritious because it uses fruits, vegetables and bean sprouts. The “empanada de Metro Manila,” on the other hand, is hardened bread with cold, small pieces of meat filling. It doesn’t look delicious and most of the times I’ve tried it, it wasn’t.

Historic Batac is the home of Ilocos Norte’s version of the empanada. Batac empanada comes in many forms: ordinary (papaya, bean sprouts and egg); ordinary eggless (vegetables only); special (longganisa and egg), special eggless (longganisa without egg), special without mongo (everything except mongo), jumbo (with hot dog), double special (double longganisa and one egg), double egg (one longganisa and two eggs) and the double double (double the longganisa and egg). Best of all, Batac empanada is served hot off the wok.

It was the first time I’d eaten an empanada I liked at first bite. I started out with an ordinary empanada and finished that off in no time with a bottle of Coke. Feeling bold, I ordered a double special. I got halfway through this before I called it quits. The reason is because Batac empanada is huge: about twice the size of the cold, mass-produced versions we’re used to in Metro Manila.

The empanadas we had were lunch. That’s how “filling” they were. Wish we had them in The Metro. I guess they are in The Metro but I haven’t run into them yet. It was also fun watching the empanada made in front of you. That way you know the ingredients are fresh. Our videographer, Karlo de Leon (www.karlodl.blogspot.com), considers empanada one of his favorite foods at Lakbay Norte. “My favorites . . .  Batac empanada just because it’s comfort food for me.”

Ivan Henares, one of Lakbay Norte’s organizers and an authority on tourism and ethnic cuisine, told us beforehand Batac empanada was a complete meal in itself and he was right. He’s also an authority on old churches. You can catch Ivan and learn from his experiences at www.ivanhenares.com.

Surfing

From Ilocos, our road took us to La Union and its famous beaches. I first got to visit the La Union shoreline in the 1980s and it looks like it had hardly changed. There are more resorts this time, however, but the beach I stood on looked like it never left the 80s.

We spent the next four hours watching waves hammer the metallic gray seashore and our girls taking quicky lessons on how to surf and survive. Back in the 80s girls wore tees and shorts when they took a swim in public. Our Lakbay girls—bright, assertive fashionistas—were surprisingly as modest as the Pinays of the 80s when it came to public exposure or lack of it. No bikinis here.

After slow cooking under an intense afternoon sun, we packed up and headed for Baguio, six hours away. We got to Baguio at about 10:00 pm, which is saying there isn’t much to see of the fabled Summer Capital at his ungodly hour. The royal welcome we got at the posh Baguio Manor Hotel, however, more than made up for this disappointment.

We had the hotel garden all to ourselves. The setting was romantic; the evening temperature probably that of chilled red wine and the magnificent buffet mostly European (the chef is Irish, which seems unique in itself). I miss Baguio’s wonderfully cool climate and God, I wish we had it in Metro Manila. That alone would make this crazy city life worthwhile. The Mayor of Baguio City, Peter Ray Bautista, recited a poem, Beautiful Baguio, to welcome us.

Too much red wine, even if you’re used to it, will make your head spin in no time and I found myself constantly wiping a silly smile off my face to appear sober. But it made the night’s sleep all the much better. As we headed towards our hotel room at the storied Baguio Country Club, I thought it ironic we were toasting under the sun just hours before, and now were rubbing our palms together to keep warm. “C’est la vie.”

My roommate this night was Anton Diaz (www.ourawesomeplanet.com), a very popular travel blogger. Anton came to Lakbay to have fun and do business at the same time. After I stepped out of the shower, I found him on his notebook PC checking out his website, then on his Blackberry re-checking his business for the next day. He arranges tours throughout the country and banks on his immense travel experience and knowledge to give his guests a travel experience worth their money.

For this very well-traveled man, “. . . my most awesome (experience) was sandboarding in Paoay sand dunes because it was unique and exciting.” He also rated the Ilocos empanada as the best fare at Lakbay. “Ilocos Empanada. Sarap! You can't get the same taste here in Manila.”

Day 4: Baguio/Ambuklao

We were in Baguio because Baguio wanted to be known as something other than “The Summer Capital of the Philippines,” which is how elementary school text books consistently describe “The City of Pines.” The bright boys in Baguio’s tourism industry had decided to repackage Baguio as the jump-off point to adventure sites within an hour’s drive from the city.

We visited one of these new adventure sites, the Ambuklao Dam, on Jan. 28. The soon to be launched “Baguio Adventure Experience” will feature rappelling, kayaking, ultralights, all terrain vehicle (ATV) rides, nature treks and romantic lunches or dinners in exotic locations. Then it’s back to chilly Baguio to cool down after a hard day’s adventure. That’s the thinking behind Baguio’s repackaging.

Ida found the new Baguio Adventure Experience the second best of Lakbay after sandboarding. “Personally, I was impressed by the various adventure destinations that can be found in the north,” she noted. “I would recommend Paoay/Laoag for the 4x4 and sand boarding because it is something new and unique. My second recommended place to visit would be Baguio/Benguet for their adventure packages because they offer so much from kayaking to go-karting, mountain climbing, ATV, airsoft and even hang gliding! Even though we didn't get to experience all of these activities, I would love to go back and try them out.”

We left Baguio late afternoon and slept as our bus roared towards Lingayen City, Pangasinan and its famous Hundred Islands. We got to Lingayen at 10:00 pm but the city government was still wide awake and treated us to a tour of their renovated and imposing capitol building, which is also a tourism site. We had a midnight dinner and a few beers before calling it a night at the Islandia Hotel. Most of my mates, however, stayed up even later to party and, of course, karaoke/videoke!

Day 5: 123 Islands

The next morning saw us head for the world famous Hundred Islands National Park. This was my second time at Hundred Islands, the last over a decade ago. The tour and the onsite facilities were infinitely better this time around. And I’m glad safety is the major concern at the pier. The boats looked safe and sturdy although the freeboard of the one we took appeared too low for comfort. All of us wore life vests but these were the old Styrofoam-type.

The Hundred Islands are exactly 123 islands, of which only three are developed. The rest are off limits to tourists so you can’t plant a flag and claim an island as your own. That is past history. We stopped at two of these developed islands: Governor’s Island for photo ops and Quezon Island for lunch and snorkeling.

Over lunch, I got to talking to Melo Villareal, another famous travel blogger (www.lakbaypilipinas.com), who also makes money in that new business called “mobile marketing.” He uses his mobile phones to “text blast” his client’s gigs or products to his enormous list of contacts or potential customers. His job is to create the all-important “buzz” that leads to sales. His job is as “viral” as it gets.

Our next major destination was Subic, Zambales, famous for its Duty Free shopping but now a new center for adventure tourism. It took us five hours to get to Subic. We first stopped by the quaint seaside town of Masinloc, however, to have a look at its famous San Andres Church made out of coral stone. An hour after checking into the White Rock Resort Hotel at 6:00 pm, we were off to Subic for an evening at the tree top zip line.

