By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
First Posted 19:30:00 07/10/2010
INQUIRER.net
LEGAZPI CITY – Consistent with Bicol’s spicy food culture, a restaurant in the city serves spicy ice cream. How cool or hot is that?
Flavored with “siling labuyo” (chili), every scoop of the ice cream has tamed spiciness that blends well with cold creamy sweetness. And that can only be found at the 1st Colonial Grill, a homegrown restaurant that has built a name of its own.
But sili ice cream is just their dessert along with other innovative flavors like pili, coffee, “tinutong na bagas” (toasted rice), malunggay, kalamansi, and melon.
The 1st Colonial Grill also serves native dishes that remind one of his grandmother’s cooking, say restaurant owners Elmer Boy and Rowena Aspe.
The thriving restaurant, which now has a branch in a mall in this city, a newly opened one in Daraga, Albay, and a food court outlet in a mall in Naga City, was built on April 25, 2004.
No competition
Since then, for a homegrown restaurant, it has been competing well with national industry players and fast food giants.
Or it has not actually been competing at all. The 1st Colonial Grill stands securely in line with fast foods and big-named restaurants.
Elmer Boy says they never intended to compete with what had been there.
He says the 1st Colonial Grill has its own niche – people who want healthy comfort food with a twist served in a homey ambiance.
“Whenever our family had visitors from other places, we realized there were few choice restaurants we could bring them to. So we decided to put up the 1st Colonial Grill,” recalls Elmer Boy.
The 1st Colonial Grill is an offshoot of the Aspe family’s 60-branch pawnshop business in the Bicol region.
It is named such because its first branch was located in an old building built in the 1930s during the American Colonial Period.
Elmer Boy says they found it wiser not to compete but to offer something new, “If you compete with the fast food chains, the quality and the price will be sacrificed.”
Critics
With their three children as their critics, the Aspe couple know that the food they serve is of supreme quality and delectable taste.
“Before adding a new dish in the menu, we first have our children taste it. If they like it, then we offer it to our customers,” says Rowena.
The restaurant uses local ingredients from local sources, she says. They have once been offered cheaper and processed imported meat but they refused. While it could have saved them money, it would be very unhealthy.
Rowena says they also use vegetable oil to significantly reduce cholesterol levels in their dishes.
“We put health on top priority, because we and our children eat the food ourselves,” she adds.
Good food
The 1st Colonial Grill caters to all A, B, and C markets. “Everyone wants good food,” Elmer says.
The 1st Colonial Grill’s best sellers are Bicol Express (chilies cooked in gata); the Colonial Fried Chicken served in whole or half, which is an original family recipe; and the five-spice grilled chicken, which is marinated in five special spices.
Another best seller is vegetable kare-kare. The vegetables are supplied locally while the sauce and shrimp paste (bagoong) are homemade.
One can also have a taste of deep-fried vegetarian spring rolls, which are stuffed with mushroom, cabbage, carrots, vermicelli, bean sprouts, peanuts, and coriander served with a special sauce.
The restaurant also offers chop suey with a twist, that is, chop suey cooked in coconut milk with buko meat.
If there is Bikol Express, there can never be without “Tin-nu-to” (laing). This is dried gabi (taro) leaves cooked in coconut cream.
One cannot just say no to the restaurant’s Baby Back Ribs, a primal cut of pork meat cooked to be relatively tender, rubbed with spices and grilled.
All these main course dishes perfectly match with the unique “tinapa” (smoked fish) fried rice served in a “kawali.”
Service with love
Rowena says the entire family knows the ins and outs of the business, “We know how to do everything, from washing the dishes to cleaning the restroom.”
This is important if they want to pass on a culture of quality service on to their staff, she adds.
“We train the staff members ourselves. All we look for as qualifications are dedication and trainability,” says Elmer.
He claims most of their employees have been with them for a long time and they have seen how the business has grown over the years. This loyalty has bred in them a sense of ownership.
And the secret to a thriving business?
“To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity,” Elmer says.
Showing posts with label features. Show all posts
Showing posts with label features. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
4 Side Trips from Mayon
(Sunday Inquirer Magazine)
by Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
SUNLIGHT hits Leizel Peñaverde’s face as she awakens after a 10-hour bus ride from Manila. She immediately grabs the camera from her bag and captures the magnificent view of Mayon Volcano from her bus window.
She is seeing the world-famous volcano for the first time. Natives believe that when a visitor like Peñaverde sees it naked or free of clouds, it is a welcoming sign of blessing.
Peñaverde, 27, of Malate, Manila has joined her husband’s company outing. The tourists aboard chartered buses drop by the famous Cagsawa Ruins in Daraga, Albay for a closer view of Mt. Mayon.
Peñaverde says she is amazed by the volcano’s beauty, which she only used to see in textbooks. But tourists like her might ask, is there more to an Albay trip than viewing the 2,462-meter volcano?
Legazpi City, the capital city and regional center of Bicol, is strategically located in the province’s second district, from which tourists can easily jump off to other destinations in Albay and adjacent provinces.
Considered as the gateway to Bicolandia, Legazpi City can be reached via a 45-minute plane ride or a 10-hour land trip from Manila.
If you’re staying in any of the hotels in the city, there are many interesting places you can visit and new experiences to enjoy. Here’s a shortlist:
1. Ligñon Hill
Just a five-minute drive from any point in Legazpi City is Ligñon Hill, which offers a panoramic view of Mt. Mayon and a 360-degree view of the city and the neighboring Daraga town. It also has a 40-meter-long and 7-foot-deep tunnel which the Japanese forces used as an arsenal during World War II.
On top of the hill is a 320-meter zipline from which tourists can soar through the chilly air, with the scenic Mt. Mayon in the background. There are photographers to capture the picture-perfect moment.
Dianne Recomono, 16, of Pasig City tried the zipline and could not hide the excitement in her face as she plummeted through the hill’s lush green contour.
“This is a unique and worthwhile experience. It’s definitely something I would recommend to my friends,” says Recomono, who was with her family for a four-day summer vacation.
The hill also hosts other summer adventures and extreme sports, such as hiking, biking, rappelling, paintball, and airsoft – all managed by Globe Quest Adventure. Zipping and rappelling are at P200 per person while paintball costs P300 for 50 bullets, mask, vest, and a paintball gun.
Another adventure sport is biking on dried up gullies at the foot of Mayon. The gullies serve as pathways of loose sand and volcanic rocks swept away by heavy rains from the volcano’s slopes. Four-wheel All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) are available for rent at P1,500.
2. Forest adventure
The Mayon Volcano Natural Park is a favorite destination for nature lovers. Its main entry point is in Barangay (village) Lidong in Sto. Domingo town.
The 5,486-hectare park surrounding Mt. Mayon is a protected area that covers eight Albay towns. Aside from its rich flora and fauna, the park has 18 rivers and creeks. The scattered fertile plains, rough and narrow ridges and deep ravines add up to a great adventure.
Local mountain guides are ready to assist neophyte hikers and campers. Camp 1 is 1,650 meters above sea level, says Aldwin Orendain, 18, the park’s gatekeeper.
An alternative entrance to the forest nearer the city is in Barangay Buyuan in Legazpi City, where the Mayon Outdoor Group Association assists hikers and campers.
Other ecotourism destinations in Albay within a two-hour drive from the city are the boiling lake in Manito town, the 91-meter Busay Falls in Malilipot town, the ice-cold Vera Falls in Malinao town, and the black sand beaches of Sto. Domingo town.
There is also a butterfly garden and fruit bat sanctuary at the Bacman Geothermal Fields at the border of Manito, Albay and Bacon, Sorsogon.
Sorsogon province is home to the whale sharks of Donsol and the placid Bulusan Lake ideal for kayaking.
3. Native souvenirs
There are many souvenir shops at the Cagsawa Ruins in Daraga town which offer Bicol’s native products like cutlery, refined clay jars, pili nut candy varieties, abaca bags and crafts. There are also P300 shirts hand-painted with Mt. Mayon.
At Alne’s Crafts and Souvenirs, prices of abaca bags range from P100 to P650 depending on materials and design. Abaca slippers, P25 to P65 each, are also available.
The Mayon Artstone shop in Cagsawa sells sculptures made of hardened Mayon rocks. Its 50-year-old artist-owner Vicente Ajero, also known as “Enteng Bato,” uses only a hammer and a large nail as chisel to form different images. He also fashions bracelets and necklaces from volcanic stones.
Other souvenir shops can be found at the Legazpi City Grand Terminal. Bargain hunters are assured that the native bags here are half the price of those displayed at the Metro Manila malls.
For even greater bargains on local crafts, plus a learning experience, tourists can go directly to the abaca-weaving villages in Malilipot town, just a 30-minute drive from Legazpi.
For food pasalubong, the 74-year-old Albay Pilinut Candy in the Old Albay District is just a few minutes away from the Legazpi City Domestic Airport. Some of its bestsellers are the crispy pili, toffee rolls, yemas de pili, pili butternuts, and salted pili.
Pili is one of Bicol’s distinct produce. Pili nut is known as the Philippine almond, which is at par with the macadamia nut. A classic favorite delicacy is the sweet bar-shaped mazapan (pili nuts mixed with milk, egg, and sugar).
4. Bicol food
For a unique food experience, there are local restaurants that offer fusion cuisines.
The Small Talk Café offers Pasta Mayon, which is made from triangular ravioli pasta garnished to resemble Mayon’s nearly perfect cone. It is topped with sizzling red sauce, reminiscent of flowing lava.
Other Small Talk favorites are the laing (taro leaves in coconut milk) pasta and pizza, and the Bicol Express pasta.
Have you ever eaten spicy ice cream? It can be weird but truly delectable. You can try it at the First Colonial Grill, which has two branches in the city. It offers “native Bicol food with a twist.”
They have the homemade Bikol’s Pride Ice Cream with various local flavors such as sili (chili pepper), pili, tinutong (toasted rice), malunggay and lemon.
Other Colonial Grill favorites are tinapa fried rice, buko chopsuey, vegetable kare-kare, five-spice chicken, tinuto (a local variety of laing), kilawing tuna, and Bikol Express.
To visit all these sites, tourists can avail themselves of 24-hour taxi and car rental services. Local transport service provider Early Riser offers car rental services for as low as P250 per hour.
With a three-day stay in Legazpi, a tourist can already have an adventure-packed summer vacation. Indeed, in Bicol, there are places and experiences that can never be captured by photographs on crisp four-sided postcards.
by Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
SUNLIGHT hits Leizel Peñaverde’s face as she awakens after a 10-hour bus ride from Manila. She immediately grabs the camera from her bag and captures the magnificent view of Mayon Volcano from her bus window.
She is seeing the world-famous volcano for the first time. Natives believe that when a visitor like Peñaverde sees it naked or free of clouds, it is a welcoming sign of blessing.
Peñaverde, 27, of Malate, Manila has joined her husband’s company outing. The tourists aboard chartered buses drop by the famous Cagsawa Ruins in Daraga, Albay for a closer view of Mt. Mayon.
Peñaverde says she is amazed by the volcano’s beauty, which she only used to see in textbooks. But tourists like her might ask, is there more to an Albay trip than viewing the 2,462-meter volcano?
Legazpi City, the capital city and regional center of Bicol, is strategically located in the province’s second district, from which tourists can easily jump off to other destinations in Albay and adjacent provinces.
Considered as the gateway to Bicolandia, Legazpi City can be reached via a 45-minute plane ride or a 10-hour land trip from Manila.
If you’re staying in any of the hotels in the city, there are many interesting places you can visit and new experiences to enjoy. Here’s a shortlist:
1. Ligñon Hill
Just a five-minute drive from any point in Legazpi City is Ligñon Hill, which offers a panoramic view of Mt. Mayon and a 360-degree view of the city and the neighboring Daraga town. It also has a 40-meter-long and 7-foot-deep tunnel which the Japanese forces used as an arsenal during World War II.
On top of the hill is a 320-meter zipline from which tourists can soar through the chilly air, with the scenic Mt. Mayon in the background. There are photographers to capture the picture-perfect moment.
Dianne Recomono, 16, of Pasig City tried the zipline and could not hide the excitement in her face as she plummeted through the hill’s lush green contour.
“This is a unique and worthwhile experience. It’s definitely something I would recommend to my friends,” says Recomono, who was with her family for a four-day summer vacation.
The hill also hosts other summer adventures and extreme sports, such as hiking, biking, rappelling, paintball, and airsoft – all managed by Globe Quest Adventure. Zipping and rappelling are at P200 per person while paintball costs P300 for 50 bullets, mask, vest, and a paintball gun.
Another adventure sport is biking on dried up gullies at the foot of Mayon. The gullies serve as pathways of loose sand and volcanic rocks swept away by heavy rains from the volcano’s slopes. Four-wheel All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) are available for rent at P1,500.
2. Forest adventure
The Mayon Volcano Natural Park is a favorite destination for nature lovers. Its main entry point is in Barangay (village) Lidong in Sto. Domingo town.
The 5,486-hectare park surrounding Mt. Mayon is a protected area that covers eight Albay towns. Aside from its rich flora and fauna, the park has 18 rivers and creeks. The scattered fertile plains, rough and narrow ridges and deep ravines add up to a great adventure.
Local mountain guides are ready to assist neophyte hikers and campers. Camp 1 is 1,650 meters above sea level, says Aldwin Orendain, 18, the park’s gatekeeper.
An alternative entrance to the forest nearer the city is in Barangay Buyuan in Legazpi City, where the Mayon Outdoor Group Association assists hikers and campers.
Other ecotourism destinations in Albay within a two-hour drive from the city are the boiling lake in Manito town, the 91-meter Busay Falls in Malilipot town, the ice-cold Vera Falls in Malinao town, and the black sand beaches of Sto. Domingo town.
There is also a butterfly garden and fruit bat sanctuary at the Bacman Geothermal Fields at the border of Manito, Albay and Bacon, Sorsogon.
Sorsogon province is home to the whale sharks of Donsol and the placid Bulusan Lake ideal for kayaking.
3. Native souvenirs
There are many souvenir shops at the Cagsawa Ruins in Daraga town which offer Bicol’s native products like cutlery, refined clay jars, pili nut candy varieties, abaca bags and crafts. There are also P300 shirts hand-painted with Mt. Mayon.
At Alne’s Crafts and Souvenirs, prices of abaca bags range from P100 to P650 depending on materials and design. Abaca slippers, P25 to P65 each, are also available.
The Mayon Artstone shop in Cagsawa sells sculptures made of hardened Mayon rocks. Its 50-year-old artist-owner Vicente Ajero, also known as “Enteng Bato,” uses only a hammer and a large nail as chisel to form different images. He also fashions bracelets and necklaces from volcanic stones.
Other souvenir shops can be found at the Legazpi City Grand Terminal. Bargain hunters are assured that the native bags here are half the price of those displayed at the Metro Manila malls.
For even greater bargains on local crafts, plus a learning experience, tourists can go directly to the abaca-weaving villages in Malilipot town, just a 30-minute drive from Legazpi.
For food pasalubong, the 74-year-old Albay Pilinut Candy in the Old Albay District is just a few minutes away from the Legazpi City Domestic Airport. Some of its bestsellers are the crispy pili, toffee rolls, yemas de pili, pili butternuts, and salted pili.
Pili is one of Bicol’s distinct produce. Pili nut is known as the Philippine almond, which is at par with the macadamia nut. A classic favorite delicacy is the sweet bar-shaped mazapan (pili nuts mixed with milk, egg, and sugar).
4. Bicol food
For a unique food experience, there are local restaurants that offer fusion cuisines.
The Small Talk Café offers Pasta Mayon, which is made from triangular ravioli pasta garnished to resemble Mayon’s nearly perfect cone. It is topped with sizzling red sauce, reminiscent of flowing lava.
Other Small Talk favorites are the laing (taro leaves in coconut milk) pasta and pizza, and the Bicol Express pasta.
Have you ever eaten spicy ice cream? It can be weird but truly delectable. You can try it at the First Colonial Grill, which has two branches in the city. It offers “native Bicol food with a twist.”
They have the homemade Bikol’s Pride Ice Cream with various local flavors such as sili (chili pepper), pili, tinutong (toasted rice), malunggay and lemon.
Other Colonial Grill favorites are tinapa fried rice, buko chopsuey, vegetable kare-kare, five-spice chicken, tinuto (a local variety of laing), kilawing tuna, and Bikol Express.
To visit all these sites, tourists can avail themselves of 24-hour taxi and car rental services. Local transport service provider Early Riser offers car rental services for as low as P250 per hour.
With a three-day stay in Legazpi, a tourist can already have an adventure-packed summer vacation. Indeed, in Bicol, there are places and experiences that can never be captured by photographs on crisp four-sided postcards.
10 Ways to Have a Whale of a Time
(Sunday Inquirer Magazine)
by: Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
IS this the summer you’ve planned for what Time Magazine once hailed as the “best animal encounter in Asia”?
If so, you still have a few weeks left for what experts say is the best time for sighting the famous whale shark in the small fishing town of Donsol, Sorsogon.
Locally known as “butanding,” the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is the world’s largest fish, referred to as a “gentle giant” because of its calm and friendly ways in the water. The appearance of schools of whale shark along the coasts of Donsol have drawn eager tourists to the town each year, making it one of the country’s top three ecotourism sites.
There are two ways to get to Donsol from Manila. One is via Legazpi City in Albay Province, which can be reached in 45 minutes by plane or 10 hours by bus. From Legazpi City, it’s an hour ride by land to reach Donsol. Regular air fare from Manila is around P3,500 one way. But you can watch out for promo fares, available through early bookings and offered at great discounts by any of the budget airlines. Deluxe bus fare is around P950 one way.
The other way is via Sorsogon City in Sorsogon province, which is a 12-hour bus ride from Manila. From Sorsogon City, Donsol is also an hour’s travel by land.
Upon arrival in Donsol, tourists should first register at the Donsol Visitors’ Center at the coastal village of Dangcalan. The village, about a 10-minute ride from the town center, serves as the jump-off point to the whale shark interaction sites.
The registration fee is P100 for domestic tourists and P300 for foreign tourists.
If you’re planning a trip to Donsol soon, here are some tips that will help you have a whale of a time.
1. Six is the ideal number for group travel to Donsol. There’s nothing superstitious about the number six -- it’s just that the boats available for rent can accommodate only a maximum of six passengers. Boat rental is P3,500, so you’d be getting the best deal if you can round up a party of six family members or friends to share the experience with. Another option, of course, would be to share a boat with other tourists—and make new friends.