I’d always thought plunging downward suspended from a metal cable would be heart pounding fun. It would’ve, but the guys at Subic decided to send us down the zip line feet first—for safety reasons since it was now late evening. So, I plunged feet first down the zip line, watching the tops of papaya trees colored pale gray by the moonlight slide lazily beneath me. It wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped but it was still my first ride on a zip line.

But the evening’s videoke at White Rock was the wildest of Lakbay Norte. Our girls really went romantic, singing songs that told of love rewarded or gone terribly wrong. The stunning Sol Racelis, editor-in-chief of the travel magazine, Sidetrip, seemed to spend the evening holding on to the mike. Izah Morales, always lovely to behold, from the online edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, again took to the mike and was again her romantic self.

Fun-loving Ella Fortez of the Asian Traveler magazine was delightful in her selection of romantic and rock ballads. And lovely photo-journalist Monica Barretto (www.monicabarretto.com) of Smile Magazine, inflight magazine of Cebu Pacific, proved enchanting as a singer. While some of the guys did videoke, we left the singing mostly to the ladies, who were glad to oblige.

Day 6: Adventures closer to home

A trip to Subic by the sea wouldn’t be complete without a boat ride. The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority arranged a one-hour boat ride across Subic Bay on one of their search and rescue boats, the M/V Redondo. After this exhilarating cruise, it was off to the neighboring province of Tarlac at around 1:00 pm. Breakfast and lunch at the Lighthouse Marina was superb.

The Tarlac “adventure” was the most serious part of Lakbay since it saw us visit the “Ninoy Aquino Museum” where we learned more about the heroic Ninoy Aquino. We departed for Pampanga late afternoon and checked into the Holiday Inn. We toured this famous hotel; had a fantastic and massive dinner at the nearby Red Crab restaurant (the red crabs were deliciously huge!) and got to know more about Pampanga and its culture at the Center for Kapampangan Studies at the Holy Angel University.

Highlight of this fast paced evening was our taste of the nightlife at San Fernando and partaking of the famous Camalig pizza. This pizza is known for its bewildering array of toppings. There’s pizza with chicharon/adobo/white cheese; pizza with salted eggs; pizza with dilis/white cheese and that eternal favorite, pepperoni pizza, among others.

And, as has been our practice since Day 1, we let our bloggers and photographers take as many pictures of the cuisine before we plunged headlong into a gastronomic feast. I called it our version of the grace before meals or “The Pictures before Meals.”

Day 7: Goodbye to adventure

The mood at breakfast was somewhat somber: this was our last day together and some of us had that wistful air about them. It had been a grand and great six days and I really didn’t want it to end just yet. But nobody bucks Father Time.

We spent the entire morning at the nearby “El Kabayo,” a convincing replica of a small town in the U.S. Wild West. What you have here is a main street flanked by a saloon, a stable, a sheriff’s office and all those quaint shops you see on old Western movies. The main draw at El Kabayo, however, is horseback riding and most of us rode the ponies halfway to our next destination, the Paradise Ranch.

The ranch was the final adventure in our fantastic seven-day odyssey. As we got to the ranch, we were greeted by busloads of “excursionistas” from high schools in Metro Manila and Pampanga. The ranch is famous as a nature preserve and one of its most delightful sights is the Butterfly Farm where hundreds of butterflies flit around in careless abandon. It’s nature at its cutest. A late lunch at the Oasis Hotel confirmed its reputation as an oasis for excellent international cuisine. A visit to the Lakeshore in Pampanga and its enormous man-made lake and to Robinson’s Starmall were our adieu to Lakbay Norte.

It wouldn’t have been a great adventure without great organizers. In this regard, I say “That was one hell of a great job” to Vince Araneta, Charisse Anne Fernandez. Michelle Liza Co and Anthony Hapa of NPVB; Grace Ayento and Frances Dionisio of Manila North Tollways Corporation and Nixon Batarao and Reynaldo Valdez of Victory Liner.

Friendships

More than the many magnificent places we visited and the new adventures we experienced, many of us pointed to the friendships gained as the most precious possession they took home from Lakbay Norte.

“We had a very great group,” said travel blogger Nina Fuentes. “Each participant was passionate about traveling and equally passionate about life. What I'll remember most about my new friends is their gung ho attitude about every activity, their courage to try new things and their unwavering devotion to the videoke machine.”

For Ferdz, “It was a great group. Most are adventurous and enthusiastic. I think everyone gelled well.” This veteran traveler saw Northern Philippines as a “. . . different type of market as the north has something to offer that Boracay or Cam Sur don't have. If people are looking for heritage, caves and sand dunes adventure, the north has it.”

“Strangely enough, in spite of all the incredibly exciting and one of a kind experiences we had during the trip, the most memorable moments for me were our crazy karaoke nights,” said Ida. “These moments were precious to me because it was during these times that we all got to bond with each other the most.”

Karlo saw the whole trip “. . . as an unforgettable experience in itself. Having to join a bunch of people enjoying the north, sharing experiences, delightful or otherwise, for seven straight days. I think that is unforgettable enough. I think it’s because I like relating to people. Travel is about experiences and who you share it with is also important. Sometimes it’s not the journey, nor the destination, but the experience shared from journey to destination.”

“These people are definitely an adventurous bunch!” said Margie. “They're not afraid to try out new things. They go head on with whatever is in store for the trip. There was never a dull moment with them. I'm so lucky to have met these people who have made this trip so much better than I expected it to be.”

It’s about who you travel with. That’s what makes a great vacation—and great relationships.

(Published in Zest Air Inflight magazine, 2010)

"Lakbay Norte 2010: Part 2"

Day 2: relationships

The frenzied pace of our first day at Cagayan set the tone for the entire Lakbay Norte tour. From then on, it was a race against time to meet tightly woven schedules so we could see many of North Luzon’s best tourist sites in just seven days.

Without time for proper introductions on the bus as it began its 1,800 km trek from Quezon City on Jan. 24, however, each of us was left to make new friends on his own. That we were either writers or photographers—kindred creative spirits—helped us morph from seatmates into mates quite quickly.

During this tour, Victory Liner bus no. 2121 (a MAN coach made in Germany with 900,000 km on its odometer) was our “motel” where we first rested after checking out all those North Luzon destinations. The toughness of this machine made me again appreciate why the world associates the phrase, “Made in Germany,” with high quality. The bus never failed us on the trip; the worst it encountered was a leaky oil line easily fixed. Its air conditioning was sub-arctic and that was a good thing during blistering afternoons.  

We made friends with one another during our “extra vehicular activity,” mainly over deliciously alien meals (think of huge and meaty red crabs, a lot of red crabs) or exploring out-of-this-world tourist sites such as a dry river bed outside Baguio with a romantic table for two—and a butler!