2. Pack light, a tried and tested travel tip that works out here as well as anywhere. You’re free to bring your own snorkeling gear—like mask, water vest, fins, and snorkel—but all these are also readily available for rent at the Donsol Visitors’ Center, manned by the local tourism office. Life vests are also available in the boats. You can bring your own food, but you may want to try the available fare from any of the tourism-accredited food establishments in the town. Or go real local and head for the town market—this way, you help boost the local economy as well.
3. Backpacking is more economical than packaged tours. Besides being more adventurous and exciting, backpacking gives you the freedom and privacy to spend your time the way you want it while on vacation with loved ones. There is enough information available online on how to get to Donsol. Resorts like the Vitton and Woodland can arrange your whale-watching activities with the tourism office, which is just adjacent to it. Annie Buenaagua, the resort’s booking officer, says many tourists, 70 percent of them foreigners, call her up directly to make arrangements. The resort also offers airport pickup and drop-off services.
4. Get the right accommodation that suits your style and budget. There’s a whole range available—from resorts to homestay services. There are four resorts along the Dangcalan coastline: Vitton and Woodland, Elysha, Amor, and Casabianca. Vitton and Woodland (vittonandwoodlandresorts@gmail.com) has 43 rooms and 5 duplex houses available at P1,500 to P3,500 per night. Amenities include air-conditioning, hot-and-cold showers, living rooms, kitchenettes, and bay-front verandas. The resorts are all located in Dangcalan, nearer the whale shark action site, unlike the homestay services found in downtown Donsol. Homestay is cheaper, however, at only P500 per night so an increasing number of tourists, especially budget travelers, opt for this type of accommodation.
Others do, however, not only because it’s cheaper but because they want to be immersed in the town’s culture, says Rogelyn Santiago-Dimaano, 39, who owns and manages the Santiago Home-Stay, the family’s ancestral house, whose entire upper floor with three rooms is available for rent. The old house has been there since 1933.
5. Bring cash not cards. There are no ATM machines in Donsol and there are, as yet, no establishments accepting credit cards.
6. Listen well to the briefing. All registered tourists are required to attend a briefing at the Donsol Visitors’ Center. Each boat has one designated Butanding Interaction Officer (BIO). Follow the rules faithfully. There are penalties if you break any of them—but more than that, the rules are there for your safety.
7. Try to avoid the holiday rush. Butanding interaction officer Alan Amense says the peak season for whale-watching is actually from December to May, but the holiday crush is traditionally around Holy Week. So it’s best to plan your whale shark sighting away from this week. Not only does it save the whale sharks from undue stress, it also spares you from long queues at the Visitors’ Center.
8. Respect local culture. Environment preservation is part of Donsol’s culture, adds Amanse. This culture has developed as the tourism industry boosted the poor town’s economy, making the local folk appreciate and cherish the natural wonders that put food on their table. The whale sharks contribute P50 million annually to national economy, says Bicol tourism director Nini Ravanilla. Amanse advises tourists not to litter and to minimize their impact on the environment. Touching the whale shark is also strictly prohibited.
9. Best diving time is from 7 to 10 a.m. It is best to be at Donsol the night before your dive. This way, you’ll be able to get enough rest and prepare for a delightful whale-watching experience. Amanse says that during the peak season, there are around four to 15 whale shark sightings a day. This season alone, the World Wildlife Fund, which has a research center in Donsol, identified 160 whale sharks in the area.
10. Visit other tourist attractions in and around Donsol. Make the most of your trip to this part of the Bicol Region by seeing other sights. Try the night river cruise through the Sogod and Donsol rivers, where thousands of fireflies light up the night sky. Boats are available for rent at P1,250. Other interesting sidetrips are the Tangculan Mangrove Park near Dangcalan village and carabao-riding at Rawan Village.
And, if you’re still ready for more adventure, schedule a manta ray watching trip to nearby Ticao Island. •
by: Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
IS this the summer you’ve planned for what Time Magazine once hailed as the “best animal encounter in Asia”?
If so, you still have a few weeks left for what experts say is the best time for sighting the famous whale shark in the small fishing town of Donsol, Sorsogon.
Locally known as “butanding,” the whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is the world’s largest fish, referred to as a “gentle giant” because of its calm and friendly ways in the water. The appearance of schools of whale shark along the coasts of Donsol have drawn eager tourists to the town each year, making it one of the country’s top three ecotourism sites.
There are two ways to get to Donsol from Manila. One is via Legazpi City in Albay Province, which can be reached in 45 minutes by plane or 10 hours by bus. From Legazpi City, it’s an hour ride by land to reach Donsol. Regular air fare from Manila is around P3,500 one way. But you can watch out for promo fares, available through early bookings and offered at great discounts by any of the budget airlines. Deluxe bus fare is around P950 one way.
The other way is via Sorsogon City in Sorsogon province, which is a 12-hour bus ride from Manila. From Sorsogon City, Donsol is also an hour’s travel by land.
Upon arrival in Donsol, tourists should first register at the Donsol Visitors’ Center at the coastal village of Dangcalan. The village, about a 10-minute ride from the town center, serves as the jump-off point to the whale shark interaction sites.
The registration fee is P100 for domestic tourists and P300 for foreign tourists.
If you’re planning a trip to Donsol soon, here are some tips that will help you have a whale of a time.
1. Six is the ideal number for group travel to Donsol. There’s nothing superstitious about the number six -- it’s just that the boats available for rent can accommodate only a maximum of six passengers. Boat rental is P3,500, so you’d be getting the best deal if you can round up a party of six family members or friends to share the experience with. Another option, of course, would be to share a boat with other tourists—and make new friends.
2. Pack light, a tried and tested travel tip that works out here as well as anywhere. You’re free to bring your own snorkeling gear—like mask, water vest, fins, and snorkel—but all these are also readily available for rent at the Donsol Visitors’ Center, manned by the local tourism office. Life vests are also available in the boats. You can bring your own food, but you may want to try the available fare from any of the tourism-accredited food establishments in the town. Or go real local and head for the town market—this way, you help boost the local economy as well.
3. Backpacking is more economical than packaged tours. Besides being more adventurous and exciting, backpacking gives you the freedom and privacy to spend your time the way you want it while on vacation with loved ones. There is enough information available online on how to get to Donsol. Resorts like the Vitton and Woodland can arrange your whale-watching activities with the tourism office, which is just adjacent to it. Annie Buenaagua, the resort’s booking officer, says many tourists, 70 percent of them foreigners, call her up directly to make arrangements. The resort also offers airport pickup and drop-off services.
4. Get the right accommodation that suits your style and budget. There’s a whole range available—from resorts to homestay services. There are four resorts along the Dangcalan coastline: Vitton and Woodland, Elysha, Amor, and Casabianca. Vitton and Woodland (vittonandwoodlandresorts@gmail.com) has 43 rooms and 5 duplex houses available at P1,500 to P3,500 per night. Amenities include air-conditioning, hot-and-cold showers, living rooms, kitchenettes, and bay-front verandas. The resorts are all located in Dangcalan, nearer the whale shark action site, unlike the homestay services found in downtown Donsol. Homestay is cheaper, however, at only P500 per night so an increasing number of tourists, especially budget travelers, opt for this type of accommodation.
Others do, however, not only because it’s cheaper but because they want to be immersed in the town’s culture, says Rogelyn Santiago-Dimaano, 39, who owns and manages the Santiago Home-Stay, the family’s ancestral house, whose entire upper floor with three rooms is available for rent. The old house has been there since 1933.
5. Bring cash not cards. There are no ATM machines in Donsol and there are, as yet, no establishments accepting credit cards.
6. Listen well to the briefing. All registered tourists are required to attend a briefing at the Donsol Visitors’ Center. Each boat has one designated Butanding Interaction Officer (BIO). Follow the rules faithfully. There are penalties if you break any of them—but more than that, the rules are there for your safety.
7. Try to avoid the holiday rush. Butanding interaction officer Alan Amense says the peak season for whale-watching is actually from December to May, but the holiday crush is traditionally around Holy Week. So it’s best to plan your whale shark sighting away from this week. Not only does it save the whale sharks from undue stress, it also spares you from long queues at the Visitors’ Center.
8. Respect local culture. Environment preservation is part of Donsol’s culture, adds Amanse. This culture has developed as the tourism industry boosted the poor town’s economy, making the local folk appreciate and cherish the natural wonders that put food on their table. The whale sharks contribute P50 million annually to national economy, says Bicol tourism director Nini Ravanilla. Amanse advises tourists not to litter and to minimize their impact on the environment. Touching the whale shark is also strictly prohibited.
9. Best diving time is from 7 to 10 a.m. It is best to be at Donsol the night before your dive. This way, you’ll be able to get enough rest and prepare for a delightful whale-watching experience. Amanse says that during the peak season, there are around four to 15 whale shark sightings a day. This season alone, the World Wildlife Fund, which has a research center in Donsol, identified 160 whale sharks in the area.
10. Visit other tourist attractions in and around Donsol. Make the most of your trip to this part of the Bicol Region by seeing other sights. Try the night river cruise through the Sogod and Donsol rivers, where thousands of fireflies light up the night sky. Boats are available for rent at P1,250. Other interesting sidetrips are the Tangculan Mangrove Park near Dangcalan village and carabao-riding at Rawan Village.
And, if you’re still ready for more adventure, schedule a manta ray watching trip to nearby Ticao Island. •
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Catanduanes learns to conquer waves
By Ephraim Aguilar
Baras, Catanduanes
INQUIRER.net
MORE THAN A REMINDER OF THE ISLAND’S sheer submission to the world’s largest ocean, the strong waves that smash Puraran in Baras town in Catanduanes are every surfer’s dream.
Tagged as the “The Majestic,” the turbid waters of the coastal village are no longer whipped-up props of strong typhoons that frequent the province.
Most surfers say Puraran has the most powerful and challenging waves and deem it the “last stop” or the country’s ultimate surfing destination.
In the 1980s, a group of Australians discovered the surfing potential of Puraran, according to Allan Tanael, 28, one of the local surfers. By word-of-mouth, more visitors came, riding the waves by day and sleeping in the village’s public school at night in the absence of resorts.
Tanael says those who kept coming back decided to build a beach-front cottage on his grandparents’ land. His family’s Majestic Puraran Beach Resort now stands there.
Tanael learned surfing when he was 12 years old, simply by watching foreigners handle the furious waves. His only problem: he did not have any surfboard.
One day, to his delight, one of the foreign tourists gave him a surfboard while serving as their guide.
“If they like you, they would give you one. Sometimes, we would mend broken surfboards and reuse them because we could not afford one,” Tanael said.
An original Australian or Hawaiian short board costs P10,000 to P25,000, and a long board, P30,000 to P35,000.
Surfing may be a rich man’s sport for a rural Filipino, but it has gained popularity in this fifth-class municipality.
In 1997, emerging surfers from Baras and other towns formed the Catanduanes Surfing Association. (Tanael is now president of the group.)
The provincial government also held the island’s first surfing competition that year. This month, the Baras government held its first surfing and wall-climbing clinic. A hundred locals, mostly youths, signed up for free lessons.
During the event, the Department of Tourism in Bicol donated 20 fiberglass surfboards.
Joey Cuerdo, president of Power Play Events Management, which organized the four-day clinic, says the participants had been very receptive and enthusiastic. The clinic introduced not just surfing but other beach sports, like Frisbee and wall climbing.
“When rural folk come to the beach, all they usually want to do is sit down, chat or drink,” Cuerdo says. “They are not used to people inviting them to a game. Unless you approach them, they would simply gaze from a corner.”
“But you can see their interest because they would watch the game,” he adds.
Cuerdo says the clinic made the people aware of “sports in their backyard.”
“I would tell them they should be proud to be from Catanduanes, because they have the waves that only few places in the country have,” he says.
What sets “The Majestic” apart from others is the shape, Tanael says.
“During peak season, the waves would form a perfect tube. The waves are smooth and would break gently,” he says.
The Puraran wave is a “reef break,” the kind that breaks over a coral reef or a rocky seabed. It can be the most dangerous yet most rewarding for surfers seeking adventure.
The waves are as high as six feet in October, when the winds are strongest. It is also the annual schedule for the professional surfing competition in Baras.
Tanael says Puraran welcomes neophyte surfers who can try certain areas where the waves are not as high. During typhoons, the waves reach 10-15 feet, forcing residents to flee their homes for safe ground.
Cuerdo believes the challenging waves of Puraran can produce competitive surfers.
Surfing draws people of any race who feel being “cool,” Cuerdo says. “Surfer and cool ... there seems to be a parallelism. That would also explain why surfing brands are really popular. Surfing is cool.”
But Tanael says it has not yet reached a point when surfing is a career alternative. He teaches in a public elementary school.
Provincial tourism officer Carmel Garcia sees a brighter prospect for tourism, although, she said, more manpower, ample promotion, better facilities and private sector partnership are needed.
In Puraran, Majestic Beach Resort and Puting Baybay (White Sand) Beach Resort offer accommodations.
“At least the road network is far better now. Only few roads are left to be cemented,” Garcia said. Baras is a 90-minute drive from the capital town of Virac.
Virac can be reached directly by plane from Manila or a four-hour ferry ride from Tabaco City in Albay. Its airport hosts two airlines—Cebu Pacific and Zest Air. It has at least 11 hotels and inns.
Baras, Catanduanes
INQUIRER.net
MORE THAN A REMINDER OF THE ISLAND’S sheer submission to the world’s largest ocean, the strong waves that smash Puraran in Baras town in Catanduanes are every surfer’s dream.
Tagged as the “The Majestic,” the turbid waters of the coastal village are no longer whipped-up props of strong typhoons that frequent the province.
Most surfers say Puraran has the most powerful and challenging waves and deem it the “last stop” or the country’s ultimate surfing destination.
In the 1980s, a group of Australians discovered the surfing potential of Puraran, according to Allan Tanael, 28, one of the local surfers. By word-of-mouth, more visitors came, riding the waves by day and sleeping in the village’s public school at night in the absence of resorts.
Tanael says those who kept coming back decided to build a beach-front cottage on his grandparents’ land. His family’s Majestic Puraran Beach Resort now stands there.
Tanael learned surfing when he was 12 years old, simply by watching foreigners handle the furious waves. His only problem: he did not have any surfboard.
One day, to his delight, one of the foreign tourists gave him a surfboard while serving as their guide.
“If they like you, they would give you one. Sometimes, we would mend broken surfboards and reuse them because we could not afford one,” Tanael said.
An original Australian or Hawaiian short board costs P10,000 to P25,000, and a long board, P30,000 to P35,000.
Surfing may be a rich man’s sport for a rural Filipino, but it has gained popularity in this fifth-class municipality.
In 1997, emerging surfers from Baras and other towns formed the Catanduanes Surfing Association. (Tanael is now president of the group.)
The provincial government also held the island’s first surfing competition that year. This month, the Baras government held its first surfing and wall-climbing clinic. A hundred locals, mostly youths, signed up for free lessons.
During the event, the Department of Tourism in Bicol donated 20 fiberglass surfboards.
Joey Cuerdo, president of Power Play Events Management, which organized the four-day clinic, says the participants had been very receptive and enthusiastic. The clinic introduced not just surfing but other beach sports, like Frisbee and wall climbing.
“When rural folk come to the beach, all they usually want to do is sit down, chat or drink,” Cuerdo says. “They are not used to people inviting them to a game. Unless you approach them, they would simply gaze from a corner.”
“But you can see their interest because they would watch the game,” he adds.
Cuerdo says the clinic made the people aware of “sports in their backyard.”
“I would tell them they should be proud to be from Catanduanes, because they have the waves that only few places in the country have,” he says.
What sets “The Majestic” apart from others is the shape, Tanael says.
“During peak season, the waves would form a perfect tube. The waves are smooth and would break gently,” he says.
The Puraran wave is a “reef break,” the kind that breaks over a coral reef or a rocky seabed. It can be the most dangerous yet most rewarding for surfers seeking adventure.
The waves are as high as six feet in October, when the winds are strongest. It is also the annual schedule for the professional surfing competition in Baras.
Tanael says Puraran welcomes neophyte surfers who can try certain areas where the waves are not as high. During typhoons, the waves reach 10-15 feet, forcing residents to flee their homes for safe ground.
Cuerdo believes the challenging waves of Puraran can produce competitive surfers.
Surfing draws people of any race who feel being “cool,” Cuerdo says. “Surfer and cool ... there seems to be a parallelism. That would also explain why surfing brands are really popular. Surfing is cool.”
But Tanael says it has not yet reached a point when surfing is a career alternative. He teaches in a public elementary school.
Provincial tourism officer Carmel Garcia sees a brighter prospect for tourism, although, she said, more manpower, ample promotion, better facilities and private sector partnership are needed.
In Puraran, Majestic Beach Resort and Puting Baybay (White Sand) Beach Resort offer accommodations.
“At least the road network is far better now. Only few roads are left to be cemented,” Garcia said. Baras is a 90-minute drive from the capital town of Virac.
Virac can be reached directly by plane from Manila or a four-hour ferry ride from Tabaco City in Albay. Its airport hosts two airlines—Cebu Pacific and Zest Air. It has at least 11 hotels and inns.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Dethroned Bicol beauty queen fights for dream
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
First Posted 02:35:00 04/09/2010
INQUIRER.net
BATO, CAMARINES SUR—Streamers of congratulations still hang in Barangay San Vicente here for its instant celebrity-daughter, Maria Venus Raj, who would have represented the country in the Miss Universe pageant in August after winning the most coveted Binibining Pilipinas title.
But her reign had been cut short by organizers less than a month ago.
“My fight is now more than just chasing a dream. It is about clearing my soiled reputation. It is about standing up for people who are poor and born out of wedlock. It is a fight for acceptance,” Raj said in an interview at her house made of wood, bamboo and “anahaw” leaves.
She has been living in the house without electricity for 21 years.
Binibining Pilipinas Charities Inc. (BPCI) took back her crown when it discovered false information in her birth certificate—that she was born in San Vicente, Bato, Camarines Sur, when she and her mother said she was actually born in Doha, Qatar; that her father is a Catholic Filipino when, in fact, he is an Indian; and that her parents were married when they were actually not.