But the evening “Karaoke” sessions were my mates’ most cherished memories of Lakbay Norte as I found out later on. Without these crazy sing-alongs, our 1,800 km trek would probably have been intolerable. Surprisingly, our girls were the most avid “karaokers.” And strangely for these single young ladies in their 20s both scared of, and intrigued by men, love songs—very sad love songs—were their favorite fare.

Travel bloggers

The first real chance we got to know each other beyond the polite smile stage was at the Callao Caves along the Pinacanauan River in Cagayan during the afternoon of our first field day (Jan. 25). Our previous morning stop on this tour (the Basilica Minore of Our Lady of Piat) was more of a quietly religious rather than a boisterous lay experience.

Curiously, the first three persons I got to know were fellow travel writers from other airlines. Margie Francisco is editorial assistant for Seair Inflight Magazine of South East Asian Airlines (Seair). Ida Calumpang writes for Mabuhay, magazine of Philippine Airlines while Monica Barretto is a photojournalist for Smiles, the magazine of Cebu Pacific Airlines. These ladies were also among the most daring: they weren’t scared to try out “guy things” such as a new sport called “sandboarding.” And I never expected the competition to look this great.

The photographers among us had a field day at Callao since the site is visually striking. A digital picture here is, quite truly, worth more than a thousand digital words. Following our guided tour of the cave, I noticed our sole female professional photographer, Nina Fuentes, photographing her tiny Anime plastic doll named Sayuri against a backdrop of “The Cathedral,” the largest chamber at Callao.

Nina said she does this most everywhere she goes (it’s her “signature”) and Nina has been to a lot of places in the country, Asia and Australia. An inveterate tourist, Nina records her vast journeys on her blog at www.justwandering.org. She describes herself as a “backpacker. blogger. babysitter.”

Nina goes by the Net alias “Evil Martian” or the “Evil One.” I never found out why she chose a name so diametrically opposite her real personality. Too polite to ask. Accompanying her on her many trips are her cute doll pals, among which are a cute Darth Vader, a non-menacing Star Wars’ Storm Trooper and Sabrina (another cute doll).

Callao also saw me make the acquaintance of that new breed of professional writer/photographer/adventurer/tourist/entrepreneur spawned by the Internet: the online travel blogger. Nina is one of these new media professionals. She and the other five other travel bloggers in our group (all men) had, among themselves, visited practically all the worthwhile tourist spots in this country.

Truly awesome for a group of people mostly in their 20s and 30s. And these bloggers make a living by arranging guided tours to those sites they’ve been to, offering photo seminars and creating buzz about places, events or people through mobile and online marketing.

A well traveled travel blogger is Estan Cabigas from Cebu.  His blog at www.langyaw.com shows the extent of his “conquest” of the Philippines: from a few places visited in his native Cebu and northern Mindanao in 1974, Estan’s newest map on his home page shows his having visited practically the entire country.

We first got to talk while watching a lovely Izah Morales, a reporter for Inquirer.net, online edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, rappel from a height of about 20 feet at Callao. We jokingly remarked the girls seemed the braver of the species, an observation that would be confirmed in the coming days.

On his blog, which won as Best Travel Blog in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards, Estan describes himself as “. . . an inveterate traveler” who “. . . enjoys the freedom that going to places entails, both the trip itself and the destination, reveling in the many things that the act of travel offers: the sounds, the sights, the people and the flavors. I’m more into going off the beaten path but am equally comfortable in tourist traps too.” It’s a pretty good description for someone who’s always a willing victim of the travel bug. His business is conducting photography seminars and he takes a lot of photos wherever he goes.

We were joined later on by another famous travel blogger, Ferdz Decena. His travel blog at www.ironwulf.net is a mine of helpful information and photos about his never ending journeys. Like Estan, Ferdz came to Lakbay equipped with those four pieces of equipment essential to any pro travel blogger: a state-of-the-art digital SLR camera (Nikon, Canon or Minolta), a digital movie camera, a notebook or netbook computer with wireless Internet and a celphone or smartphone. Our bloggers lugged around this heavy gear so they could quickly update their blogs. Real time information builds click through readership at their blogs and our bloggers never stop feeding their readers’ appetite for information.

From Cagayan, we rushed to Ilocos Norte, hoping to make it by 3:00pm so we could experience first hand a new sport called sandboarding. This six-hour drive to Ilocos first saw us stop over at the famous Blue Lagoon at Pagudpud for lunch at the new Hannah’s Beach Resort. The cuisine at this refurbished resort was fantastic: giant lobster worth thousands of pesos in Metro Manila, steamed shrimp, dinengdeng and crunchy, deep fried bagnet, among other fare.

Screams in the night

We got to the Ilocos Norte Sand Dunes at Suba at around 6:00 pm. The light was fading fast and we were in unknown territory facing what could have been a terrifying first experience—in the dark! Yet, we bravely boarded four toughened 4x4 jeeps and roared towards the sand dunes, 10 minutes away.

Crowded at back of a blue and white 4x4 with me were Estan, Ferdz, Poch, Cha Fernandez and Michelle Co, two quite pretty ladies from NPVB, Lakbay’s organizers. And, as was to be expected, one of us, Ida in this case, did a Leo de Caprio, “I’m king of the world!” pose in the jeep ahead of us. Our jeep tore along a dirt road at 60km/h as it headed towards the dunes, trailing a monstrous dust cloud. I hadn’t eaten so much dirt in a very long time.

The girls started screaming their lungs off as our jeep plunged down one sand gully. We held on to the thick roll bar and its supports for dear life. The screams reached terror pitch when our jeep reached the top of a tall sand hill, then plunged almost vertically downward, still at speed. I thought to myself as the ground rose up to meet us: “Is sand as rock hard as water if you hit it at high speed?”

Fortunately, I never got to test this hypothesis as our driver steered us out of danger. The girls never stopped screaming and I knew that was a great way of easing tension. As we plunged down our second hill at speed, I decided to scream my lungs out, as well. To my surprise, the other guys with me started screaming, too. We were all laughing loud and nervously as the jeep screeched to a halt amid a spray of swirling sand. “I’m going to take a long, hot shower tonight,” I promised myself.

As we stopped, I could hear the screams of the girls in the three other jeeps. They were having the time of their lives. I looked out across the Laoag River, a glistening black ribbon beneath a brilliant Blue Moon. The race wasn’t that dangerous or else the drivers wouldn’t have taken us out on this evening joy ride. Since it was now almost pitch black, the bosses decided to continue this experience at 6:00 am the next morning. And the girls never stopped screaming as we roared along the dirt road back to the safety of Victory Liner bus no. 2121.

Poque Poque Pizza anyone?

The bus quickly took us to our next destination: the new Robinson’s Mall at Laoag City where we were serenaded by Ilocano folk songs (including “Pamulinawen”) and entertained by Ilocano folk dances. Then it was on to dinner at the nearby Saramsam Café for a taste of their famous Saramsam Pasta and other cuisine.