Mother is OFW
During the pre-pageant’s panel and individual interviews in November last year, Raj had said she was born in Qatar, where her mother, Ester Bayonito, had worked as a domestic helper from 1986 to 1988, and was brought to the Philippines a month later.
Raj has professed her innocence, saying she had nothing to do with the information her aunt put in the document when her birth was registered three years after. She discovered the inconsistency when she applied for a college scholarship at the Francis Papica Foundation, which had not been corrected until she was dethroned.
Raj said she and her mother had no idea that she would someday be joining a national beauty pageant and that they were not able to correct the errors in her birth certificate because this would entail extra expenses.
Local contests
The youngest in a brood of five children, Raj started joining local beauty pageants when she was 17 years old, as well as oratorical contests at San Vicente High School.
“Whenever I won, I would give the prize money to my mother, who saved it up to buy seeds for the planting season,” she said. Her mother, now 59, is a tenant farmer, dressmaker and “hilot” in their village.
“My dream, more than to be a beauty queen or a model, is to just really give my family a comfortable life,” said Raj, who graduated, cum laude, with a journalism degree at Bicol University.
Raj was Miss Bicolandia in 2007 and Miss Philippines-Ecotourism in the Miss Philippines Earth pageant in 2008. With her winnings, she started buying land on installment basis for her mother.
“We moved from one place to another … about four times. It was hard not to have your own place. When there were conflicts we were always forced to leave,” Raj said in Bicol.
Ma. Lourdes Pili, Raj’s English teacher at San Vicente High School, said she used to coach Raj for oratorical contests.
“What always amazed me about Venus was her determination to succeed. Whenever she joined contests, we would borrow uniform and shoes because hers were old and faded. But she was never discouraged,” Pili said.
Resign or be dethroned
In a press conference in Naga City on Wednesday, Raj recalled how hard she cried when she was told about the decision of BPCI officials to strip her of her title.
Her predicament, she said, started a day after she was crowned on March 6 when Stella Marquez de Araneta, pageant head, supposedly expressed shock when she learned that she was born in Doha.
Raj said she was given two options—resign or be dethroned.
She said she was coaxed to sign a letter of resignation and was advised not to talk about the reason for it to protect her and her family from “judgmental people who would belittle them because of her past.”
When she told the organizers that she could not just sign a document without the presence of a lawyer, they met again for several hours only to tell her that she would be dethroned, she said.
Raj’s replacement will be the contest’s second runner-up, Helen Nicolette Henson, as the first runner-up, Dianne Necio was only 17 years old then.
According to Miss Universe pageant rules, the winner of the title must be 18 years old.
Poor girls’ dreams
Anjo Santos, Raj’s talent manager and mentor, said he was shocked at the sudden decision of BPCI. “It killed the dreams of poor beautiful girls like her who came from poor families to pursue their ambitions to succeed.”
She was never given due process, he added.
Because of embarrassment over her dethronement less than a month after she was crowned and the fear of being the talk of the town, Raj and her mother would not go out of their house.
Raj’s name is now all over the blogosphere. Fan pages on the social networking site Facebook were created to petition her reinstatement as the “country’s rightful candidate in the Miss Universe pageant.”
Free legal support
Lawyer Francis Padua Papica, who sponsored Raj’s college education, and another counsel volunteered to defend her for free.
A netizen, who requested to be identified only as King and a student of Bicol University, said his fan page would average around 300 interactions a day and had more than a thousand members.
One of Raj’s friends, Christian Jay Millena, 21, of Daraga town in Albay, believes BPCI has not dealt with Raj’s case with tact and decency.
“Take note that the BPCI even failed to properly inform the public and even the persons concerned of the real issue why Venus was dethroned,” he said.
Even Dante Jimenez, chair of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and also a Bicolano, pledged his group’s full legal support during the press conference held at Avenue Plaza Hotel in Naga.
‘Handiwork of losers’
“I think this is the handiwork of losers who wanted to dethrone a legitimate winner,” Jimenez said.
Some 50 children from poor communities welcomed Raj with flowers to dramatize her roots and support from fellow Bicolanos. Before leaving, she told them not to give up on their dreams even though how poor they were.
“She is an inspiration to ordinary girls with beauty and brains who are just daughters of poor farmers or fisherfolk. She is a perfect inspiration to ordinary Filipinos who can tell the whole world that economic status is not a hindrance to fulfill a career using their God-given talent,” said Santos, Raj’s talent manager. With a report from Juan Escandor Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon
Inquirer Southern Luzon
First Posted 02:35:00 04/09/2010
INQUIRER.net
BATO, CAMARINES SUR—Streamers of congratulations still hang in Barangay San Vicente here for its instant celebrity-daughter, Maria Venus Raj, who would have represented the country in the Miss Universe pageant in August after winning the most coveted Binibining Pilipinas title.
But her reign had been cut short by organizers less than a month ago.
“My fight is now more than just chasing a dream. It is about clearing my soiled reputation. It is about standing up for people who are poor and born out of wedlock. It is a fight for acceptance,” Raj said in an interview at her house made of wood, bamboo and “anahaw” leaves.
She has been living in the house without electricity for 21 years.
Binibining Pilipinas Charities Inc. (BPCI) took back her crown when it discovered false information in her birth certificate—that she was born in San Vicente, Bato, Camarines Sur, when she and her mother said she was actually born in Doha, Qatar; that her father is a Catholic Filipino when, in fact, he is an Indian; and that her parents were married when they were actually not.
Mother is OFW
During the pre-pageant’s panel and individual interviews in November last year, Raj had said she was born in Qatar, where her mother, Ester Bayonito, had worked as a domestic helper from 1986 to 1988, and was brought to the Philippines a month later.
Raj has professed her innocence, saying she had nothing to do with the information her aunt put in the document when her birth was registered three years after. She discovered the inconsistency when she applied for a college scholarship at the Francis Papica Foundation, which had not been corrected until she was dethroned.
Raj said she and her mother had no idea that she would someday be joining a national beauty pageant and that they were not able to correct the errors in her birth certificate because this would entail extra expenses.
Local contests
The youngest in a brood of five children, Raj started joining local beauty pageants when she was 17 years old, as well as oratorical contests at San Vicente High School.
“Whenever I won, I would give the prize money to my mother, who saved it up to buy seeds for the planting season,” she said. Her mother, now 59, is a tenant farmer, dressmaker and “hilot” in their village.
“My dream, more than to be a beauty queen or a model, is to just really give my family a comfortable life,” said Raj, who graduated, cum laude, with a journalism degree at Bicol University.
Raj was Miss Bicolandia in 2007 and Miss Philippines-Ecotourism in the Miss Philippines Earth pageant in 2008. With her winnings, she started buying land on installment basis for her mother.
“We moved from one place to another … about four times. It was hard not to have your own place. When there were conflicts we were always forced to leave,” Raj said in Bicol.
Ma. Lourdes Pili, Raj’s English teacher at San Vicente High School, said she used to coach Raj for oratorical contests.
“What always amazed me about Venus was her determination to succeed. Whenever she joined contests, we would borrow uniform and shoes because hers were old and faded. But she was never discouraged,” Pili said.
Resign or be dethroned
In a press conference in Naga City on Wednesday, Raj recalled how hard she cried when she was told about the decision of BPCI officials to strip her of her title.
Her predicament, she said, started a day after she was crowned on March 6 when Stella Marquez de Araneta, pageant head, supposedly expressed shock when she learned that she was born in Doha.
Raj said she was given two options—resign or be dethroned.
She said she was coaxed to sign a letter of resignation and was advised not to talk about the reason for it to protect her and her family from “judgmental people who would belittle them because of her past.”
When she told the organizers that she could not just sign a document without the presence of a lawyer, they met again for several hours only to tell her that she would be dethroned, she said.
Raj’s replacement will be the contest’s second runner-up, Helen Nicolette Henson, as the first runner-up, Dianne Necio was only 17 years old then.
According to Miss Universe pageant rules, the winner of the title must be 18 years old.
Poor girls’ dreams
Anjo Santos, Raj’s talent manager and mentor, said he was shocked at the sudden decision of BPCI. “It killed the dreams of poor beautiful girls like her who came from poor families to pursue their ambitions to succeed.”
She was never given due process, he added.
Because of embarrassment over her dethronement less than a month after she was crowned and the fear of being the talk of the town, Raj and her mother would not go out of their house.
Raj’s name is now all over the blogosphere. Fan pages on the social networking site Facebook were created to petition her reinstatement as the “country’s rightful candidate in the Miss Universe pageant.”
Free legal support
Lawyer Francis Padua Papica, who sponsored Raj’s college education, and another counsel volunteered to defend her for free.
A netizen, who requested to be identified only as King and a student of Bicol University, said his fan page would average around 300 interactions a day and had more than a thousand members.
One of Raj’s friends, Christian Jay Millena, 21, of Daraga town in Albay, believes BPCI has not dealt with Raj’s case with tact and decency.
“Take note that the BPCI even failed to properly inform the public and even the persons concerned of the real issue why Venus was dethroned,” he said.
Even Dante Jimenez, chair of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and also a Bicolano, pledged his group’s full legal support during the press conference held at Avenue Plaza Hotel in Naga.
‘Handiwork of losers’
“I think this is the handiwork of losers who wanted to dethrone a legitimate winner,” Jimenez said.
Some 50 children from poor communities welcomed Raj with flowers to dramatize her roots and support from fellow Bicolanos. Before leaving, she told them not to give up on their dreams even though how poor they were.
“She is an inspiration to ordinary girls with beauty and brains who are just daughters of poor farmers or fisherfolk. She is a perfect inspiration to ordinary Filipinos who can tell the whole world that economic status is not a hindrance to fulfill a career using their God-given talent,” said Santos, Raj’s talent manager. With a report from Juan Escandor Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Business booms while waiting for big bang
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
LEGAZPI CITY--With more than 75,000 volcano-watchers flocking into Albay province this month alone, there were no vacant tables at the Small Talk Café on Sunday.
The Hotel St. Ellis, an expensive establishment that opened only this month, had just one room left on Tuesday night. Hotel Venezia was fully booked for five days until the 29th.
Taxi drivers say they’re averaging only three hours of sleep and car rental services are on round-the-clock operations.
Business is booming in Albay as thousands of adventure-seeking tourists are drawn to the restive Mayon Volcano with many even risking their lives to get close to the spectacular flowing lava, according to provincial authorities.
Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said 2,400 tourists a day had been pouring into the area since the famously active volcano started oozing lava on Dec. 14, compared with about 200 a day before.
“All the hotels are fully booked, even the cheapest ones,” Salceda said.
He said the tourists typically only stay overnight to view the crimson lava oozing from the volcano’s crater in the dark.
“It is like a slow-moving meteor show. You really feel awe when you see it,” he said.
Courting danger
However, Salceda said many tourists were also slipping past security patrols to enter the 8-kilometer danger zone around Mayon to get a close-up experience of the slow-moving lava column.
“There are enough thrill-seekers and, when you combine them with some enterprising local guides, they find their way in,” he said.
The military heightened security around Mayon on Monday after two foreign tourists were seen over the weekend riding all-terrain vehicles toward the volcano.
Salceda warned that although the lava was slow-moving, there was still a danger from volcanic ash that could mix with rainwater to form a lethal, fast-moving mudflow.
Such a confluence had claimed hundreds of lives in the past, most recently in 2006.
“It’s a big problem. I think the first violation of the zero casualty [record] will be a dead tourist,” said Salceda.
“At the moment of eruption, the local guides will have a better chance of getting out. The hapless tourist will be left behind,” he said.
Businesses here claim that their revenues have increased by as much as 30 percent since Mayon started becoming restive as tourists are drawn to the volcanic show.
Soaring revenues
At the Small Talk Café, diners came nonstop on Sunday. Café owner Bernadette Peralta said it was like Valentine’s Day, the only time of the year when sales would triple.
“We have even surpassed last year’s December sales when there was less competition,” said Peralta, noting that the café experienced similar high sales in 2006, when the volcano last erupted.
One of Small Talk’s specialties, Pasta Mayon, has also become some kind of attraction. The dish is made from the triangular ravioli pasta arranged to resemble Mayon’s nearly perfect cone. It is topped by a sizzling red sauce that looks like flowing lava.
Round-the-clock service
There is round-the-clock demand for car services from tourists asking to be driven to Ligñon Hill whose deck affords a full view of Mayon as well as a 360-degree vista of the city and neighboring Daraga town.
Harvey Santos Mayores, manager of the Early Riser Taxi Services, who drives one of his own units, said he is usually on the road until 2 a.m.
Edward Belda, a driver for the Benmar Transport Services, has been hiring himself out to media organizations covering the natural disaster by day and to lava-watching tourists by night.
The flag-down rate for taxicabs here is P30. Car rental rates range from P3,500 to P4,500 per day, depending on the length and duration of travel.
Tour guides
On ordinary days, 60-year-old Benny Rodriguez is a golf course caretaker in Barangay Padang. Now he earns extra as a tour guide.
He said many tourists wanting a closer view of Mayon would negotiate the rough climb to the Legazpi Golf Course, which is inside the 8-km extended danger zone. The course is just within the 5-km radius of the volcano.
Not being a regular guide, Rodriguez, whose clients include media people, tourists and celebrities, does not charge a fixed rate and accepts whatever the customer is willing to give.
He said local tourists tend to be more generous. Recently, a famous golf-playing television host paid him P1,000.
Chopper rides
Misibis Bay Raintree, a luxury island resort in the Albay Gulf and the Pacific Ocean, has noted a significant increase in revenues from its A-list market.
The resort on Cagraray Island offers to high-end clients a volcano adventure tour package, which includes a one-hour chopper ride or an ocean cruise to view Mayon from a safe distance.
Manager Ian Varona said there are precautions to take to ensure the safety of tourists but Mayon, one of the world’s wonders, should not be feared.
He said letting tourism thrive will help boost the local economy, generate more jobs and bring long-term benefits.
Losses suffered
Political economist Carl Ala of the University of the Philippines-Manila, who is now based in Bicol, said that increased business revenues because of the Mayon eruption were still nothing compared to the losses suffered.
“We should also see the calamity’s damage to crops. Many farmers were not able to harvest. The government’s relief spending amounts to P1.5 million daily,” Ala said.
Salceda, who earlier said that disaster tourism was not one of his government’s development strategies, estimated that 75,000 tourists came to Albay in December alone.
This one-month figure has already surpassed the number of tourists that arrived in the province in 2008, he said. With a report from Agence France-Presse
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
LEGAZPI CITY--With more than 75,000 volcano-watchers flocking into Albay province this month alone, there were no vacant tables at the Small Talk Café on Sunday.
The Hotel St. Ellis, an expensive establishment that opened only this month, had just one room left on Tuesday night. Hotel Venezia was fully booked for five days until the 29th.
Taxi drivers say they’re averaging only three hours of sleep and car rental services are on round-the-clock operations.
Business is booming in Albay as thousands of adventure-seeking tourists are drawn to the restive Mayon Volcano with many even risking their lives to get close to the spectacular flowing lava, according to provincial authorities.
Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said 2,400 tourists a day had been pouring into the area since the famously active volcano started oozing lava on Dec. 14, compared with about 200 a day before.
“All the hotels are fully booked, even the cheapest ones,” Salceda said.
He said the tourists typically only stay overnight to view the crimson lava oozing from the volcano’s crater in the dark.
“It is like a slow-moving meteor show. You really feel awe when you see it,” he said.
Courting danger
However, Salceda said many tourists were also slipping past security patrols to enter the 8-kilometer danger zone around Mayon to get a close-up experience of the slow-moving lava column.
“There are enough thrill-seekers and, when you combine them with some enterprising local guides, they find their way in,” he said.
The military heightened security around Mayon on Monday after two foreign tourists were seen over the weekend riding all-terrain vehicles toward the volcano.
Salceda warned that although the lava was slow-moving, there was still a danger from volcanic ash that could mix with rainwater to form a lethal, fast-moving mudflow.
Such a confluence had claimed hundreds of lives in the past, most recently in 2006.
“It’s a big problem. I think the first violation of the zero casualty [record] will be a dead tourist,” said Salceda.
“At the moment of eruption, the local guides will have a better chance of getting out. The hapless tourist will be left behind,” he said.
Businesses here claim that their revenues have increased by as much as 30 percent since Mayon started becoming restive as tourists are drawn to the volcanic show.
Soaring revenues
At the Small Talk Café, diners came nonstop on Sunday. Café owner Bernadette Peralta said it was like Valentine’s Day, the only time of the year when sales would triple.
“We have even surpassed last year’s December sales when there was less competition,” said Peralta, noting that the café experienced similar high sales in 2006, when the volcano last erupted.
One of Small Talk’s specialties, Pasta Mayon, has also become some kind of attraction. The dish is made from the triangular ravioli pasta arranged to resemble Mayon’s nearly perfect cone. It is topped by a sizzling red sauce that looks like flowing lava.
Round-the-clock service
There is round-the-clock demand for car services from tourists asking to be driven to Ligñon Hill whose deck affords a full view of Mayon as well as a 360-degree vista of the city and neighboring Daraga town.
Harvey Santos Mayores, manager of the Early Riser Taxi Services, who drives one of his own units, said he is usually on the road until 2 a.m.
Edward Belda, a driver for the Benmar Transport Services, has been hiring himself out to media organizations covering the natural disaster by day and to lava-watching tourists by night.
The flag-down rate for taxicabs here is P30. Car rental rates range from P3,500 to P4,500 per day, depending on the length and duration of travel.
Tour guides
On ordinary days, 60-year-old Benny Rodriguez is a golf course caretaker in Barangay Padang. Now he earns extra as a tour guide.
He said many tourists wanting a closer view of Mayon would negotiate the rough climb to the Legazpi Golf Course, which is inside the 8-km extended danger zone. The course is just within the 5-km radius of the volcano.
Not being a regular guide, Rodriguez, whose clients include media people, tourists and celebrities, does not charge a fixed rate and accepts whatever the customer is willing to give.
He said local tourists tend to be more generous. Recently, a famous golf-playing television host paid him P1,000.
Chopper rides
Misibis Bay Raintree, a luxury island resort in the Albay Gulf and the Pacific Ocean, has noted a significant increase in revenues from its A-list market.
The resort on Cagraray Island offers to high-end clients a volcano adventure tour package, which includes a one-hour chopper ride or an ocean cruise to view Mayon from a safe distance.