One customer favorite at the café is their curiously named “Poque Poque Pizza.” Poque Poque is an Ilocano dish made from eggplant. The flavor of a pizza dominated by natural foods such as eggplant, tomatoes and onions, however, takes some getting used to for persons more familiar with the oilier taste of Pizza Hut or Greenwich.

Saramsam Pasta, however, was the group’s favorite as best dish of the day. It’s basically pasta with a lot on it: shrimp, Parmesan cheese, diced green mango and peppers. Karlo de Leon, Lakbay’s official videographer and an instructor at the College of St. Benilde in Manila, became a Saramsam pasta fan. “The best food experience so far is Saramsam. The dishes were uniquely local and yet the flavors stood out,” he said.

Margie with her to-die-for legs went gaga over Poque Poque Pizza and Saramsam Pasta. “Definitely a must try when you get to Ilocos Norte! It's my first time to try it and these two dishes just made my palate long for a lot more pizza and pasta.”

Sad love songs

Poque Poque, Saramsam Pasta and all the other Saramsam dishes constituted a delicious first encounter with Ilocos Norte. What completed the great food, however, was Karaoke and our girls were first on the scene. I was surprised at the gusto with which our girls constantly attacked the mike. Surprisingly, Margie, Izah, Monica, Ida, Cha, Michelle, Ella Fortez (a writer for the magazine Asian Traveler) and Sol Racelis (Editor of the travel magazine, Sidetrip) chose to sing sad love songs. Whatever happened to light rock, MOR and disco?

It’s as if it were easier to sing about one’s personal pain in front of strangers who wouldn’t ask you why than in front of close friends and family who knew why. Or do Filipinas remain unrealistically romantic in this age of non-committal, two-timing men? Some of the men did sing, but it was definitely girl’s night out. The singing went on for hours and we had to pry the mike from the girls’ hands so we could head to the hotel at 1:30 am.

I did take that long, hot shower, and it was great seeing all that brown sand and dirt cascade off my soapy body into the metal floor drain. If there’s one thing I learned in all my other trips, it’s the therapeutic value of a hot shower. My arm and shoulders muscles kept complaining, however, but I knew a good night’s sleep and a paracetamol tablet would take care of that.

Our room at the new Mira de Polaris hotel at Laoag City had that “healthy” clean smell I always search for in strange hotel rooms. If a room “smells healthy” to me, it most always is and I can sleep well. My bunkmate for the night was Bong Bajo, a professional photographer for Sidetrip.

A handsome rake who could be mistaken for celebrity Ogie Alcasid, Bong was at Lakbay with Sol, his boss. The pro that he is, Bong cleaned his Canon, recharged its battery, took out his HP notebook and downloaded his photos before taking a shower. We talked quite a lot before calling it a night.

“Lakbay Norte 2010:” Re-discovering adventure tourism and its greatest secrets

WE COVERED SOME 1,800 road kilometers in this first-of-its-kind adventure in Philippine media history. 

Put into perspective, traveling that distance would have brought us further north to Taipei, Taiwan (1,160 km away) or to Hong Kong (1,120 km to the northwest). We also could have made a roundtrip journey to Davao City, 960 km southeast from Manila.

Our fantastic voyage, called the “Lakbay Norte (Travel North) Media Tour,” took 22 travel writers, travel bloggers, photographers and organizers on an amazing seven-day, nine-province merry-go-round that showed us what a resurgent Northern Philippines has to offer domestic and foreign tourists. The answer: a lot. Really a lot.

We rode a specially outfitted Victory Liner bus gaily garbed in the warm green colors and graphics of Lakbay Norte. That bus was our motor home for some three quarters of this epic trek that gave us so much sensory and gastronomical input (read too much to see and eat) I still haven’t come down from that incredible “high.”

More than a re-discovery of tourism in neglected Northern Philippines, the adventure again confirmed a long-held observation that long-distance overland travel can be fun if one journeys with companions who want to have a great time; who put their hidden demons on hold and who let the child in them flourish.

Now I really understand why karaoke is such a potent bonding tool in this country: singing your love songs in public is therapy and not just theater. And why a poignant love song can make you cry in the middle of a man-made lake on a sultry afternoon, especially when someone you love won’t love you in return because she can’t.

Vacations are supposed to be about having fun. But I guess a lot of Pinoy tourists seem to have forgotten that since they lock themselves up in their own private cocoons as they travel by bus, plane or ship. The “secret” is to meet people. Trash your xenophobia, smile and the kilometers will morph from tedium into a ribbon of brilliant memories.

Old churches are majestic pictures in stone. Breathtaking natural wonders show nature at its most creative. But only people—the group you travel with and those you meet along the way—can create great memories from a great adventure.

I took more than 400 digital pictures of the journey on my granddaddy Canon SLR. If you think that’s a lot, think again. Our two photographers took over 2,000 shots and the bloggers took over a thousand more, some of which they immediately posted online.

But I relate my photos to the people I traveled with and that’s what makes those photos special. So, many of us became fast friends and bonded. But bonding seems too tame a word to describe the intense emotional ties formed by creative people packed in a bus for a whole week.

Looking back, I guess I felt like that apocryphal clueless tourist who strives to blend in with the locals but who winds up looking like a tourist to everyone but himself. Perhaps the ever present digicam is a dead giveaway. Or like that out-of-town businessman who drops by for a convention and loads up on souvenirs to prove to himself that he’s been somewhere.

I mean, I would have liked to stay longer at each of those spots we visited. But this was a voyage of discovery and I think many of us did discover enough to want us to return for more. And now, I guess we realize we aren’t tourists any longer but citizens of another world—the world of tourism.

Day 1: Cagayan (Jan. 25)

The distance from Quezon City, the jump off point for Lakbay Norte to Tuguegarao, capital of Cagayan, is some 340 km. That’s a tough 10-hour drive for a first leg, which is why we left at 8:00 pm on Sunday, Jan. 24 so we could sleep most of the long way north. Our host, the people from the North Philippines Visitors Bureau (NPVB), welcomed us as we drove along NLEX into the northern night.

Vince Araneta, NPVB executive vice president, noted this first ever Lakbay Norte was organized to show media that North and Central Luzon are now more tourist friendly, hence the tour’s theme, “Rediscover the North.” Tourism infrastructure is in place or is building, he said. Local tourism offices are ready and willing to assist tourists.

NPVB, which is leading this rebirth of tourism in Northern Philippines, is being supported by a growing number of corporate sponsors including Smart, MacDonald’s, Robinson’s, Dizzytab and the Manila North Tollways Corporation, and by the convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs) in the provinces we visited.