Manager Ian Varona said there are precautions to take to ensure the safety of tourists but Mayon, one of the world’s wonders, should not be feared.
He said letting tourism thrive will help boost the local economy, generate more jobs and bring long-term benefits.
Losses suffered
Political economist Carl Ala of the University of the Philippines-Manila, who is now based in Bicol, said that increased business revenues because of the Mayon eruption were still nothing compared to the losses suffered.
“We should also see the calamity’s damage to crops. Many farmers were not able to harvest. The government’s relief spending amounts to P1.5 million daily,” Ala said.
Salceda, who earlier said that disaster tourism was not one of his government’s development strategies, estimated that 75,000 tourists came to Albay in December alone.
This one-month figure has already surpassed the number of tourists that arrived in the province in 2008, he said. With a report from Agence France-Presse
Monday, December 28, 2009
Tourists look for best view of Mayon
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
First Posted 01:24:00 12/28/2009
INQUIRER.net
LEGAZPI CITY—Hotel Venezia is fully booked until Tuesday.
When tourists—from Asia, America and Europe—come, they would ask the front desk which part of Legazpi would give them the best view of the erupting volcano, especially at night.
Gail Narramore, a British-South African missionary, has found Mount Mayon a stunning sight when evening falls.
“It looks like a Christmas tree,” said Narramore, who founded the Albay-based charity group Tiwala Kids and Communities.
Front desk officer Pearl de Guzman told the Inquirer that guests checking into the 40-room hotel had increased since the 2,460-meter mountain started spewing lava two weeks ago.
Digvijay Ankoti, 29, came all way from India just to see the eruption. He drove from Manila to Legazpi with two other Indian friends, one of them married to a Filipino.
It was Ankoti’s first time to see a volcano on the brink of a possibly hazardous blast.
He and his companions have gone lava-watching, going to the top of Ligñon Hill, which offers a full view of the volcano when the sky is clear. The hilltop also offers a 360-degree view of this city and neighboring Daraga town.
Barred from danger zone
Marian Lacson-Singh, 32, one of Ankoti’s companions, said the lava trail was “magnificent,” which made their long drive from Manila worthwhile.
Ankoti said his group once tried to venture into a danger zone—an area within an 8-kilometer radius from the volcano’s flaming mouth—hoping they could get a closer look of the eruption.
The military barred them.
Other tourist sites
Manuel Montiero, 57, from Luxembourg, who also went Mayon-watching at the observatory, said he had seen the Taal, Pinatubo and Bulusan volcanoes but found Mayon most captivating.
Montiero voted for Mayon in the 7 Wonders of the World online search.
Tourism department offices were closed for the holidays and the exact number of tourists, foreign and domestic, who have come to Albay to watch the spectacle of an erupting volcano were not immediately available.
Aside from Mayon, other tourist destinations in Albay are the Misibis resort, Embarcadero commercial complex, and the Tiwi and Manito geothermal sites. Neighboring Sorsogon province offers whale shark-watching in Donsol town.
Disaster tourism
While tourists may have been drawn to the sight of lava cascading down the slopes of Mayon, the provincial government is not keen on encouraging “disaster tourism,” Gov. Joey Salceda said in an earlier interview.
“Disaster tourism is certainly not within the contemplation of the provincial development strategy, even if disaster risk reduction and tourism are integral components,” he said.
Salceda said the sudden surge of tourists was an unintended consequence of a volcanic eruption.
He said the increased tourist arrivals were reflected in the number of visitors Mayon-watching at the observatory (where the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology or Phivolcs is located), in increased visits by nongovernment organizations and sociocivic groups to evacuation centers, and in wider media coverage of Albay.
Bicol Tourism Director Nini Ravanilla described Mayon as a timeless tourist attraction.
The volcano has erupted 49 times since records began, claiming thousands of lives. In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed as lava buried the town of Cagsawa.
Deceptive calm
Alert Level 4 remains hoisted over Mayon, meaning a hazardous eruption is possible within days.
Volcanologists yesterday reiterated that while Mayon might be showing less visible signs of unrest, this could be a deceptive calm before a deadly eruption.
“Do not become complacent. The people only see what is coming out of the crater and that is often cloud covered. It is not just the observed phenomenon that matters. We also look at the quakes, the gas emitted and the swelling of the volcano,” warned Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum.
“We are telling the people, ‘Do not just count the number of quakes or what you see from the crater.’ It may look calm but it is not calm. It can still explode,” Solidum said in a radio broadcast.
“You might think it is taking a break but the volcano is still swelling,” he said, after the restive volcano produced fewer ash emissions on Sunday than in previous days.
2006 pattern
Solidum said the volcano could stay active for as long as two months, similar to its last eruption in 2006 when it simmered for months, dumping tons of ash on its slopes.
No one was killed by the eruption itself but in December of that year a passing typhoon dislodged the ash from Mayon’s slopes, turning it into a fast-moving mudflow that covered villages and killed about a thousand people.
More than 47,000 people have fled to 29 evacuation centers, although some villagers are known to defy Army security, sneaking out to periodically return home for supplies.
Still restive
Phivolcs said that based on observations over a 24-hour period, Mayon was still in a state of high unrest, unleashing nine ash explosions accompanied by rumbling sounds.
The blasts produced dirty white to brownish ash columns, with lava fragments, that reached heights of up to 1,000 meters above the summit. Forty-four volcanic earthquakes were recorded.
The sulfur dioxide emission rate has decreased from the previous 8,993 tons per day to 2,304 tons per day.
Communications equipment
As part of intensified preparations for a major eruption, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) regional office has issued additional communication equipment to Task Force Mayon (TFM).
According to Capt. Razaleigh G. Bansawan, TFM spokesperson, a total of 900 Motorola handheld radios with complete accessories have been issued to the task force.
The radios were distributed to nine military checkpoints within the danger zones.
Officials said forced evacuation of villagers seemed to be working, especially in view of government assurances to residents that their property would be protected during their absence. With reports from Rey M. Nasol, Inquirer Southern Luzon, and AFP
Inquirer Southern Luzon
First Posted 01:24:00 12/28/2009
INQUIRER.net
LEGAZPI CITY—Hotel Venezia is fully booked until Tuesday.
When tourists—from Asia, America and Europe—come, they would ask the front desk which part of Legazpi would give them the best view of the erupting volcano, especially at night.
Gail Narramore, a British-South African missionary, has found Mount Mayon a stunning sight when evening falls.
“It looks like a Christmas tree,” said Narramore, who founded the Albay-based charity group Tiwala Kids and Communities.
Front desk officer Pearl de Guzman told the Inquirer that guests checking into the 40-room hotel had increased since the 2,460-meter mountain started spewing lava two weeks ago.
Digvijay Ankoti, 29, came all way from India just to see the eruption. He drove from Manila to Legazpi with two other Indian friends, one of them married to a Filipino.
It was Ankoti’s first time to see a volcano on the brink of a possibly hazardous blast.
He and his companions have gone lava-watching, going to the top of Ligñon Hill, which offers a full view of the volcano when the sky is clear. The hilltop also offers a 360-degree view of this city and neighboring Daraga town.
Barred from danger zone
Marian Lacson-Singh, 32, one of Ankoti’s companions, said the lava trail was “magnificent,” which made their long drive from Manila worthwhile.
Ankoti said his group once tried to venture into a danger zone—an area within an 8-kilometer radius from the volcano’s flaming mouth—hoping they could get a closer look of the eruption.
The military barred them.
Other tourist sites
Manuel Montiero, 57, from Luxembourg, who also went Mayon-watching at the observatory, said he had seen the Taal, Pinatubo and Bulusan volcanoes but found Mayon most captivating.
Montiero voted for Mayon in the 7 Wonders of the World online search.
Tourism department offices were closed for the holidays and the exact number of tourists, foreign and domestic, who have come to Albay to watch the spectacle of an erupting volcano were not immediately available.
Aside from Mayon, other tourist destinations in Albay are the Misibis resort, Embarcadero commercial complex, and the Tiwi and Manito geothermal sites. Neighboring Sorsogon province offers whale shark-watching in Donsol town.
Disaster tourism
While tourists may have been drawn to the sight of lava cascading down the slopes of Mayon, the provincial government is not keen on encouraging “disaster tourism,” Gov. Joey Salceda said in an earlier interview.
“Disaster tourism is certainly not within the contemplation of the provincial development strategy, even if disaster risk reduction and tourism are integral components,” he said.
Salceda said the sudden surge of tourists was an unintended consequence of a volcanic eruption.
He said the increased tourist arrivals were reflected in the number of visitors Mayon-watching at the observatory (where the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology or Phivolcs is located), in increased visits by nongovernment organizations and sociocivic groups to evacuation centers, and in wider media coverage of Albay.
Bicol Tourism Director Nini Ravanilla described Mayon as a timeless tourist attraction.
The volcano has erupted 49 times since records began, claiming thousands of lives. In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed as lava buried the town of Cagsawa.
Deceptive calm
Alert Level 4 remains hoisted over Mayon, meaning a hazardous eruption is possible within days.
Volcanologists yesterday reiterated that while Mayon might be showing less visible signs of unrest, this could be a deceptive calm before a deadly eruption.
“Do not become complacent. The people only see what is coming out of the crater and that is often cloud covered. It is not just the observed phenomenon that matters. We also look at the quakes, the gas emitted and the swelling of the volcano,” warned Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum.
“We are telling the people, ‘Do not just count the number of quakes or what you see from the crater.’ It may look calm but it is not calm. It can still explode,” Solidum said in a radio broadcast.
“You might think it is taking a break but the volcano is still swelling,” he said, after the restive volcano produced fewer ash emissions on Sunday than in previous days.
2006 pattern
Solidum said the volcano could stay active for as long as two months, similar to its last eruption in 2006 when it simmered for months, dumping tons of ash on its slopes.
No one was killed by the eruption itself but in December of that year a passing typhoon dislodged the ash from Mayon’s slopes, turning it into a fast-moving mudflow that covered villages and killed about a thousand people.
More than 47,000 people have fled to 29 evacuation centers, although some villagers are known to defy Army security, sneaking out to periodically return home for supplies.
Still restive
Phivolcs said that based on observations over a 24-hour period, Mayon was still in a state of high unrest, unleashing nine ash explosions accompanied by rumbling sounds.
The blasts produced dirty white to brownish ash columns, with lava fragments, that reached heights of up to 1,000 meters above the summit. Forty-four volcanic earthquakes were recorded.
The sulfur dioxide emission rate has decreased from the previous 8,993 tons per day to 2,304 tons per day.
Communications equipment
As part of intensified preparations for a major eruption, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) regional office has issued additional communication equipment to Task Force Mayon (TFM).
According to Capt. Razaleigh G. Bansawan, TFM spokesperson, a total of 900 Motorola handheld radios with complete accessories have been issued to the task force.
The radios were distributed to nine military checkpoints within the danger zones.
Officials said forced evacuation of villagers seemed to be working, especially in view of government assurances to residents that their property would be protected during their absence. With reports from Rey M. Nasol, Inquirer Southern Luzon, and AFP
Sunday, December 27, 2009
‘Damayan’ spirit alive amid threat of big Mayon eruption
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
LEGAZPI CITY—In a world that has gotten smaller for the 47,000 evacuees from Mayon Volcano, everything has to be shared—from food to sleeping mats, from bathrooms to the air they breathe.
And they are living together after escaping a common danger—a possible major eruption of Mayon that, scientists Saturday warned, remained a real threat because of the buildup of magma, clogging the volcano.
In their now smaller world in an evacuation center at Albay Central School, 367 displaced families from Barangay Matanag receive the same amount of food from relief agencies—regardless of the size of each family.
It is in such situations that the damayan (sharing) culture among Filipinos comes to the fore, sociologists say.
“Smaller families would share what they have with bigger families. We would help one another,” evacuee Cynthia Aydalla, a mother of four, told the Inquirer.
“We would buy vegetables from other evacuees. They would bring their harvests here in the evacuation center rather than sell them in the market,” she said.
Sharing little they have
Matanag is one of more than 30 villages within the 8-kilometer danger zone whose residents had to flee their homes to escape the threat from Mayon.
Once it happened that the Aydallas received six kilograms of rice, four packs of noodles, eight canned goods, and a 25-gram pack of coffee that were supposed to be good for three days.
That was also the same ration that Alex Abellena and his family of seven children received—an amount that wouldn’t last them more than two days.
Such a discrepancy has fostered a feeling of generosity among the evacuees.
One big family
In the cramped classrooms of San Roque Elementary School, lack of a comfortable sleeping space was also a problem.
The solution: The evacuees put together, like jigsaw puzzle pieces, whatever mats they had. In the absence of mats, they shared cardboard cartons to shield themselves against the cold floors.
“All evacuees would sleep together like one big family,” said Josie Perez, 41, of Barangay Mabinit.
Since a classroom houses as many as over 100 people, some would sleep in the hallways, Perez said. Others, including a one-month-old baby, slept on a stage.
Upon waking up, over 1,000 evacuees would form long queues to the only two functional bathrooms in the evacuation center.
“Some of us would wake as early as 1 a.m. to avoid the long queues. Others found it more convenient to go back to their houses in the danger zones to clean themselves up,” Perez told the Inquirer.
Culture of generosity
Dolly Laguilles, a sociology professor from Bicol University in Daraga, Albay, said: “It is true that crisis creates a political climate for giving. But in the evacuation centers, it may be more than that.”
She said the tales of generosity from crowded evacuation centers were real and deeply rooted to the Filipino way of life.
“Generosity is a Christian deed. Filipinos are innately generous people,” Laguilles said. “Calamities like this would simply test generosity, a value that has always been there, though, at times, it just has to be revived.
She added: “The damayan culture becomes a source of strength for the refugees. It helps them cope and stand strong.”
Uniquely Filipino
Laguilles said Filipino sociologists have unique terms to describe similar rural values of sharing—“pakikisama, damayan, and bayanihan.”
“These are unique Filipino values deeply embedded in the Filipino’s familial culture.”
She said the damayan culture preserved in rural communities was something urban Filipinos could learn from.
“Urban Filipinos value their space and privacy so much more than the rural folk,” Laguilles said. “That is why the refugees could adapt in crowded evacuation centers and could easily share what they have with one another.”
The sense of being faced with the same danger—that posed by an angry mountain—may have reinforced that communal feeling.
Buildup of magma
Volcanologists on Saturday said that while fewer earthquakes had been recorded from the volcano in recent days, magma continued to build up inside and any lull in activity could be followed by a bigger eruption.
A hazardous eruption remains possible within days, and residents who live near the volcano’s slopes should not be misled into leaving the evacuation centers and venturing back to their homes, warned volcanologist Ed Laguerta.
“The number of volcanic earthquakes has gone down, but this is just part of the eruptive cycle of Mayon,” he said.
1984 lesson
The number of quakes decreased from 871 recorded during the 24-hour period ending Friday morning to 406 recorded during the next 24 hours, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said.
Laguerta said instruments showed the volcano remained inflated despite having spilled more than 20 million cubic meters of lava over the last two weeks. That means the lava being released is being replaced by magma coming from beneath the volcano.
“We are looking not only at what Mayon is presently exhibiting because that fluctuates. We are also looking at its past characteristics,” he said, recalling that in 1984, a four-day lull was followed by a sudden, big eruption.
He added: “What is becoming clear is that (the volcano) is getting clogged. That is when the lava is rising but cannot get out.”
“Just because the volcano looks calm … it does not mean its activity is decreasing. We cannot be off our guard. After this calm period, it could explode with even more force,” Laguerta said.
Hissing, rumbling
Showing no letup in its “high level of activity,” Mayon hissed and rumbled, ejecting ash columns a kilometer high from its summit, Phivolcs said.
It said the rumblings continued to be heard at the Lignon Hill Observatory in Legazpi. A total of 406 earthquakes also shook the mountain and emissions of sulfur dioxide remained high at 8,993 tons per day.
Alert level 4, meaning a hazardous eruption is possible within days, remains enforced and no one is allowed to venture within the 8-km danger zone from the summit, it said.
“Areas just outside of this (danger zone) should prepare for evacuation in the event hazardous explosive eruptions intensify,” Phivolcs said.
Gov. Joey Salceda is offering P100,000 in cash to any barangay affected by the continuing eruptions that doesn’t suffer any casualties.
“If we achieve the zero-casualty target, then it would entice investors to come in because it is proven that we can move on in the mid of calamities, yet Albay is still worth investing,” Salceda said.
The 2,460-meter has erupted 49 times in recorded history. In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed as lava buried the town of Cagsawa. With reports from Alcuin Papa, AP and AFP
Inquirer Southern Luzon
LEGAZPI CITY—In a world that has gotten smaller for the 47,000 evacuees from Mayon Volcano, everything has to be shared—from food to sleeping mats, from bathrooms to the air they breathe.
And they are living together after escaping a common danger—a possible major eruption of Mayon that, scientists Saturday warned, remained a real threat because of the buildup of magma, clogging the volcano.
In their now smaller world in an evacuation center at Albay Central School, 367 displaced families from Barangay Matanag receive the same amount of food from relief agencies—regardless of the size of each family.
It is in such situations that the damayan (sharing) culture among Filipinos comes to the fore, sociologists say.
“Smaller families would share what they have with bigger families. We would help one another,” evacuee Cynthia Aydalla, a mother of four, told the Inquirer.
“We would buy vegetables from other evacuees. They would bring their harvests here in the evacuation center rather than sell them in the market,” she said.
Sharing little they have
Matanag is one of more than 30 villages within the 8-kilometer danger zone whose residents had to flee their homes to escape the threat from Mayon.
Once it happened that the Aydallas received six kilograms of rice, four packs of noodles, eight canned goods, and a 25-gram pack of coffee that were supposed to be good for three days.
That was also the same ration that Alex Abellena and his family of seven children received—an amount that wouldn’t last them more than two days.
Such a discrepancy has fostered a feeling of generosity among the evacuees.
One big family
In the cramped classrooms of San Roque Elementary School, lack of a comfortable sleeping space was also a problem.
The solution: The evacuees put together, like jigsaw puzzle pieces, whatever mats they had. In the absence of mats, they shared cardboard cartons to shield themselves against the cold floors.
“All evacuees would sleep together like one big family,” said Josie Perez, 41, of Barangay Mabinit.
Since a classroom houses as many as over 100 people, some would sleep in the hallways, Perez said. Others, including a one-month-old baby, slept on a stage.
Upon waking up, over 1,000 evacuees would form long queues to the only two functional bathrooms in the evacuation center.
“Some of us would wake as early as 1 a.m. to avoid the long queues. Others found it more convenient to go back to their houses in the danger zones to clean themselves up,” Perez told the Inquirer.
Culture of generosity
Dolly Laguilles, a sociology professor from Bicol University in Daraga, Albay, said: “It is true that crisis creates a political climate for giving. But in the evacuation centers, it may be more than that.”
She said the tales of generosity from crowded evacuation centers were real and deeply rooted to the Filipino way of life.
“Generosity is a Christian deed. Filipinos are innately generous people,” Laguilles said. “Calamities like this would simply test generosity, a value that has always been there, though, at times, it just has to be revived.
She added: “The damayan culture becomes a source of strength for the refugees. It helps them cope and stand strong.”
Uniquely Filipino
Laguilles said Filipino sociologists have unique terms to describe similar rural values of sharing—“pakikisama, damayan, and bayanihan.”
“These are unique Filipino values deeply embedded in the Filipino’s familial culture.”
She said the damayan culture preserved in rural communities was something urban Filipinos could learn from.
“Urban Filipinos value their space and privacy so much more than the rural folk,” Laguilles said. “That is why the refugees could adapt in crowded evacuation centers and could easily share what they have with one another.”
The sense of being faced with the same danger—that posed by an angry mountain—may have reinforced that communal feeling.
Buildup of magma
Volcanologists on Saturday said that while fewer earthquakes had been recorded from the volcano in recent days, magma continued to build up inside and any lull in activity could be followed by a bigger eruption.
A hazardous eruption remains possible within days, and residents who live near the volcano’s slopes should not be misled into leaving the evacuation centers and venturing back to their homes, warned volcanologist Ed Laguerta.
“The number of volcanic earthquakes has gone down, but this is just part of the eruptive cycle of Mayon,” he said.
1984 lesson
The number of quakes decreased from 871 recorded during the 24-hour period ending Friday morning to 406 recorded during the next 24 hours, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said.
Laguerta said instruments showed the volcano remained inflated despite having spilled more than 20 million cubic meters of lava over the last two weeks. That means the lava being released is being replaced by magma coming from beneath the volcano.
“We are looking not only at what Mayon is presently exhibiting because that fluctuates. We are also looking at its past characteristics,” he said, recalling that in 1984, a four-day lull was followed by a sudden, big eruption.
He added: “What is becoming clear is that (the volcano) is getting clogged. That is when the lava is rising but cannot get out.”
“Just because the volcano looks calm … it does not mean its activity is decreasing. We cannot be off our guard. After this calm period, it could explode with even more force,” Laguerta said.
Hissing, rumbling
Showing no letup in its “high level of activity,” Mayon hissed and rumbled, ejecting ash columns a kilometer high from its summit, Phivolcs said.
It said the rumblings continued to be heard at the Lignon Hill Observatory in Legazpi. A total of 406 earthquakes also shook the mountain and emissions of sulfur dioxide remained high at 8,993 tons per day.
Alert level 4, meaning a hazardous eruption is possible within days, remains enforced and no one is allowed to venture within the 8-km danger zone from the summit, it said.
“Areas just outside of this (danger zone) should prepare for evacuation in the event hazardous explosive eruptions intensify,” Phivolcs said.
Gov. Joey Salceda is offering P100,000 in cash to any barangay affected by the continuing eruptions that doesn’t suffer any casualties.
“If we achieve the zero-casualty target, then it would entice investors to come in because it is proven that we can move on in the mid of calamities, yet Albay is still worth investing,” Salceda said.
The 2,460-meter has erupted 49 times in recorded history. In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed as lava buried the town of Cagsawa. With reports from Alcuin Papa, AP and AFP
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sun-dried beef tapa cooks in just seconds
By Ephraim Aguilar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:16:00 04/26/2009
INQUIRER.net
MASBATE CITY, Philippines -- Breakfast that cooks in just seconds.
This is what the business of Mariano Natural, 53, and wife Mercy, 55, is all about. They manufacture and sell tasty beef tapa that cooks in as fast as three seconds.
Tapa is a mainstay on the Filipino breakfast table. It is meat cut in thin slices and cured with salt and spices to preserve it.
The word “tapa” is associated with smoked fish, which is natively called “tinapa.” It is usually fried or grilled and served with “achara” or pickles.
The couple’s beef tapa is not just cured with salt and spices but is also sun-dried. Cooking it is faster than driving through the nearest fast-food restaurant to have your fill before you go to work.
This homemade tapa has started to reach places through trade fairs organized by the Department of Trade and Industry in Metro Manila and by word of mouth.
There are balikbayan and overseas workers, like those from Saudi Arabia and Germany, who have placed orders to bring with them this tasty meat abroad.
In a government-sponsored trade fair at the World Trade Center in Pasay City, Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay reportedly ordered 20 kilograms of beef tapa from the Natural couple.
Longganisa
The couple works out of Barangay Tugbo here, which is about 15-minute tricycle drive from the Masbate port. They started with making and selling homemade longganisa to augment Mariano’s income as a fisherman and vendor.
He is the president of the Masbate Fish Vendors’ Association.
“We thought if we’re going to engage in business, it had to be related to food,” Mariano said. “It is a common need and will never run out of demand.”
He added that Mercy thought of making homemade longganisa with a P10,000-capital. The new business had fair sales and ran smoothly.
After Mercy attended government-sponsored training programs, she learned how to create other products like beef tapa, pork tapa, and bamboo shoot pickles.
This was the humble start of what later would become the Nomer’s Masbate Meat Processing.
The home-based company now earns at least P100,000 in net income in a week and is seeking to become a household name, hoping to tap the export market.
Ranches
Touted as the rodeo capital of the Philippines, Masbate is known for its ranches. Cattle-raising has been a long-running tradition in this island province.
The Natural couple sources out meat from local ranches, making sure the meat is fresh and of good quality.
The meat is marinated in special seasoning for more than 24 hours to lock in the flavor. Then it is sun-dried for an entire day and cut into strips.
The cut tapa is then vacuum-sealed in a pack and labeled.
The Mariano couple learned modern packaging techniques through programs of the DTI.
3 seconds
After the tapa has been dunked in heated oil, it will only take three seconds to cook it before it is ready for consumption.
Not only does the tapa cook very fast, it also has a long shelf-life.
“[The tapa can] last for five to six months, or even up to a year if kept frozen,” Mariano said.
Nomer’s beef tapa sells for P100 for every 125 grams, the pork tapa for P75, and the pickled bamboo shoots for P60 a bottle.
The tapa is also available in different flavors: sweet-spicy, salty, spicy, sweet.
Mercy said it would be necessary to add more flavor options since people’s tastes also vary.
She said she hopes they could export their products someday, but that they would need to first upgrade their facilities to increase production.
They also need to learn strategies on how to tap the foreign market.
She admitted that they still have a long way to go, adding that small Filipino entrepreneurs need to have continuous education and support from the government to enable their businesses to grow.
“We need a dehydrator so that when the sun doesn’t shine, we can still produce something,” Mercy said. “Today, we only rely on the natural heat of the sun to dry our meat.”
She said they are expecting to receive equipment grants from the Department of Science and Technology this year.
Nomer’s Masbate Meat Processing contact number is (0908) 566-9159.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:16:00 04/26/2009
INQUIRER.net
MASBATE CITY, Philippines -- Breakfast that cooks in just seconds.
This is what the business of Mariano Natural, 53, and wife Mercy, 55, is all about. They manufacture and sell tasty beef tapa that cooks in as fast as three seconds.
Tapa is a mainstay on the Filipino breakfast table. It is meat cut in thin slices and cured with salt and spices to preserve it.
The word “tapa” is associated with smoked fish, which is natively called “tinapa.” It is usually fried or grilled and served with “achara” or pickles.
The couple’s beef tapa is not just cured with salt and spices but is also sun-dried. Cooking it is faster than driving through the nearest fast-food restaurant to have your fill before you go to work.
This homemade tapa has started to reach places through trade fairs organized by the Department of Trade and Industry in Metro Manila and by word of mouth.
There are balikbayan and overseas workers, like those from Saudi Arabia and Germany, who have placed orders to bring with them this tasty meat abroad.
In a government-sponsored trade fair at the World Trade Center in Pasay City, Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay reportedly ordered 20 kilograms of beef tapa from the Natural couple.
Longganisa
The couple works out of Barangay Tugbo here, which is about 15-minute tricycle drive from the Masbate port. They started with making and selling homemade longganisa to augment Mariano’s income as a fisherman and vendor.
He is the president of the Masbate Fish Vendors’ Association.
“We thought if we’re going to engage in business, it had to be related to food,” Mariano said. “It is a common need and will never run out of demand.”
He added that Mercy thought of making homemade longganisa with a P10,000-capital. The new business had fair sales and ran smoothly.
After Mercy attended government-sponsored training programs, she learned how to create other products like beef tapa, pork tapa, and bamboo shoot pickles.
This was the humble start of what later would become the Nomer’s Masbate Meat Processing.
The home-based company now earns at least P100,000 in net income in a week and is seeking to become a household name, hoping to tap the export market.
Ranches
Touted as the rodeo capital of the Philippines, Masbate is known for its ranches. Cattle-raising has been a long-running tradition in this island province.
The Natural couple sources out meat from local ranches, making sure the meat is fresh and of good quality.
The meat is marinated in special seasoning for more than 24 hours to lock in the flavor. Then it is sun-dried for an entire day and cut into strips.
The cut tapa is then vacuum-sealed in a pack and labeled.
The Mariano couple learned modern packaging techniques through programs of the DTI.
3 seconds
After the tapa has been dunked in heated oil, it will only take three seconds to cook it before it is ready for consumption.
Not only does the tapa cook very fast, it also has a long shelf-life.
“[The tapa can] last for five to six months, or even up to a year if kept frozen,” Mariano said.
Nomer’s beef tapa sells for P100 for every 125 grams, the pork tapa for P75, and the pickled bamboo shoots for P60 a bottle.
The tapa is also available in different flavors: sweet-spicy, salty, spicy, sweet.
Mercy said it would be necessary to add more flavor options since people’s tastes also vary.
She said she hopes they could export their products someday, but that they would need to first upgrade their facilities to increase production.
They also need to learn strategies on how to tap the foreign market.
She admitted that they still have a long way to go, adding that small Filipino entrepreneurs need to have continuous education and support from the government to enable their businesses to grow.
“We need a dehydrator so that when the sun doesn’t shine, we can still produce something,” Mercy said. “Today, we only rely on the natural heat of the sun to dry our meat.”
She said they are expecting to receive equipment grants from the Department of Science and Technology this year.
Nomer’s Masbate Meat Processing contact number is (0908) 566-9159.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Banking on good name to attain success
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
DARAGA, ALBAY--Wendy Destacamento, 55, a local producer of processed meat, knows that her products are of the best quality simply because her own grandchildren eat them.
Wendy, a grandmother of three, says there is nothing as reliable as what’s cooking in your mother’s kitchen—a familiar taste that never jades the appetite.
“We earned our buyers’ trust by our “lutong-bahay” (home-cooked) reputation,” Wendy says. “We ensure the quality of our products since they’re what we eat, and they’re what our own grandchildren eat.”
Wendy and her husband Oscar, 60, have been locally producing fresh cut and processed meat products in Albay province through Juanito’s Meat and Marinated Products—a homegrown company they put up 24 years ago.
It started in 1985 with a meager capital of P1,500. The couple would sell fresh pork to friends. That eventually led to the establishment of an outlet in this town’s public market. Later, another branch opened in a more strategic place in Legazpi City.
Oscar says that since locally processed meat products cater only to smaller areas requiring shorter freezing time, they are free from harmful preservatives.
Juanito’s Meat has since expanded, producing other meat products as well, such as hotdog, ham, meat loaf, luncheon meat, corned beef, smoked hamonado, foot-long sausage, bologna, embutido, burger patties and lumpia shanghai.
Oscar says Juanito’s does not use genetically engineered or modified organisms or additives in their products. It also uses organic color such as paprika or “paminton.”
He adds they do not use dumped or cheap meat from other countries. Juanito’s products have also been fortified with anticarcinogenic properties and Vitamin C.
The Destacamento couple has never been daunted even if Juanito’s sits alongside other popular meat brands in shopping mall freezers in the cities of Legazpi and Lucena.
Juanito’s may not have put out advertisements on TV or newspapers, but it has a loyal clientele whose number has grown through the years by word of mouth.
“People who have tested the quality of our products eventually become our loyal buyers,” says Wendy. “And they tell their friends about us, too.”
She says locally processed meat products are more fresh since it is intended for smaller communities and is expected to reach consumers soon after production, thus requiring no artificial preservatives.
After the scare that gripped the world when some food products imported from China were reportedly contaminated with melamine—a white powder used in plastic-making harmful to human health—local food producers expected a boost in sales.
Oscar, who is also vice president of the Bicol Region Association of Meat Processors, says their sales increased by 15 percent after the China food scandal late last year.
However, Oscar adds that this boost in sales is still measly compared to profits and property lost to the “Supertyphoon Reming” in late 2006. The power outage that lasted for more than a month caused them to temporarily cease operations.
“We almost closed down our business,” Wendy says, recalling the tragedy. “We even told our workers they had to stop working for us, and when we gave them their separation pays, they didn’t want to take the money.”
It was then that Wendy realized they were “helping people earn a living ... and that we were also providing quality food to the locals, so we decided to press on no matter how hard it was.”
Another challenge faced by local meat processors is the limited market.
The couple says it really takes constant effort to maintain good product quality on which to build a good and trusted name. Only by doing so will the number of their loyal costumers grow.
(Juanito’s Meat may be reached at 0915-8246003.)
Inquirer Southern Luzon
DARAGA, ALBAY--Wendy Destacamento, 55, a local producer of processed meat, knows that her products are of the best quality simply because her own grandchildren eat them.
Wendy, a grandmother of three, says there is nothing as reliable as what’s cooking in your mother’s kitchen—a familiar taste that never jades the appetite.
“We earned our buyers’ trust by our “lutong-bahay” (home-cooked) reputation,” Wendy says. “We ensure the quality of our products since they’re what we eat, and they’re what our own grandchildren eat.”
Wendy and her husband Oscar, 60, have been locally producing fresh cut and processed meat products in Albay province through Juanito’s Meat and Marinated Products—a homegrown company they put up 24 years ago.
It started in 1985 with a meager capital of P1,500. The couple would sell fresh pork to friends. That eventually led to the establishment of an outlet in this town’s public market. Later, another branch opened in a more strategic place in Legazpi City.
Oscar says that since locally processed meat products cater only to smaller areas requiring shorter freezing time, they are free from harmful preservatives.
Juanito’s Meat has since expanded, producing other meat products as well, such as hotdog, ham, meat loaf, luncheon meat, corned beef, smoked hamonado, foot-long sausage, bologna, embutido, burger patties and lumpia shanghai.
Oscar says Juanito’s does not use genetically engineered or modified organisms or additives in their products. It also uses organic color such as paprika or “paminton.”
He adds they do not use dumped or cheap meat from other countries. Juanito’s products have also been fortified with anticarcinogenic properties and Vitamin C.
The Destacamento couple has never been daunted even if Juanito’s sits alongside other popular meat brands in shopping mall freezers in the cities of Legazpi and Lucena.
Juanito’s may not have put out advertisements on TV or newspapers, but it has a loyal clientele whose number has grown through the years by word of mouth.
“People who have tested the quality of our products eventually become our loyal buyers,” says Wendy. “And they tell their friends about us, too.”
She says locally processed meat products are more fresh since it is intended for smaller communities and is expected to reach consumers soon after production, thus requiring no artificial preservatives.
After the scare that gripped the world when some food products imported from China were reportedly contaminated with melamine—a white powder used in plastic-making harmful to human health—local food producers expected a boost in sales.
Oscar, who is also vice president of the Bicol Region Association of Meat Processors, says their sales increased by 15 percent after the China food scandal late last year.
However, Oscar adds that this boost in sales is still measly compared to profits and property lost to the “Supertyphoon Reming” in late 2006. The power outage that lasted for more than a month caused them to temporarily cease operations.
“We almost closed down our business,” Wendy says, recalling the tragedy. “We even told our workers they had to stop working for us, and when we gave them their separation pays, they didn’t want to take the money.”
It was then that Wendy realized they were “helping people earn a living ... and that we were also providing quality food to the locals, so we decided to press on no matter how hard it was.”
Another challenge faced by local meat processors is the limited market.
The couple says it really takes constant effort to maintain good product quality on which to build a good and trusted name. Only by doing so will the number of their loyal costumers grow.
(Juanito’s Meat may be reached at 0915-8246003.)
Thursday, December 04, 2008
‘Reming’ survivors meet new aid heroes
By Ephraim Aguilar
Legazpi City
TWO YEARS AFTER SUPERTYPHOON “REMING” sent lahar from Mayon Volcano crashing down villages in Albay, killing over a thousand people, new heroes have risen from the rubble to sustain what was started from scratch.
Many international relief agencies had ceased to operate in the province, but new institutions are now bringing long-term assistance to the survivors.
A defining moment confronted Gail Narramore, a 30-year-old South African, when she visited the ruins left by lahar in Barangay Maipon in Guinobatan town. A grade school teacher from London, Narramore flew to Manila and Albay in January last year to see for herself the magnitude of the disaster.
Dream
Since childhood, Narramore has dreamed of putting up her own orphanage to care for abandoned, abused and neglected children.
While reading the Bible on a four-hour train trip in London, Narramore said she met an old Christian minister who befriended her. The man, however, died five years later but he had willed that all proceeds from his funeral be given to Narramore so she could start her charity work.
The woman’s visit to Maipon village wrenched her heart. “Around 300 people ran after me the moment the villagers noticed my presence. Maybe they thought I was there to distribute food or clothing. There was deep despair in the eyes of the people,” she recalled.
“It was raining and flooded that day. I saw one house made of bamboo standing, but half of it was buried under sand,” she said.
But Narramore could not forget the face of a woman survivor named Nora. “She looked very happy and was smiling to me as she pointed to her half-buried house,” she said.
Nora was tending a “sari-sari” (retail) store near her house. “I wrote a sign ‘Business as Usual’ and posted it there,” Narramore said.
Despite the tragedy, she said she was “shocked at how these people kept on going.”