We rolled into rustic Tuguegarao at around 6:00 am: dawn had yet to rise over the imposing Tuguegarao Cathedral in the heart of the capital. The trek to Tuguegarao was uneventful, which is saying a lot since traveling to this northernmost city in Luzon could take up to a day in the old days. My father, an Ibanag born and raised in Aparri, Cagayan, resisted taking us to his hometown because the roads north were alternately muddy, dusty and cratered. The roads were bad for one’s back and temper.

As it turned out, Cagayan was the appropriate choice as our first destination on this trek. The trip north was ho hum, which gave me and most of my mates a good night’s sleep.  I awoke for the first time in Nueva Ecija (where we had a “piss stop”) and for the second as we entered Tuguegarao.

The Cagayanos later lavished so much attention on us they won my vote as the most hospitable province in Lakbay Norte (my ethnic roots notwithstanding). My thanks to the Tuguegarao city government and the Cagayan North Convention and Visitor’s Bureau for this fulsome display of Ibanag hospitality.

Ibanag cuisine: deliciously “dry”

The most delightful surprise in Cagayan, however, was re-discovering authentic Ibanag cuisine. Ibanag food is noted for its lavish use of garlic, which is abundantly grown in Cagayan, and a resulting “dryness” when compared to the “sweeter” cuisine of say, the Pampangos.

Our first encounter with Ibanag cuisine on this trip was during the breakfast served barely an hour after our arrival at dawn on the 25^th. After close to half a day on the road you’d expect anything to taste great, even a bowl of instant chicken mami soaked in tepid water.

The buffet set before us by the city government, however, was representative of the best in traditional Ibanag cuisine. It was “alien” cuisine for most of my travel mates (mostly Metro Manilans), except for a few of the bloggers and NPVB people who’d visited Cagayan before. You can tell how a stranger likes “foreign” food by the way he winces: more winces don’t add up to a good review. Leaving a dish practically untouched on his table says volumes about his reaction to a foreign flavor.

There weren’t that many untouched dishes this cold morning, however. The Manileños gushed over the lingering flavor of “sinanta,” the Ibanag soup made from Ibanag dry miki (or “dinaddit”), sotanghon, shrimp and chicken in a distinctive orange “atswete” broth.

The large Tuguegarao garlic longganisa (dry, crunchy, non-oily and non-fat), “carabeef tapa” and “pansit batil-patong” (scrambled quail eggs, ground pork, crushed chicaron and minced liver) created a delightful impression on us visitors. I returned for seconds. Sinanta was our choice for the best of the lot.

The Ibanag or Ybanag, by the way, are the dominant ethnic group in Cagayan and number some 500,000 persons or half the province’s population. The word Ibanag is derived from the Ibanag word for river: “bannag.” In this case, the river is the Cagayan River, the lifeblood of the province and the longest in the Philippines. Ibanag means “People of the River.”

Exploring Cagayan

This satisfying introduction to Ibanag cuisine carried us through our first sightseeing trip of the tour. First up, of course, was the Basilica Minore of Our Lady of Piat, the miraculous patroness of Cagayan. “Piat” is the Ibanag word for grace. The town of Piat also houses a museum showcasing Cagayan’s religious artifacts.

It was also at Piat where our group had its first taste of “pawa,” a glutinous Ibanag “kakanin” made from flour and filled with crushed peanuts. Chewing on “pawa” felt as if you were chewing bubblegum, except for the peanuts.

The other tourist attractions on our fast paced first-day included the very popular (the Callao Caves and its many humorously named “rooms”) and the relatively unknown (the “Kalingkingan Festival” in Peñablanca town. This festival along the banks of the Pinanacauan River is named after the Kalingkingan, a local bird whose abundant droppings enrich the soil). Kayaking along the river was a delight for those among us who were more daring that afternoon.

The Callao Caves rest along the banks of this river, a tributary of the even larger Cagayan River. Callao (pronounced “kal-lao” and not “kal-yao”) is Ibanag for, you guessed it, the “kalaw” or hornbill, a bird that once flourished in the area of the caves but that has since migrated elsewhere.

After some five hours exploring the environs of the Pinanacauan River on foot and by kayak, we headed back to Tuguegarao for a dinner consisting of more Ibanag fare. My roommate was Poch Jorolan, a jolly travel writer and tourism official from Pampanga. Both of us had a well-deserved good night’s sleep at the cozy Las Palmas de San Jose hotel at San Jose Village, which is five minutes by car from the city center and 10 minutes from the airport.

Unlike the larger hotels where most of our fellow travelers were billeted, Las Palmas looks and feels like a huge mansion. An ongoing expansion will add 34 more rooms to this growing hotel, said Myrna Guzman, general manager.

“Nanna” and “iffun”

The following morning saw another sumptuous Ibanag breakfast, but even more lavish than that of the previous day. In addition to the sinanta and Ibanag longganisa we had gotten used to, our palates now had to contend with the formidable Ibanag “kakanin.”

Our breakfast host, Bles Diwa, tourism director for the Cagayan Valley Region, egged us to partake of “nanna,” the special Ibanag bibingka.  Made from a special strain of millet grown in the Sierra Madre mountains, nanna looks almost like melting vanilla ice cream and tastes somewhat like bibingka but sweeter. We were told that making nanna is a closely guarded secret known only to six families in all of Cagayan.

There was also “pinnakkufu,” a delicious rice cake made from upland glutinous rice. A demi tasse of Tuguegarao’s famous chocolate drink made from special cacao complemented these offerings.

Our attention was then drawn to a rare Ibanag delicacy called “iffun.” It would have been just another dish made of ground small fish spiced with ginger, onion and tomatoes if we weren’t told this miniature fish makes its appearance only once a year, hence iffun’s reputation as a rare and pricey delicacy at P3,000 per kilo. Fit for a king, most certainly. The dish disappeared in an instant.

Following this welcome start to the day, we toured some of Cagayan’s most famous historic churches on the road south to La Union, the next provincial stop on our trek. First on “church road” was the St. James Church at Iguig and its famous Calvary Hills featuring life-size sculptures depicting the 12 Stations of the Cross. We then stopped to admire the Saint Philomene Church in Alcala, the oldest church in Cagayan, built from red brick made from a rare red clay called “fulay” indigenous to Cagayan.

The road then took us to the San Jacinto de Polonia Church at Camalaniugan and its belfry housing the Philippines’ oldest church bell (forged in 1595 and named Sancta Maria). Also visited were the ruins of the old Camalaniugan Church and a “horno” or kiln used to bake the red bricks so popular among builders during the Spanish era.

A most interesting historic town is Lal-lo, which in Spanish times was famous as Ciudad de Nueva Segovia, one of the first four cities in “Las Islas Filipinas.” Lal-lo became the capital of Cagayan in 1839.

Also at Lal-lo is the oldest road in the Philippines, Calle Real, which spans the length of this old town on the banks of the Cagayan River. What also made our sojourn at Lal-lo memorable was the welcoming show staged by the town. We were treated by school children to ethnic and cultural dances and warmly greeted by the townspeople.