Free day care classes
Narramore went back to Manila to learn the legal requirements and ways of putting up a charity institution. In October last year, she started the Tiwala Kids and Communities in Albay.
Tiwala has been holding free day-care classes for poor children in the hilly Sitio Cawayan in Barangay Calayucay, Sto. Domingo town. The schools are far from the village, an hour-long walk down a craggy trail.
“Most of their parents are farmers. The livelihood of the people there were badly affected after Reming,” Narramore said.
Tiwala has also been feeding and educating street children in the capital city of Legazpi.
It has Filipino volunteers and a staff. Narramore and two staff members had been living with the community in a farm in Cawayan, a 45-minute trek from downtown.
Alleviating hunger
Another kind-hearted soul, businesswoman Mediatrix Villanueva has been actively involved in linking government and nongovernment organizations for relief missions.
Seeing thousands of children facing hunger in the aftermath of the supertyphoon, Villanueva, who hails from Daraga town, created the Dios Mabalos Foundation. “Dios Mabalos,” which means “May God bless you in return,” is used by Bicolanos to express gratitude.
Villanueva said her group had been working with the St. Francis of Assisi Foundation and the Pondo ng Pinoy to hold supplemental feeding programs in schools and parishes.
“Since livelihood was badly affected by the disaster, the standard of living of families dropped. Poverty left many children sickly and malnourished,” said Erlinda Samonte, Dios Mabalos project manager.
The foundation has already fed 47,875 children over six months under its daily nutrition program dubbed “Hapag-asa.” It serves rice porridge containing Vita-meal (lentil fortified with over 28 vitamins).
It has already expanded its operations to Aklan, where Villanueva’s mother comes from.
Recovery
The provincial government has created a task force to implement a socioeconomic recovery program called “Albay Mabuhay.”
Its coordinator, Emily Kare, said many of the relief agencies had already closed, but there was still the need to bring the people’s lives back to normal and uplift them.
Albay Mabuhay has been providing skills training, credit assistance for livelihood, and job referrals and placements to beneficiaries.
If there is one good thing that “Reming” had brought to Albay, it strengthened the collaboration between government and nongovernment agencies, Kare said. “We have learned to combine our strengths to help the victims of disaster,” she said.
She said, however, that more funds were needed to complete the recovery as displaced families were still living in “transit” shelters in relocation sites. The dwellings are rooms made of plywood and galvanized iron sheets.
Kare placed the shelter gap at still 5,862 in two cities and five towns in Albay alone. Each resettlement house costs around P150,000.
Legazpi City
TWO YEARS AFTER SUPERTYPHOON “REMING” sent lahar from Mayon Volcano crashing down villages in Albay, killing over a thousand people, new heroes have risen from the rubble to sustain what was started from scratch.
Many international relief agencies had ceased to operate in the province, but new institutions are now bringing long-term assistance to the survivors.
A defining moment confronted Gail Narramore, a 30-year-old South African, when she visited the ruins left by lahar in Barangay Maipon in Guinobatan town. A grade school teacher from London, Narramore flew to Manila and Albay in January last year to see for herself the magnitude of the disaster.
Dream
Since childhood, Narramore has dreamed of putting up her own orphanage to care for abandoned, abused and neglected children.
While reading the Bible on a four-hour train trip in London, Narramore said she met an old Christian minister who befriended her. The man, however, died five years later but he had willed that all proceeds from his funeral be given to Narramore so she could start her charity work.
The woman’s visit to Maipon village wrenched her heart. “Around 300 people ran after me the moment the villagers noticed my presence. Maybe they thought I was there to distribute food or clothing. There was deep despair in the eyes of the people,” she recalled.
“It was raining and flooded that day. I saw one house made of bamboo standing, but half of it was buried under sand,” she said.
But Narramore could not forget the face of a woman survivor named Nora. “She looked very happy and was smiling to me as she pointed to her half-buried house,” she said.
Nora was tending a “sari-sari” (retail) store near her house. “I wrote a sign ‘Business as Usual’ and posted it there,” Narramore said.
Despite the tragedy, she said she was “shocked at how these people kept on going.”
Free day care classes
Narramore went back to Manila to learn the legal requirements and ways of putting up a charity institution. In October last year, she started the Tiwala Kids and Communities in Albay.
Tiwala has been holding free day-care classes for poor children in the hilly Sitio Cawayan in Barangay Calayucay, Sto. Domingo town. The schools are far from the village, an hour-long walk down a craggy trail.
“Most of their parents are farmers. The livelihood of the people there were badly affected after Reming,” Narramore said.
Tiwala has also been feeding and educating street children in the capital city of Legazpi.
It has Filipino volunteers and a staff. Narramore and two staff members had been living with the community in a farm in Cawayan, a 45-minute trek from downtown.
Alleviating hunger
Another kind-hearted soul, businesswoman Mediatrix Villanueva has been actively involved in linking government and nongovernment organizations for relief missions.
Seeing thousands of children facing hunger in the aftermath of the supertyphoon, Villanueva, who hails from Daraga town, created the Dios Mabalos Foundation. “Dios Mabalos,” which means “May God bless you in return,” is used by Bicolanos to express gratitude.
Villanueva said her group had been working with the St. Francis of Assisi Foundation and the Pondo ng Pinoy to hold supplemental feeding programs in schools and parishes.
“Since livelihood was badly affected by the disaster, the standard of living of families dropped. Poverty left many children sickly and malnourished,” said Erlinda Samonte, Dios Mabalos project manager.
The foundation has already fed 47,875 children over six months under its daily nutrition program dubbed “Hapag-asa.” It serves rice porridge containing Vita-meal (lentil fortified with over 28 vitamins).
It has already expanded its operations to Aklan, where Villanueva’s mother comes from.
Recovery
The provincial government has created a task force to implement a socioeconomic recovery program called “Albay Mabuhay.”
Its coordinator, Emily Kare, said many of the relief agencies had already closed, but there was still the need to bring the people’s lives back to normal and uplift them.
Albay Mabuhay has been providing skills training, credit assistance for livelihood, and job referrals and placements to beneficiaries.
If there is one good thing that “Reming” had brought to Albay, it strengthened the collaboration between government and nongovernment agencies, Kare said. “We have learned to combine our strengths to help the victims of disaster,” she said.
She said, however, that more funds were needed to complete the recovery as displaced families were still living in “transit” shelters in relocation sites. The dwellings are rooms made of plywood and galvanized iron sheets.
Kare placed the shelter gap at still 5,862 in two cities and five towns in Albay alone. Each resettlement house costs around P150,000.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
GROWING UP WITHOUT TV
Brothers build dreams on handmade scrapbooks
Text and photos by Ephraim Aguilar, page B4
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
DARAGA, ALBAY— They say everyone is born with an artistic side. It is how these talents are honed at a young age that will spell the difference between adults with artistic flair and those without.
Baruga brothers Jhonmark, 19, and King George, 17, grew up in a home without television. Tinkering with art materials became their pastime. Thus they developed an eye for mixing colors and a hand for cutting shapes and putting pieces together to create an artwork.
“Our mother didn’t want a television set in our house and we didn’t know why. So most of the time we were busy doing artwork at home,” King George says.
Today, the Baruga brothers, who are both education students in Bicol University in Daraga, Albay, are gaining popularity among their peers for their artworks.
Their products? Handmade scrapbooks and greeting cards.
They have been invited to set up their own exhibits in different places in the Bicol region and have also been receiving individual and bulk orders of their handcrafts.
The Baruga brothers realized that their hobby had the potential of becoming a profitable enterprise.
They have already created over 70 scrapbook designs for their exhibits. The designs fall under themes or categories, among which are the “Four Seasons, Festivals, Coffee, Black and White, Emo (emotional hardcore) and Gold and Silver.”
While maintaining their grades as academic scholars, Jhonmark and King George manage to work on their handcrafts every week to meet orders.
The two have devised their own strategies on saving time and dividing tasks. King George is usually the thinker, while Jhonmark is more the doer.
Designs
“Themes and design concepts would usually come from me, that is my strength, while my brother is good at finishing touches,” King George says.
He adds that they could finish 50 scrapbooks in a day if the paper had already been cut and other accessories prepared in advance. They deliver orders within seven days.
In one of their exhibits at Bicol University here, a 30-piece order was placed by students from another university.
“It feels good that people are not just able to appreciate our work but also want to have our artworks as their own stuff,” Jhonmark says.
Aside from the common designs, the Baruga brothers also cater to personalized orders.
Two of the most saleable scrapbook varieties are the “Coffee” and “Four Seasons.”
The “Coffee” scrapbooks come in shades of brown and are literally made of coffee. The covers and pages have been brushed with liquid coffee creating a vibrant brown and a pleasing aroma.
The “Four Seasons” collection has four items designed after winter, spring, summer and fall. They come as collector’s items or a boxed set.
Scrapbook prices range from P75 to P500 depending on the size, the design and the materials to be used. Customized items are a little more expensive than the ready-made ones.
“Scrapbooks in commercial establishments would range from P225 to P1,000 and they are bare. But the companies manufacturing them would sell accessories separately, which are more costly,” says King George.
Personalized scrapbooks come in various forms and shapes. One of them came in the shape of a guitar or a dress, reflecting their owners’ interests in music and in fashion.
“Designs are limitless. We create just almost anything, whatever people want,” Jhonmark says.
The regular size of a scrapbook is 9 inches by 5 in. The prices of handmade greeting cards range from P5 to P30, depending on the size and design. The brothers also sell personalized picture frames and boxes.
Most of these products are made from indigenous materials—from dried and dyed hay, abaca fiber, seeds, flowers, feathers, leaves, shells, scrap paper, cloth and other objects picked from just anywhere then recycled.
Dream
Since childhood, the Baruga brothers already showed signs of entrepreneurship.
“When our teacher assigned projects, we would go to the city to shop for art materials and sold them to our classmates. We lived in a rural town where students seldom visit the city,” Jhonmark recounts.
King George says their parents, who were supportive of their interests and talents, gave them P10,000 to mount their first exhibit.
“We invested it in tools to make our work easier and faster. We want to pay our parents back once we have gained profit,” King George says.
King George says greeting cards and scrapbooks manufactured through advanced technology are still available in bookstores but can be quite expensive. And since they are mass produced, the designs are very common.
“We dream to become like Hallmark,” Jhonmark says, half seriously.
Hallmark is a century-old international company that produces greeting cards and keepsake ornaments.
Jhonmark adds that they envision to build a local company that will make available to the locals cheaper but stylish greeting cards and memory-keeping items.
Text and photos by Ephraim Aguilar, page B4
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
DARAGA, ALBAY— They say everyone is born with an artistic side. It is how these talents are honed at a young age that will spell the difference between adults with artistic flair and those without.
Baruga brothers Jhonmark, 19, and King George, 17, grew up in a home without television. Tinkering with art materials became their pastime. Thus they developed an eye for mixing colors and a hand for cutting shapes and putting pieces together to create an artwork.
“Our mother didn’t want a television set in our house and we didn’t know why. So most of the time we were busy doing artwork at home,” King George says.
Today, the Baruga brothers, who are both education students in Bicol University in Daraga, Albay, are gaining popularity among their peers for their artworks.
Their products? Handmade scrapbooks and greeting cards.
They have been invited to set up their own exhibits in different places in the Bicol region and have also been receiving individual and bulk orders of their handcrafts.
The Baruga brothers realized that their hobby had the potential of becoming a profitable enterprise.
They have already created over 70 scrapbook designs for their exhibits. The designs fall under themes or categories, among which are the “Four Seasons, Festivals, Coffee, Black and White, Emo (emotional hardcore) and Gold and Silver.”
While maintaining their grades as academic scholars, Jhonmark and King George manage to work on their handcrafts every week to meet orders.
The two have devised their own strategies on saving time and dividing tasks. King George is usually the thinker, while Jhonmark is more the doer.
Designs
“Themes and design concepts would usually come from me, that is my strength, while my brother is good at finishing touches,” King George says.
He adds that they could finish 50 scrapbooks in a day if the paper had already been cut and other accessories prepared in advance. They deliver orders within seven days.
In one of their exhibits at Bicol University here, a 30-piece order was placed by students from another university.
“It feels good that people are not just able to appreciate our work but also want to have our artworks as their own stuff,” Jhonmark says.
Aside from the common designs, the Baruga brothers also cater to personalized orders.
Two of the most saleable scrapbook varieties are the “Coffee” and “Four Seasons.”
The “Coffee” scrapbooks come in shades of brown and are literally made of coffee. The covers and pages have been brushed with liquid coffee creating a vibrant brown and a pleasing aroma.
The “Four Seasons” collection has four items designed after winter, spring, summer and fall. They come as collector’s items or a boxed set.
Scrapbook prices range from P75 to P500 depending on the size, the design and the materials to be used. Customized items are a little more expensive than the ready-made ones.
“Scrapbooks in commercial establishments would range from P225 to P1,000 and they are bare. But the companies manufacturing them would sell accessories separately, which are more costly,” says King George.
Personalized scrapbooks come in various forms and shapes. One of them came in the shape of a guitar or a dress, reflecting their owners’ interests in music and in fashion.
“Designs are limitless. We create just almost anything, whatever people want,” Jhonmark says.
The regular size of a scrapbook is 9 inches by 5 in. The prices of handmade greeting cards range from P5 to P30, depending on the size and design. The brothers also sell personalized picture frames and boxes.
Most of these products are made from indigenous materials—from dried and dyed hay, abaca fiber, seeds, flowers, feathers, leaves, shells, scrap paper, cloth and other objects picked from just anywhere then recycled.
Dream
Since childhood, the Baruga brothers already showed signs of entrepreneurship.
“When our teacher assigned projects, we would go to the city to shop for art materials and sold them to our classmates. We lived in a rural town where students seldom visit the city,” Jhonmark recounts.
King George says their parents, who were supportive of their interests and talents, gave them P10,000 to mount their first exhibit.
“We invested it in tools to make our work easier and faster. We want to pay our parents back once we have gained profit,” King George says.
King George says greeting cards and scrapbooks manufactured through advanced technology are still available in bookstores but can be quite expensive. And since they are mass produced, the designs are very common.
“We dream to become like Hallmark,” Jhonmark says, half seriously.
Hallmark is a century-old international company that produces greeting cards and keepsake ornaments.
Jhonmark adds that they envision to build a local company that will make available to the locals cheaper but stylish greeting cards and memory-keeping items.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Underwater cable seen as threat to ‘butanding’
By Ephraim Aguilar, A17
Legazpi City
THREATENING A MULTIMILLION-PESO TOUR-ism jewel, a submarine cable planned to be installed by a giant telecommunications firm in Donsol, Sorsogon, the whale shark capital of the world, is eyed with suspicion.
Seeking to expand its network, Globe Telecom plans to install this year a 164-kilometer underwater cable from Donsol town to Calbayog, Northern Samar.
Local tourism officials are worried that this network expansion project would affect the safety of the butanding.
“We cannot risk the whale shark habitat in Donsol to some foreign object planned to be installed there,” Maria Ong-Ravanilla, Bicol tourism regional director, says.
Globe, in a letter addressed to Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano, said the project is part of a five-segment cable from Southern Luzon to Northern Mindanao, which will improve the reliability and availability of the country’s mobile communication technology.
The cable’s jump-off point from the tip of Southern Luzon to Visayas is Barangay Dancalan in Donsol. This village serves as jump-off point for tourists who engage in whale shark interaction.
Ong-Ravanilla says Globe has asked for an endorsement from the Department of Tourism so it can get an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
She says the DOT will issue an endorsement for Globe if it gets an approval from the Donsol mayor and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an agency protecting whale sharks in the town.
“What we need from Globe is an environmental impact assessment report,” she says.
Construction materials
She says Globe has been summoned by the Sorsogon provincial board for an inquiry but none of its local managers are authorized to speak for the company.
Ong-Ravanilla says there have been reports from residents in Barangay Dancalan that Globe had already delivered construction materials there.
“The villagers saw PVC pipes, which they said, were owned by Globe. What we do not want to happen here is for (Globe) to start its construction before the issuance of an ECC,” she says.
The WWF, an agency implementing whale shark conservation guidelines in Donsol, is cautious about Globe’s expansion project.
David David, lead coordinator of the whale shark tracking project of WWF in Donsol, said they are researching for the specifics of the project to determine the possible effects of the submarine cables on whale shark habitat.
In the 2008 season, WWF recorded 114 whale sharks through its photo-identification technology, which determines whale sharks individually by means of their spots, he says.
The spots of whale shark are unique to every creature, just like human fingerprints, he says.
Tourism industry
Jay Christie, project director from the Ericsson Telecommunications, one of the project contractors, says that the company has taken note of the tourism activities in Donsol and will fully coordinate with tourism officials.
Donsol is one of the country’s top three ecotourism sites. Based on WWF data, Donsol’s butanding interaction contributes more than P50 million to the economy annually.
The town’s attraction was declared as the “best animal encounter in Asia” by Time magazine in 2004.
Tourism in Donsol has also pulled the town from being a fifth-class to a third-class municipality.
Butanding interaction activities in Donsol cover eight villages and tourists number more than 10,000 a season.
Legazpi City
THREATENING A MULTIMILLION-PESO TOUR-ism jewel, a submarine cable planned to be installed by a giant telecommunications firm in Donsol, Sorsogon, the whale shark capital of the world, is eyed with suspicion.
Seeking to expand its network, Globe Telecom plans to install this year a 164-kilometer underwater cable from Donsol town to Calbayog, Northern Samar.
Local tourism officials are worried that this network expansion project would affect the safety of the butanding.
“We cannot risk the whale shark habitat in Donsol to some foreign object planned to be installed there,” Maria Ong-Ravanilla, Bicol tourism regional director, says.
Globe, in a letter addressed to Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano, said the project is part of a five-segment cable from Southern Luzon to Northern Mindanao, which will improve the reliability and availability of the country’s mobile communication technology.
The cable’s jump-off point from the tip of Southern Luzon to Visayas is Barangay Dancalan in Donsol. This village serves as jump-off point for tourists who engage in whale shark interaction.
Ong-Ravanilla says Globe has asked for an endorsement from the Department of Tourism so it can get an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
She says the DOT will issue an endorsement for Globe if it gets an approval from the Donsol mayor and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an agency protecting whale sharks in the town.
“What we need from Globe is an environmental impact assessment report,” she says.