Thank you, Cagayan

Most of us probably associate the Pamplona Church with “dinobong,” which is rice mixed with coconut milk steamed inside sections of bamboo. The paste like delicacy has a wonderfully sweet taste and we were told it could stay fresh for up to a week with refrigeration. Mine made it home in good enough condition to be eaten.

We then bade goodbye to smiling Cagayan and graceful Tuguegarao, the “Premier Ibanag City,” as we left Pamplona for further adventures at the popular beaches of La Union and in disciplined Ilocos Norte.

Ninoy Aquino in the Korean War

THE KOREAN WAR (1950 to 1953) was a decisive event in the career of the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., Martyr of Democracy and one of the greatest Filipino heroes of the post-war era. 

The nationwide fame Ninoy achieved as a War Correspondent in the Korean War opened doors that led to a meteoric political career cut short by Martial Law and his assassination on Aug. 21, 1983.

Ninoy was one of an elite group of Filipino journalists who covered the Korean War for Philippine newspapers, wire services and radio stations. These men and a lone woman were our country’s first War Correspondents. They retain this honor to this day since the Philippines has not fought in a foreign war since the Korean War.

The young Ninoy Aquino, Korean War Correspondent

My father, the late Johnny Villasanta, was one of these war correspondents and a competitor of Ninoy’s. My father, then 31 years old, wrote about the 10^th Battalion Combat Team in 1950 for a pool of newspapers including The Evening News (the leading afternoon daily), his employer.  Ninoy also wrote about the 10^th BCT, the only BCT he covered during his tour in Korea.

Among my family’s cherished possessions is a letter my father wrote on Oct. 6, 1950 to his parents describing his first meeting and first impression of the young Ninoy as a War Correspondent.

Last Dec. 15, 2010, Ninoy and my father (both deceased) were conferred the “Korean War Hero Medal” by South Korea for their work as War Correspondents in the Korean War. President Noynoy Aquino received the award on behalf of his father during a special awarding ceremony.

Ninoy and my father were among 14 Filipinos so honored during ceremonies at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.  Ernesto Carolina, Administrator of the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, delivered an inspiring talk on the Philippines’ role in the war as guest of honor.

Ninoy in Korea

Ninoy was more than a month short of his 18^th birthday (Nov. 27) when he stepped onto war torn Korea as a War Correspondent for The Manila Times, the Philippines’ oldest broadsheet and the leading morning newspaper at the time.

Among the many stories Ninoy reported on for The Manila Times about the 10th BCT were “Troops given big send-off,” (Sept. 3, 1950); “Ojeda leads Xth in heroic assault; Filipinos gain glory” (Apr. 17, 1951) and “PI Xth recrosses ‘38’ and Ojeda recalls retreat; morale up” (Apr. 13, 1951).

He received the Philippine Legion of Honor in 1951 for his Korean War reporting, the youngest Filipino conferred the country’s highest civilian award. Ninoy then studied law at the University of the Philippines but quit law to return to journalism.

It’s probably fair to assume that if Ninoy hadn’t become the “Boy Wonder of Philippine Politics,” he would have instead taken a career in journalism. His career after the Korean War points to this.

In 1952, he became the Manila Times’ foreign correspondent for Southeast Asia, covering the Indo-China War. He was then posted to Malaysia during “The Emergency’ and wrote about that country’s efforts to defeat its communist insurgency.

Despite his fame and success as a politician, journalism remained Ninoy’s vocation. In the 1960s, he hosted a weekly TV series, “Insight,” on Channel 5 and stopped only after his arrest during Martial Law in 1972.

Momentous national events, however, cut short his return to journalism. In 1954, Ninoy was appointed by Pres. Ramon Magsaysay as personal emissary to Luis Taruc, leader of the communist Hukbalahap movement that was waging a rebellion against the government.

Ninoy went into the hills with a fellow former newsman, Manuel Manahan, and negotiated the surrender of Taruc, thereby helping end the communist rebellion in 1955.

Boy correspondent

Accounts of how he got to Korea vary, but seem to illustrate a boyish brashness that would later in his career earn him the sobriquet, “Young Man in a Hurry.”

“When I was 17, I was a national hero!” Ninoy told a foreign writer in 1968.

“I was the youngest newspaper reporter in Korea. None of the other Philippine journalists wanted to go to war because they had wives and families. So I volunteered. The Manila Times agreed to send me and so I left the next day before the editor had a chance to change his mind!”

That famous journalist, the late Max Soliven, recounted a version of how Ninoy got to Korea.

“When The Times was casting about for someone to cover what was happening to the Philippine contingent in the Korean War, Ninoy jumped at the chance,” wrote Soliven in 2003 during the 20^th anniversary of Ninoy’s assassination.

“He cajoled the newspaper’s Brooklyn-born editor, Dave Boguslav, and its publisher, Joaquin ‘Chino’ Roces, to send him to Korea.

“But he was only 17! What could a ‘boy correspondent’ do? When the two hesitated (Chino exclaimed, ‘What will your mother say?’), Ninoy simply hitched a ride on a military plane and was in Korea sending dispatches before his two bosses realized that he had jumped the gun on them. The Times’ editors, Boguslav and Joe Bautista, soon came to appreciate that gung ho quality which was to rocket Aquino to fame.

“Ninoy was a hard-nosed newspaperman--and what set him apart from so many others was precisely his nose for news.

“‘You get the facts,’” Dave Boguslav told him, “‘and I’ll take care of the grammar’.” Ninoy delivered (Boguslav would lock himself in his private office to patiently translate the boy reporter’s dispatches ‘into English’)--and a star reporter was born.”

A newspaperman at heart

Soliven jokingly recalls Ninoy’s admission that his sacking by Soliven as a reporter for UP’s student newspaper motivated Ninoy into becoming a newspaperman.

“I first met Ninoy on the day I fired him,” Soliven wrote.

“I was a junior in A.B. Law and managing editor of the school paper, The Guidon. Here was that cub reporter writing such atrocious copy. I sent for him, and he showed up at the Quonset hut in which we had our one-room office in Padre Faura. Ninoy was just over 15: a lanky, big-eared freshman with a crew-cut.

 “Aquino,” I growled, “Are you related to the late Senator Benigno?”

Ninoy’s grin went from ear to ear. “My father, sir.”

 “Well, Aquino,” I shot at him. “Your father was a great man in his time, but you are a Godawful writer.”

“Years later, he would crack that same broad grin of his, and jokingly recall that I had launched him on his journalistic career by kicking him out of The Guidon.

“Because Ninoy went on to join the country’s biggest newspaper, The Manila Times (where grammar, we Timesmen used to joke, was not necessary and the proofreading was so bad that it didn’t matter, really, whether you spelled the word right).

Why Korea?

And why did he want to cover the Korean War? Fellow journalist and Aquino family friend, the late Teddy Benigno, offers this explanation:

“He said not having made his mark yet as a journalist, young and inexperienced as he was, if he covered the Korean War with spectacular verve, this would make up. And if, perchance he would die in a blaze of journalistic glory, Chino Roces at the Manila Times would embellish the editorial hall with a ‘Benigno Aquino Jr. Room’ in his memory.”

“That was Ninoy, dreaming all the time, living in a fantasy world that was not really fantasy for he would make it real.

“Well, he did not die in Korea. He saw it and he covered it as Norman Mailer covered war in his classic ‘The Naked and the Dead.’ In several battles, dead bodies piled up on him. He had to wade out of the refuse of dismembered limbs and bodies, the deafening roar of battle as mortar, cannon, bomb and napalm rained.

“Ninoy was right there in the ebb and flow of men doomed to fight, to suffer and die, talking the short, sputtering language of the soldier trudging from foxhole to foxhole. This was Ninoy Aquino’s first lessons in courage, a 16-year-old Filipino war correspondent with his mother’s milk not yet completely dry on his lips.”

Ninoy Aquino. Hero. Newspaperman. Korean War veteran.

(Published in 2011)

Binondo: cornerstone of Filipino-Chinese friendship

FILIPINO AND CHINESE HISTORY fuse together at the district of Binondo in the City of Manila. Binondo is renowned as Manila’s Chinatown and is the oldest Chinatown in the world. It was founded in 1594 during Spain’s colonization of the Philippines.

Binondo, however, is neither the Philippines nor China.

A walk through Binondo's crowded and noisy streets; the conversations in Lan-nang mingled with Filipino and English words; Filipinos hawking Chinese charms and “Tsinoys” or Chinese Filipinos passionately discussing Philippine politics can leave a tourist confused as to the exact character of this place called Binondo.

Binondo looks Chinese. On second thought, it is Chinese. But it also looks more Filipino than Chinese. One sees more Filipinos on its streets than Chinese.

This "exotic differentness" is at the core of Binondo's enduring “otherworldly” charm. By not being really this or that, Binondo becomes whatever place a visitor decides it should be.

The Chinese Filipino Arch of Goodwill along Ronquillo St., the southern entrance to Binondo

For a tourist from Hong Kong, Binondo can become Kowloon. A Singaporean might feel transported back to Outram, site of the city-state's Chinatown.

A Mainlander will probably be reminded of Xiamen, Shenzhen or the coastal town where he grew up. A visitor from Taiwan will find virtually no difference between his native Hokkien and the Philippine Hokkien spoken in Binondo's streets, where it is called Lan-nang.

For this reason, Binondo is as familiar as home. But this isn’t exactly home. So, Binondo becomes an adventure to be explored.

And that's an important reason why thousands of tourists crowd its crowded streets every week. They want an adventure within an adventure in the Philippines’ most historic city.

This is Binondo.

A friendship across centuries

Binondo's location has ensured its status as a key player in Philippine history. In 1594, only 20 years after the Spaniards established Manila, the Spanish colonial government provided a parcel of land about a square kilometer in size outside the city’s walls and across the Pasig River to Chinese that had converted to Roman Catholicism.

This enclave was part of the mighty Kingdom of Tondo that was ruled by a Filipino “Lakan”or King. The Kingdom of Tondo began trading with the Ming Dynasty in China during the 1370s, some 150 years before the Spaniards invaded the Philippines in 1521.

Mention of the Kingdom of Tondo can be found in “The Ming Shi-lu Annals” that recorded the arrival of an envoy from Luzon to the Ming Dynasty. The annals state that Ming China considered Tondo’s rulers not as mere chieftains, but Kings.

Chinese goods were shipped to Tondo (dōngdū in Pinyin or Simplified Chinese), the most powerful kingdom in Luzon, from the port city of Fuzhou in Fujian Province. The Ming gave a monopoly over Philippine trade to Fuzhou, which it shared at times with the port city of Quanzhou, also in Fujian.

It was also during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that the first Chinese settlers came to the Philippines. The Chinese were well-received by the peoples in the various Philippine kingdoms. They lived together in harmony with Filipinos, eventually intermarrying with them.

The Catholic Chinese that relocated in 1594 north of the Walled City of Manila (eventually called “Intramuros” by the Spaniards) were, therefore, among friends.

The land given them was called “Binundok,” a Tagalog word meaning hilly terrain. At the time, Binundok was a one-and-a-half kilometer long wedge shaped islet surrounded by streams. The Spaniards corrupted the word “Binundok” and named the islet, “Isla de Binondo,” or the Isle of Binundok.

Apart from being given tax-free land, Catholic Chinese were also granted self-government by the Spanish conquerors.

Non-Catholic Chinese in Manila, however, enjoyed no such privileges. They were herded together outside Intramuros (or “Extramuros”) and packed into a ghetto called the “Parian” that was within easy range of the many cannon lining the city’s huge defensive walls.

Those cannon would be used to murderous effect by the Spaniards under Governor General Pedro Bravo de Acuña against the Chinese, both Catholic and non-Catholic, during the “Chinese Revolt of 1603.”

This revolt is bitterly referred to as the “Luzon Tragedy” (Lǚsòngcǎnàn) by ancient Chinese historians because of the massacre of some 20,000 Chinese by the Spaniards, the Japanese and a few subjugated Philippine tribes allied with them. The Chinese would again rise in revolt in 1639 and would again be silenced.

These revolts, however, would be the only instances on Philippine soil in which Filipinos and Chinese fought each other in their shared 700-year history.

The Second World War saw Chinese Filipinos battle alongside Filipinos from 1942 to 1945 to defeat a brutal common foe: the Imperial Japanese Empire.

Which brings us to the present day.

With their past anchored in tolerance and friendship, Filipinos and Chinese have maintained a beneficial symbiotic relationship to this day. One sees many examples of this symbiosis in Binondo.

The historic Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz along Ongpin St

The business of Binondo is business

Many of the businesses in Binondo are owned by Chinese Filipinos but many of their employees are Filipinos.

One can see this dichotomy in the many shops along Ongpin Street, Binondo’s main road. In practically all of them, there are one or two Chinese or Chinese Filipinos (more likely the owners) surrounded by Filipino employees.

The 2007 census counted just 1.1 million Chinese Filipinos in a population of more than 85 million Filipinos. Binondo has a population of some 12,000 persons, most of whom are Filipinos and not Chinese Filipinos.

The influence of Chinese Filipinos on the national economy, however,has been enormous: from the start of the 20^th century until the 1970s when the exodus to Makati City began in earnest, they made Binondo the Philippines’ de facto financial and business capital.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, Juan Luna Street was famous as the location of the headquarters of most large Philippine corporations.

The country’s most important banking and financial firms and institutions also made Binondo their base. Until the 1970s, most of the big foreign banks including HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of America had their head offices in Binondo.