Construction materials
She says Globe has been summoned by the Sorsogon provincial board for an inquiry but none of its local managers are authorized to speak for the company.
Ong-Ravanilla says there have been reports from residents in Barangay Dancalan that Globe had already delivered construction materials there.
“The villagers saw PVC pipes, which they said, were owned by Globe. What we do not want to happen here is for (Globe) to start its construction before the issuance of an ECC,” she says.
The WWF, an agency implementing whale shark conservation guidelines in Donsol, is cautious about Globe’s expansion project.
David David, lead coordinator of the whale shark tracking project of WWF in Donsol, said they are researching for the specifics of the project to determine the possible effects of the submarine cables on whale shark habitat.
In the 2008 season, WWF recorded 114 whale sharks through its photo-identification technology, which determines whale sharks individually by means of their spots, he says.
The spots of whale shark are unique to every creature, just like human fingerprints, he says.
Tourism industry
Jay Christie, project director from the Ericsson Telecommunications, one of the project contractors, says that the company has taken note of the tourism activities in Donsol and will fully coordinate with tourism officials.
Donsol is one of the country’s top three ecotourism sites. Based on WWF data, Donsol’s butanding interaction contributes more than P50 million to the economy annually.
The town’s attraction was declared as the “best animal encounter in Asia” by Time magazine in 2004.
Tourism in Donsol has also pulled the town from being a fifth-class to a third-class municipality.
Butanding interaction activities in Donsol cover eight villages and tourists number more than 10,000 a season.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Mayon trail run tackles global warming
By Ephraim Aguilar, page one
Inquirer Southern Luzon
LEGAZPI CITY—SOUTHEAST Asian Games gold medalist Allan Ballester looked straight at Mayon Volcano’s amazing peak as he treaded a trail.
Ballester, 34, is one of those who took part in the first Mayon Trail Run (MTR) in Albay yesterday. The event was part of an awareness campaign against global warming.
More than 150 runners negotiated a shaggy hill laden with manmade obstacles, a river crossing, and a pile of volcanic rocks in the 5-kilometer fun run and 18-km adventure foot race.
The race was organized by the Junior Chamber International (JCI) and Northface, an international brand of sports apparel and outdoor equipment. JCI is a worldwide federation of young leaders and entrepreneurs whose members are more popularly known as Jaycees.
Even for the most experienced runners, some of them holding national and international titles, the MTR was one of the most grueling and unusual races.
The race started from the Peñaranda Park in the city to the top of Ligñon Hill in Daraga town, then down to a newly created back trail traversing the Yawa River to the Bonga Gully, one of the main pathways of volcanic debris swept by heavy rains.
Reaching the lava front, the racers made a U-turn and climbed back to Ligñon.
In his 14-year running career, Ballester said it was only in the MTR that his race plan became erratic.
“In my past races, I would stick to one race plan till finish. But here, I had to change it because the trail was packed with unexpected challenges in every segment,” he said.
The race also required great endurance and the application of different skills, he said.
“I just kept looking at Mayon’s peak as it felt like the sandy and rocky trail never ended. We had to climb rough terrain and slippery wooden stairs, and cross a river,” Ballester said shortly after he crossed the finish line.
Winners
Ballester said most of the runners were used to road races on smooth and flat pavements, making the MTR really different.
The winners, who came from different running teams, were—Male: 1st, Elmer Sabal (1:09:30); 2nd, Allan Ballester (1:10:08); 3rd, Cresenciano Sabal (1:10:35).
Female: 1st, Leszl Gitarueles (1:32:26); 2nd, Merlita Arias (1:45:07); 3rd. Ellen Tolentino (1:49:08).
The oldest runner was 71-year-old Vicente Caurez of Los Baños, Laguna, who was well-applauded when he finished the race standing strong.
Trail running as an adventure sport is more popular in Europe, according to Ballester. He said Albay’s trail run opened doors for the promotion of this endurance sport.
Provincial tourism officer Joe Briones said the trail run could be held annually and could draw more tourists.
These days, many tourists are looking for new sites for ecotourism and adventure sports. Briones said it would be good to have them both.
Yves Eli Yu, MTR project chair and vice president of JCI-Legazpi, said the trail run also sought to promote awareness of climate change.
Global warming
He said runners in the event and the spectators were made to realize the effects of global warming by making them experience nature.
“Taking part in this trail run is like touching Mayon’s soul. Your run toward its lava front reminds you of the lahar that killed and displaced over a thousand people at the height of Supertyphoon ‘Reming,’” Ballester said.
With the damage and floods caused by Reming on Nov. 30, 2006, Albay officials linked the disaster to the changing climate.
A2C2 campaign
After the tragedy, the provincial government launched the “Albay in Action for Climate Change” (A2C2) campaign, a pioneering local climate change adaptation in the Asia Pacific.
Yu said the JCI-Legazpi was jubilant that the MTR took place a day after 10 lawmakers from Asia, Europe, Africa and South America signed the Manila Declaration on Climate Change, which calls on rich nations to create a global fund to help reduce disaster risks brought by rising sea temperatures.
The five-page document, titled “The Manila Call for Action of Parliamentarians on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation,” was issued at the close of a two-day consultative meeting at Makati Shangri-La Hotel.
Yves said that for developing countries like the Philippines, it would be a big help to start small through awareness campaigns like the MTR.
Inquirer Southern Luzon
LEGAZPI CITY—SOUTHEAST Asian Games gold medalist Allan Ballester looked straight at Mayon Volcano’s amazing peak as he treaded a trail.
Ballester, 34, is one of those who took part in the first Mayon Trail Run (MTR) in Albay yesterday. The event was part of an awareness campaign against global warming.
More than 150 runners negotiated a shaggy hill laden with manmade obstacles, a river crossing, and a pile of volcanic rocks in the 5-kilometer fun run and 18-km adventure foot race.
The race was organized by the Junior Chamber International (JCI) and Northface, an international brand of sports apparel and outdoor equipment. JCI is a worldwide federation of young leaders and entrepreneurs whose members are more popularly known as Jaycees.
Even for the most experienced runners, some of them holding national and international titles, the MTR was one of the most grueling and unusual races.
The race started from the Peñaranda Park in the city to the top of Ligñon Hill in Daraga town, then down to a newly created back trail traversing the Yawa River to the Bonga Gully, one of the main pathways of volcanic debris swept by heavy rains.
Reaching the lava front, the racers made a U-turn and climbed back to Ligñon.
In his 14-year running career, Ballester said it was only in the MTR that his race plan became erratic.
“In my past races, I would stick to one race plan till finish. But here, I had to change it because the trail was packed with unexpected challenges in every segment,” he said.
The race also required great endurance and the application of different skills, he said.
“I just kept looking at Mayon’s peak as it felt like the sandy and rocky trail never ended. We had to climb rough terrain and slippery wooden stairs, and cross a river,” Ballester said shortly after he crossed the finish line.
Winners
Ballester said most of the runners were used to road races on smooth and flat pavements, making the MTR really different.
The winners, who came from different running teams, were—Male: 1st, Elmer Sabal (1:09:30); 2nd, Allan Ballester (1:10:08); 3rd, Cresenciano Sabal (1:10:35).
Female: 1st, Leszl Gitarueles (1:32:26); 2nd, Merlita Arias (1:45:07); 3rd. Ellen Tolentino (1:49:08).
The oldest runner was 71-year-old Vicente Caurez of Los Baños, Laguna, who was well-applauded when he finished the race standing strong.
Trail running as an adventure sport is more popular in Europe, according to Ballester. He said Albay’s trail run opened doors for the promotion of this endurance sport.
Provincial tourism officer Joe Briones said the trail run could be held annually and could draw more tourists.
These days, many tourists are looking for new sites for ecotourism and adventure sports. Briones said it would be good to have them both.
Yves Eli Yu, MTR project chair and vice president of JCI-Legazpi, said the trail run also sought to promote awareness of climate change.
Global warming
He said runners in the event and the spectators were made to realize the effects of global warming by making them experience nature.
“Taking part in this trail run is like touching Mayon’s soul. Your run toward its lava front reminds you of the lahar that killed and displaced over a thousand people at the height of Supertyphoon ‘Reming,’” Ballester said.
With the damage and floods caused by Reming on Nov. 30, 2006, Albay officials linked the disaster to the changing climate.
A2C2 campaign
After the tragedy, the provincial government launched the “Albay in Action for Climate Change” (A2C2) campaign, a pioneering local climate change adaptation in the Asia Pacific.
Yu said the JCI-Legazpi was jubilant that the MTR took place a day after 10 lawmakers from Asia, Europe, Africa and South America signed the Manila Declaration on Climate Change, which calls on rich nations to create a global fund to help reduce disaster risks brought by rising sea temperatures.
The five-page document, titled “The Manila Call for Action of Parliamentarians on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation,” was issued at the close of a two-day consultative meeting at Makati Shangri-La Hotel.
Yves said that for developing countries like the Philippines, it would be a big help to start small through awareness campaigns like the MTR.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Lack of equipment hounds Pagasa, Phivolcs in disaster-prone Albay
By Ephraim Aguilar, A15 (Southern Luzon page)
Legazpi City
FOR THE FIRST TIME in almost a year, the state-run weather station in Legazpi City had its Internet connected, but an employee had to step up to pay for it with her personal money.
The phone line itself was about to be disconnected due to unpaid bills. When the station was called for updates, the phone line was connected, but the call was mysteriously cut off mid-conversation.
The employee being interviewed was just stating that the phone line was cut off last weekend. She was about to say how they fixed the problem when the call was cut short. Attempts to call back were met with a busy tone.
Similarly, the land line of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) observatory in Daraga town has been inaccessible for the past months.
Dream
A wireless telephone occasionally works, but an employee said more often than not, it is disconnected.
Attempted calls are met with a machine-recorded female voice stating, “The subscriber you dialed is powered off.”
Considering the unstable phone line, the observatory staff can only dream of having a fax machine connected for easier distribution of volcanic and earthquake bulletins to those that need these pieces of vital information.
Both disaster agencies lack not only proper communication facilities but equipment crucial in lessening the impact of calamities.
Albay is prone to typhoons, floods, “lahar,” volcanic eruption and earthquakes.
In January, the Department of Science and Technology installed an upper-air receiving equipment worth P18 million but this has not been in use, said Corazon Samar, chief meteorological officer of Pagasa-Legazpi.
She said it was due to the lack of transmitters.
The transmitter of the upper-air receiving equipment is a small device attached to a big balloon, which could be launched into the air daily to gather real-time information from an altitude of up to 12 kilometers.
At least one transmitter could be launched every day and four during typhoons at a cost of P30,000 for every launch.
Samar said the station’s microbarograph is under repair while the aerovane is malfunctioning.
The microbarograph reads barometric pressure in real time while the aerovane determines wind direction and speed.
Samar said the station now only relies on a barometer which, unlike the microbarograph, has to be read hourly to get results.
Pagasa-Legazpi lacks personnel. Samar said it has only six employees and three security guards.
It also works with a monthly subsidy for operational expenses of only P1,995, excluding water, power and communication expenses.
Samar said her office always receives notices of disconnection due to unpaid bills because of the delay in processing payments from the central office.
Eduardo Laguerta, senior science research specialist of Phivolcs-Bicol, said the lack of seismic sensors around Mt. Mayon makes it hard to locate volcanic earthquakes.
He said since the government has limited resources, most equipment installed for Phivolcs-Bicol were funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
“There are only three stations bearing sensors around Mt. Mayon. If just one of these sensors does not function well, our monitoring will be greatly affected,” he said.
The location of volcanic earthquakes is important in determining signs of magma ascent inside the volcano. The lack of sensors, Laguerta said, makes it impossible to detect low-frequency earthquakes.
He said more sensors would make their findings on volcanic and seismic activities more refined.
Laguerta said there had been cases when villagers living near vital installations would steal station batteries, steel and phone lines.
He said that in places like Hawaii, there are more than enough sensors and other equipment, but people do not pilfer them.
“Here in our country, before you can even turn your back, the equipment is gone,” he said.
Legazpi City
FOR THE FIRST TIME in almost a year, the state-run weather station in Legazpi City had its Internet connected, but an employee had to step up to pay for it with her personal money.
The phone line itself was about to be disconnected due to unpaid bills. When the station was called for updates, the phone line was connected, but the call was mysteriously cut off mid-conversation.
The employee being interviewed was just stating that the phone line was cut off last weekend. She was about to say how they fixed the problem when the call was cut short. Attempts to call back were met with a busy tone.
Similarly, the land line of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) observatory in Daraga town has been inaccessible for the past months.
Dream
A wireless telephone occasionally works, but an employee said more often than not, it is disconnected.
Attempted calls are met with a machine-recorded female voice stating, “The subscriber you dialed is powered off.”
Considering the unstable phone line, the observatory staff can only dream of having a fax machine connected for easier distribution of volcanic and earthquake bulletins to those that need these pieces of vital information.
Both disaster agencies lack not only proper communication facilities but equipment crucial in lessening the impact of calamities.
Albay is prone to typhoons, floods, “lahar,” volcanic eruption and earthquakes.
In January, the Department of Science and Technology installed an upper-air receiving equipment worth P18 million but this has not been in use, said Corazon Samar, chief meteorological officer of Pagasa-Legazpi.
She said it was due to the lack of transmitters.
The transmitter of the upper-air receiving equipment is a small device attached to a big balloon, which could be launched into the air daily to gather real-time information from an altitude of up to 12 kilometers.
At least one transmitter could be launched every day and four during typhoons at a cost of P30,000 for every launch.
Samar said the station’s microbarograph is under repair while the aerovane is malfunctioning.
The microbarograph reads barometric pressure in real time while the aerovane determines wind direction and speed.
Samar said the station now only relies on a barometer which, unlike the microbarograph, has to be read hourly to get results.
Pagasa-Legazpi lacks personnel. Samar said it has only six employees and three security guards.
It also works with a monthly subsidy for operational expenses of only P1,995, excluding water, power and communication expenses.
Samar said her office always receives notices of disconnection due to unpaid bills because of the delay in processing payments from the central office.
Eduardo Laguerta, senior science research specialist of Phivolcs-Bicol, said the lack of seismic sensors around Mt. Mayon makes it hard to locate volcanic earthquakes.
He said since the government has limited resources, most equipment installed for Phivolcs-Bicol were funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
“There are only three stations bearing sensors around Mt. Mayon. If just one of these sensors does not function well, our monitoring will be greatly affected,” he said.
The location of volcanic earthquakes is important in determining signs of magma ascent inside the volcano. The lack of sensors, Laguerta said, makes it impossible to detect low-frequency earthquakes.
He said more sensors would make their findings on volcanic and seismic activities more refined.
Laguerta said there had been cases when villagers living near vital installations would steal station batteries, steel and phone lines.
He said that in places like Hawaii, there are more than enough sensors and other equipment, but people do not pilfer them.
“Here in our country, before you can even turn your back, the equipment is gone,” he said.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Albay boy’s drawing bests 1,676 worldwide
31 August 2008 (page A17)
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
GUINOBATAN, ALBAY—BRYLE NAPAY’S mind is etched with memories of rainy days when he would set aside his black leather shoes and wade to school on slippers as floods would rise fast in their village in Camalig town.
These memories were what inspired Bryle, now 16, to join the Shoot Nations 2008 contest, where his drawing bested 1,676 entries from all over the world.
Shoot Nations, organized by Plan International and London-based Shoot Experience, is an annual photography and drawing contest, which encourages young people to express their thoughts on global issues.
It aims to use these art forms as tools for cross-cultural, language-free communication. Entries are sent online.
This year’s theme revolved around climate change, a global menace that has prompted advocates to launch worldwide campaigns on awareness and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
But Bryle’s drawing, which he finished in just a day using paint and oil pastel, conveyed a simple message out of “a hand holding a seedling.”
It was captioned, “Reminds me that we can still do small things before it’s too late.”
A newbie in outside-the-school drawing contests, Bryle, senior high school student at the Marcial O. Rañola Memorial School here, said he never thought his drawing would win as “Best Overall Drawing” in the all-age category.
Bryle’s winning entry will be printed for exhibition at the World Youth Congress in Quebec, Canada, for the United Nations International Youth Day 2008.
It is also posted on www.shootnations.org and was exhibited at the OXO Tower Gallery in London last Aug. 12 to 17.
Bryle said his awareness of the ill-effects of environmental degradation as experienced by his community vividly showed him the impacts of a changing climate.
“Since [my] kindergarten [days], our village had always been flooded,” he recalled.
This reality, Bryle said, made him easily understand that deeds as small as littering trash have greater effects on a larger population.
He said that as thousands of young people view his drawings, he wants to send a message of unity.
“If every one would contribute in small ways and with all our efforts, we can save mother earth,” he said.
He lamented that most of the so-called “wired generation,” or those born in the advent of mobile technology, have become passive of environmental issues.
“Even if there are environmental laws and education in schools, some young people would not really care. But this can change if the youth are properly educated,” he said.
Dream
Given the chance, he said, he would love to create cartoons, whose content advocates environmental protection.
“I want to make animé about climate change so the youth will be aware of this issue,” he said.
After winning the contest, Bryle said he was motivated to learn more about environmental issues.
Because of his Shoot Nations stint, Bryle received an invitation to become a young ambassador for climate change in the YouthXchange, a international campaign initiative on sustainable consumption and production.
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
GUINOBATAN, ALBAY—BRYLE NAPAY’S mind is etched with memories of rainy days when he would set aside his black leather shoes and wade to school on slippers as floods would rise fast in their village in Camalig town.
These memories were what inspired Bryle, now 16, to join the Shoot Nations 2008 contest, where his drawing bested 1,676 entries from all over the world.
Shoot Nations, organized by Plan International and London-based Shoot Experience, is an annual photography and drawing contest, which encourages young people to express their thoughts on global issues.
It aims to use these art forms as tools for cross-cultural, language-free communication. Entries are sent online.
This year’s theme revolved around climate change, a global menace that has prompted advocates to launch worldwide campaigns on awareness and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
But Bryle’s drawing, which he finished in just a day using paint and oil pastel, conveyed a simple message out of “a hand holding a seedling.”
It was captioned, “Reminds me that we can still do small things before it’s too late.”
A newbie in outside-the-school drawing contests, Bryle, senior high school student at the Marcial O. Rañola Memorial School here, said he never thought his drawing would win as “Best Overall Drawing” in the all-age category.