Among the leading Filipino banks with headquarters in Binondo, or more specifically Escolta Street, were the Philippine National Bank and China Banking Corporation.

Binondo was also the site of the Manila Stock Exchange, the Philippines’ first stock exchange, from its founding in 1927 until 1992 when it merged with the Makati Stock Exchange to form the Philippine Stock Exchange with twin headquarters in Makati City and Pasig City.

It was also Binondo that gave birth to the department store as we know it today. Escolta Street became the most famous address in Manila, and perhaps the entire country until the 1970s because of the presence of “haute” shopping havens for the elite such as Aguinaldo’s Department Store, Berg’s, Syvels and Oceanic Commercial.

The lack of land, however, killed Binondo’s future as the center of Philippine business and finance.

Makati, a neglected small town to the southeast of Binondo infamous for its seedy nightlife, began replacing Binondo in this role in the 1960s thanks largely to real estate developers (many of whom were Chinese Filipinos) with an abundance of cheap Makati land in their portfolios.

What Binondo was left with after the business diaspora to Makati was some of the priciest real estate in the Philippines. Ironically, this was another factor that made business firms flee to other cities and towns in Metro Manila.

Too many people at Juan Luna St. in Binondo

Tourism, nationalism and religion

Binondo today remains a center for business—but mostly those classified as SMEs or small to medium enterprises. These are the businesses one sees aplenty along Binondo’s many crowded streets and alleys.

Binondo’s close proximity to the Port of Manila, the Philippines’ largest, is fueling the growth of Binondo’s SMEs by allowing them to sell an inexhaustible array of imported goods (mostly from China) at cheap prices.

The Big Boys, however, have fled to Ayala Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Eastwood City and Ortigas Avenue.

Along with an overabundance of SMEs, which are your basic “mom and pop stores,” what strikes one about Binondo is a deep nostalgia for a glory that fled this district a scant five decades ago.

That nostalgia, however, has been translated by Chinese Filipinos and other imaginative Filipinos into a thriving tourist industry. Binondo has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Manila, especially among overseas Chinese, of course.

Tourists have become a growing source of business revenues in Binondo. Today, Binondo is famous for its tourism offerings that include bargain shopping; exotic “Binondo cuisine;”places and Chinese Filipinos linked to the Philippine Revolution of 1896; religious sites and historic buildings that harken to its past greatness.

“Food tourism” is now a staple of a growing number of tourism packages in Binondo. The presence of dozens of mom and pop Chinese restaurants concocting hundreds of dishes and variations on these dishes has created a lively and popular tourism sector called “Food Tourism.”

Adventurous “foodies” (or gastronomes, in more formal conversation) take a group of fellow foodies or tourists on a walking tour of select Binondo restaurants. Here, they savor the Chinese menu while the foodie tour guide spews titillating facts about the cuisine, the restaurant or Binondo Cuisine, in general.

The tour starts at about US$30 per person.  You can find video of some of these Food Tours or Food Trips on YouTube.

Chinese good luck charms and tikoy for sale at Ongpin St in Binondo

Binondo: a center for Catholicism

There’s also historical and cultural tourism focusing on the role of Chinese Filipinos in the Philippines’ revolution for independence against Spain in 1896, and the saga of Roman Catholicism in the Philippines.

Surprisingly, the centerpiece of both these tourism forms is a Roman Catholic Church: the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz located at Plaza Lorenzo Ruiz along Ongpin St.

This church is a holy shrine to both revolutionary nationalism and pious religiosity. It is named after St. Lorenzo Ruiz, a Chinese Filipino martyred defending Roman Catholicism in 1637. He was tortured then murdered by the Japanese in Nagasaki after refusing to recant his Catholic faith.

St. Lorenzo Ruiz is the first Filipino saint; he was canonized or declared a saint in 1987. The Chinese Filipino saint was born in Binondo to a Chinese father and a Filipina, both of whom were Catholics. St. Lorenzo Ruiz learned Chinese (most probably Hokkien) from his father and the Tagalog dialect from his mother.

He was educated by friars of the Order of Preachers, popularly known at the Dominicans, who were in charge of the Binondo Church during that time. The saint served as an altar boy in this church that is today named after him.

Another Filipino who will become a Roman Catholic Saint is also Chinese Filipino. She is Venerable Ignacia del Espíritu Santo, also known as Mother Ignacia.

She was born in 1663 to a Chinese father (he was from Xiamen) and a Filipina. She is cherished for founding the Congregation of the Sisters of the Religious of the Virgin Mary, the first convent with approved pontifical status in the Philippines. This order runs the network of Saint Mary’s colleges and academies throughout the Philippines.

She was declared Venerable, two stages before sainthood, in 2007. Her eventual canonization is widely expected.

The three major forms of transportation in Binondo (from the left): the horse drawn calesa, a pedicab and the jeepney

Binondo and the Philippine Revolution

The Binondo Church’s link to the Philippine Revolution of 1896 is by way of Andres Bonifacio and his wife, Gregoria de Jesus. They were married at the Binondo Church in March 1893, eight months after Bonifacio and other patriots founded the Katipunan.

The Katipunan (or The Association) was the secret Philippine revolutionary society that ignited the Philippine Revolution against Spain on August 26, 1896. Bonifacio led the Katipunan as its “Supremo” (Supreme Leader) from 1895 until his death in 1897.

Katipunan is the short form of the Tagalog phrase, “Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan,” or the Highest and Most Honorable Society of the Children of the Nation. The Katipunan defeated the Spaniards in 1898 and declared Philippine independence that same year.

Ongpin Street, Binondo’s two kilometer long main road, is named after a Chinese Filipino hero who helped the Katipunan win the war for independence against Spain in 1898.

Roman Ongpin, like St. Lorenzo Ruiz, was born in Binondo. Ongpin’s father came from Fujian while his mother was a Filipina.

Ongpin became a merchant and established an art supplies store called El 82. His store, however, was not an ordinary art supplies dealer.

With Ongpin’s consent, Filipino revolutionaries of the “Katipunan” met at his store to plan their attacks on the Spaniards. During the Revolution of 1896, he used the store’s revenues to buy guns and ammunition for the “Katipuneros ”(or Filipino rebels belonging to the Katipunan). When his store burned down in 1898, Ongpin donated the insurance money to the Katipunan.

Ongpin, however, was eventually caught and imprisoned by the Spaniards but not executed.  He was also jailed by the Americans for supporting Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, who led the Katipuneros (following Bonifacio’s death) in the Philippine War for Independence against the Americans from 1899 to 1902.

Ongpin died in 1912 and was buried wearing a “Barong Tagalog,” the formal wear of male Filipinos. It was a stirring affirmation of what Ongpin, a Chinese Filipino, thought of himself: he was, heart and soul, a Filipino.

His imposing bronze statue is located beside the Minor Basilica of San Lorenzo Ruiz.

Photos by Art Villasanta

(Published in Zest Air Inflight Magazine, 2012)