Bryle’s winning entry will be printed for exhibition at the World Youth Congress in Quebec, Canada, for the United Nations International Youth Day 2008.
It is also posted on www.shootnations.org and was exhibited at the OXO Tower Gallery in London last Aug. 12 to 17.
Bryle said his awareness of the ill-effects of environmental degradation as experienced by his community vividly showed him the impacts of a changing climate.
“Since [my] kindergarten [days], our village had always been flooded,” he recalled.
This reality, Bryle said, made him easily understand that deeds as small as littering trash have greater effects on a larger population.
He said that as thousands of young people view his drawings, he wants to send a message of unity.
“If every one would contribute in small ways and with all our efforts, we can save mother earth,” he said.
He lamented that most of the so-called “wired generation,” or those born in the advent of mobile technology, have become passive of environmental issues.
“Even if there are environmental laws and education in schools, some young people would not really care. But this can change if the youth are properly educated,” he said.
Dream
Given the chance, he said, he would love to create cartoons, whose content advocates environmental protection.
“I want to make animé about climate change so the youth will be aware of this issue,” he said.
After winning the contest, Bryle said he was motivated to learn more about environmental issues.
Because of his Shoot Nations stint, Bryle received an invitation to become a young ambassador for climate change in the YouthXchange, a international campaign initiative on sustainable consumption and production.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
No more aching feet for ‘kakanin’ vendor
08 August 2008
Text and photos by Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
STO. DOMINGO, Albay—A struggling single mother, Lutgarda Alejo would rise up very early to make rounds in villages carrying a woven basket filled with “linanggang,” this town’s native version of “kakanin.”
After a tiring day of selling, she would go home with less than P500 and aching feet.
Alejo might have thought this routine was enough to make both ends meet for her family, but she realized she could upgrade her business.
Today, Alejo, from being just a walking linanggang vendor, is a living example of success to many other linanggang makers in Barangay Fidel Surtida.
In this village, there are around 70 households cooking and selling linanggang, which has been identified as Sto. Domingo’s town product by the Department of Trade and Industry.
Linanggang is a native kakanin made from cassava, rice, sweet potato, and banana, all major agricultural products of this town.
Russell Nieves, trade and industry development specialist of the DTI in Albay, said linanggang served as alternative food for the locals at the height of the Japanese invasion in the region.
“The people were not able to till their farms or fish regularly because of fear of the Japanese. After World War II, linanggang-making became a common livelihood in the community,” Nieves said.
From village streets, Alejo’s native foods have now reached malls in the cities of Tabaco and Legazpi carrying the brand name “Mama Lutz Delicacies.”
Alejo said she never thought all these developments in her product and business were possible.
“Just like many of the linanggang-makers here in our place, I grew up to traditional ways of cooking and selling,” Alejo claimed.
But through DTI-sponsored trainings, Alejo was able to develop her products and improve their packaging.
From unsophisticated plastic wrappers, Alejo’s products are now gracefully stuffed in polystyrene foam (commonly known as “Styrofoam”) with printed labels on them.
She also got her products approved by the Bureau of Food and Drugs.
At first Alejo was hesitant, or even pessimistic, about revolutionizing her ways of business.
“I never had a bigger vision for my livelihood. But one day, I said, why not give it a try?” said Alejo, who used P15,000 of her savings to start anew.
Now, Alejo does not have to walk around villages to sell. She was the first among Fidel Surtida traders to bring her products to the mall.
For her, manning two stalls in malls is not a bad start as her P500 earnings have multiplied to at least P3,000 daily.
Alejo said she seeks to expand her business by someday investing on technology that will improve the shelf-life of her linanggang.
“I want my products to reach places outside the region. I have once sold my products to people who brought them to as far as Aparri, Cebu and Davao,” Alejo said.
She added that befriending one’s loyal consumers does wonders in promoting the business. “My products are advertised by word of mouth. There would be times when, unexpectedly, customers would just visit my house and place bulk orders,” Alejo said.
There are around 30 food varieties under linanggang.
Some of Alejo’s products are the tabog-tabog (cassava, sweet potato, sugar, vanilla), inagom (cassava, corn, young coconut), cassava kalamay (latik, condensed milk, margarine, cassava, nuts), and many others.
High cost of ingredients
Despite the developments in Alejo’s business, she said the current economic slump badly affects linanggang makers.
Coconut, a mainstay ingredient, costs at least P15 per piece. Before Supertyphoon Reming ravaged massive coconut plantations in Bicol, it only cost P8.
The prices of cassava, camote, malagkit (glutinous rice) and sugar have also increased.
Nieves said it is in a time like this when entrepreneurs should be educated and empowered.
He said it is challenging to convince makers of native products, who are usually locked in traditional production and marketing means, to widen their horizon.
“In 2005, the DTI sponsored a local study mission trip in Cainta, Rizal, to expose linanggang makers to other successful native food entrepreneurs,” Nieves said, adding that real success stories could easily inspire starters.
Nieves said the linanggang makers of Sto. Domingo still need more capability-enhancement trainings to boost their morale, better technology to increase production, and new marketing strategies to broaden their niche.
Now, each day for Alejo no longer ends with an aching feet.
Text and photos by Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
INQUIRER.net
STO. DOMINGO, Albay—A struggling single mother, Lutgarda Alejo would rise up very early to make rounds in villages carrying a woven basket filled with “linanggang,” this town’s native version of “kakanin.”
After a tiring day of selling, she would go home with less than P500 and aching feet.
Alejo might have thought this routine was enough to make both ends meet for her family, but she realized she could upgrade her business.
Today, Alejo, from being just a walking linanggang vendor, is a living example of success to many other linanggang makers in Barangay Fidel Surtida.
In this village, there are around 70 households cooking and selling linanggang, which has been identified as Sto. Domingo’s town product by the Department of Trade and Industry.
Linanggang is a native kakanin made from cassava, rice, sweet potato, and banana, all major agricultural products of this town.
Russell Nieves, trade and industry development specialist of the DTI in Albay, said linanggang served as alternative food for the locals at the height of the Japanese invasion in the region.
“The people were not able to till their farms or fish regularly because of fear of the Japanese. After World War II, linanggang-making became a common livelihood in the community,” Nieves said.
From village streets, Alejo’s native foods have now reached malls in the cities of Tabaco and Legazpi carrying the brand name “Mama Lutz Delicacies.”
Alejo said she never thought all these developments in her product and business were possible.
“Just like many of the linanggang-makers here in our place, I grew up to traditional ways of cooking and selling,” Alejo claimed.
But through DTI-sponsored trainings, Alejo was able to develop her products and improve their packaging.
From unsophisticated plastic wrappers, Alejo’s products are now gracefully stuffed in polystyrene foam (commonly known as “Styrofoam”) with printed labels on them.
She also got her products approved by the Bureau of Food and Drugs.
At first Alejo was hesitant, or even pessimistic, about revolutionizing her ways of business.
“I never had a bigger vision for my livelihood. But one day, I said, why not give it a try?” said Alejo, who used P15,000 of her savings to start anew.
Now, Alejo does not have to walk around villages to sell. She was the first among Fidel Surtida traders to bring her products to the mall.
For her, manning two stalls in malls is not a bad start as her P500 earnings have multiplied to at least P3,000 daily.
Alejo said she seeks to expand her business by someday investing on technology that will improve the shelf-life of her linanggang.
“I want my products to reach places outside the region. I have once sold my products to people who brought them to as far as Aparri, Cebu and Davao,” Alejo said.
She added that befriending one’s loyal consumers does wonders in promoting the business. “My products are advertised by word of mouth. There would be times when, unexpectedly, customers would just visit my house and place bulk orders,” Alejo said.
There are around 30 food varieties under linanggang.
Some of Alejo’s products are the tabog-tabog (cassava, sweet potato, sugar, vanilla), inagom (cassava, corn, young coconut), cassava kalamay (latik, condensed milk, margarine, cassava, nuts), and many others.
High cost of ingredients
Despite the developments in Alejo’s business, she said the current economic slump badly affects linanggang makers.
Coconut, a mainstay ingredient, costs at least P15 per piece. Before Supertyphoon Reming ravaged massive coconut plantations in Bicol, it only cost P8.
The prices of cassava, camote, malagkit (glutinous rice) and sugar have also increased.
Nieves said it is in a time like this when entrepreneurs should be educated and empowered.
He said it is challenging to convince makers of native products, who are usually locked in traditional production and marketing means, to widen their horizon.
“In 2005, the DTI sponsored a local study mission trip in Cainta, Rizal, to expose linanggang makers to other successful native food entrepreneurs,” Nieves said, adding that real success stories could easily inspire starters.
Nieves said the linanggang makers of Sto. Domingo still need more capability-enhancement trainings to boost their morale, better technology to increase production, and new marketing strategies to broaden their niche.
Now, each day for Alejo no longer ends with an aching feet.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Caramoan finds fame on YouTube, French ‘Survivor’
By Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
POWDERY WHITE SAND, CRYSTAL blue waters, lush vegetation, rock formations, marine life and yes, fabulous sunsets—these are scenes from “Koh-Lanta Caramoan,” the French edition of the popular TV reality game show “Survivor,” shot entirely in the Caramoan Peninsula in Camarines Sur and now showing on YouTube.
Another website features a breathtaking view of Caramoan from a helicopter—the contestants’ first glimpse of the peninsula. Other tourist spots in the country are featured like the Mayon Volcano in Bicol, the Banaue Rice Terraces, the Chocolate Hills in Bohol, and Donsol, which is promoting itself as the butanding (whale shark) capital of the world.
Caramoan has been getting a lot of attention since the French edition of “Survivor” started airing in the first week of July. Already, tour packages to the peninsula’s white sand beaches and pristine islands, have proliferated on the Net.
Internet-savvy Kristina Gadaingan, who hails from Bicol but works in Manila, has already seen some episodes of the latest season of “Survivor-France” on YouTube.
She is excited to see the show because it was shot entirely in Caramoan, touted as the next Boracay.
“I’ve always wanted to go to places like Boracay or Palawan. I never knew there’s such a beautiful place close to home,” says Gadaingan of Legazpi City.
“Koh-Lanta Caramoan” started airing this month in French-speaking countries across Europe and in Canada. At least 10 million people are expected to watch “Survivor-France.”
Filipinos, who may not be able to see the French edition of the reality game show, are turning to the Internet to access what they can through the popular video-sharing site, YouTube.
Early post
A quick search of YouTube listed several interesting videos—some are trailers of the French reality game show while others are clips from actual episodes.
One of the earliest clips which was posted by user “kohlanta20081,” a week after the pilot episode aired in the first week of July, has been suspended, probably due to copyright infringement.
Another user, “kohlanta20083,” has posted two 30-second teasers of the latest episodes last Tuesday. No one knows, however, how long this could evade copyright watchdogs.
Longer clips
If you prefer longer clips showing more of Caramoan’s beauty, then check out http://2008-koh-lanta.skyrock.com. The blog has more clips of “Survivor-France” and more information on the contestants, however, since the site is in French, it may be a little difficult to navigate.
Another site, http://vodstream.tf1.fr/tf1divertissement/koh_lanta_8/episode_1/catchup1_ WMV9_464Kbit_etf1_169.wmv, opens with aerial views of Caramoan shot from a helicopter. Again, it is in French.
If you’re lost in translation, the site, http://babelfish.yahoo.com, translates foreign web pages into English and vice versa.
Virtual tours
Try googling “Caramoan” and you will find many references and links. First on the list is http://caramoan-paradise.blogspot.com.
Click on the link and this is what you get: “Need a worry-free, fun, exciting and adventurous stay at Caramoan? Been wanting to experience Philippine’s Secret Paradise? Eager to explore Camarines Sur? We can help you make your travel special. Please get in touch with me and let us start planning on your stay.”
YouTube user “danymous” has posted random video clips of Caramoan, added some music and the result is a music video showcasing the peninsula’s scenery—a musical virtual tour, so to speak.
YouTube user “TomFRules” has listed 10 of the peninsula’s best islands and beaches in his clip titled “10 reasons to go to Caramoan.”
Poor town hopeful
With all the exposure Caramoan has been getting, Mayor Constantino Cordial Jr. says he foresees his fourth-class municipality achieving second-class status within five to 10 years.
According to Cordial, Caramoan residents are also looking forward to the P320-million infrastructure projects pledged by President Macapagal-Arroyo through the Camarines Sur provincial government.
According to the mayor, the amount will cover expenses for the road networking, seaport repair and airport construction.
“We are in favor of all the development projects. But we have only one plea—that nature be preserved at its best,” says Cordial in a mobile phone interview.
Gota beach, which was closed to the public by the provincial government last summer because of the “Survivor” taping, has been reopened to the public.
However, Caramoan residents are now charged an entrance fee of P150 and tourists, P300. Cordial says the amount is quite expensive especially for the locals.
Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Raymund Villafuerte has said that once development projects are in place, the entrance to Gota beach may not always be free.
He also says Caramoan residents will benefit from the development of Gota beach in terms of employment opportunities.
Second time
Tourism Secretary Ace Durano, during his visit to Caramoan on May, said this was the second time “Survivor-France” chose the Philippines for its location.
“Survivor,” a popular TV reality game show produced in many countries, isolates its contestants in the wilderness to compete for cash and prizes. They are divided into tribes and they vote off other contestants until only one is left.
The show is known to choose locations in exotic environments.
Last year, “Survivor-France” was shot in Palawan and after it was aired, the number of French tourists arriving in Palawan increased by 23 percent, Durano said.
Inquirer Southern Luzon
POWDERY WHITE SAND, CRYSTAL blue waters, lush vegetation, rock formations, marine life and yes, fabulous sunsets—these are scenes from “Koh-Lanta Caramoan,” the French edition of the popular TV reality game show “Survivor,” shot entirely in the Caramoan Peninsula in Camarines Sur and now showing on YouTube.
Another website features a breathtaking view of Caramoan from a helicopter—the contestants’ first glimpse of the peninsula. Other tourist spots in the country are featured like the Mayon Volcano in Bicol, the Banaue Rice Terraces, the Chocolate Hills in Bohol, and Donsol, which is promoting itself as the butanding (whale shark) capital of the world.
Caramoan has been getting a lot of attention since the French edition of “Survivor” started airing in the first week of July. Already, tour packages to the peninsula’s white sand beaches and pristine islands, have proliferated on the Net.
Internet-savvy Kristina Gadaingan, who hails from Bicol but works in Manila, has already seen some episodes of the latest season of “Survivor-France” on YouTube.
She is excited to see the show because it was shot entirely in Caramoan, touted as the next Boracay.
“I’ve always wanted to go to places like Boracay or Palawan. I never knew there’s such a beautiful place close to home,” says Gadaingan of Legazpi City.
“Koh-Lanta Caramoan” started airing this month in French-speaking countries across Europe and in Canada. At least 10 million people are expected to watch “Survivor-France.”
Filipinos, who may not be able to see the French edition of the reality game show, are turning to the Internet to access what they can through the popular video-sharing site, YouTube.
Early post
A quick search of YouTube listed several interesting videos—some are trailers of the French reality game show while others are clips from actual episodes.
One of the earliest clips which was posted by user “kohlanta20081,” a week after the pilot episode aired in the first week of July, has been suspended, probably due to copyright infringement.
Another user, “kohlanta20083,” has posted two 30-second teasers of the latest episodes last Tuesday. No one knows, however, how long this could evade copyright watchdogs.
Longer clips
If you prefer longer clips showing more of Caramoan’s beauty, then check out http://2008-koh-lanta.skyrock.com. The blog has more clips of “Survivor-France” and more information on the contestants, however, since the site is in French, it may be a little difficult to navigate.
Another site, http://vodstream.tf1.fr/tf1divertissement/koh_lanta_8/episode_1/catchup1_ WMV9_464Kbit_etf1_169.wmv, opens with aerial views of Caramoan shot from a helicopter. Again, it is in French.
If you’re lost in translation, the site, http://babelfish.yahoo.com, translates foreign web pages into English and vice versa.
Virtual tours
Try googling “Caramoan” and you will find many references and links. First on the list is http://caramoan-paradise.blogspot.com.
Click on the link and this is what you get: “Need a worry-free, fun, exciting and adventurous stay at Caramoan? Been wanting to experience Philippine’s Secret Paradise? Eager to explore Camarines Sur? We can help you make your travel special. Please get in touch with me and let us start planning on your stay.”
YouTube user “danymous” has posted random video clips of Caramoan, added some music and the result is a music video showcasing the peninsula’s scenery—a musical virtual tour, so to speak.
YouTube user “TomFRules” has listed 10 of the peninsula’s best islands and beaches in his clip titled “10 reasons to go to Caramoan.”
Poor town hopeful
With all the exposure Caramoan has been getting, Mayor Constantino Cordial Jr. says he foresees his fourth-class municipality achieving second-class status within five to 10 years.
According to Cordial, Caramoan residents are also looking forward to the P320-million infrastructure projects pledged by President Macapagal-Arroyo through the Camarines Sur provincial government.
According to the mayor, the amount will cover expenses for the road networking, seaport repair and airport construction.
“We are in favor of all the development projects. But we have only one plea—that nature be preserved at its best,” says Cordial in a mobile phone interview.
Gota beach, which was closed to the public by the provincial government last summer because of the “Survivor” taping, has been reopened to the public.
However, Caramoan residents are now charged an entrance fee of P150 and tourists, P300. Cordial says the amount is quite expensive especially for the locals.
Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Raymund Villafuerte has said that once development projects are in place, the entrance to Gota beach may not always be free.
He also says Caramoan residents will benefit from the development of Gota beach in terms of employment opportunities.
Second time
Tourism Secretary Ace Durano, during his visit to Caramoan on May, said this was the second time “Survivor-France” chose the Philippines for its location.
“Survivor,” a popular TV reality game show produced in many countries, isolates its contestants in the wilderness to compete for cash and prizes. They are divided into tribes and they vote off other contestants until only one is left.
The show is known to choose locations in exotic environments.
Last year, “Survivor-France” was shot in Palawan and after it was aired, the number of French tourists arriving in Palawan increased by 23 percent, Durano said.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Steep steel prices cut into cutlery makers’ pockets
Text and photos by Ephraim Aguilar
Inquirer Southern Luzon
TABACO CITY—CUTLERY MAKERS IN this city, who provide blood to an industry built by tradition, are bleeding profits due to skyrocketing prices of primary raw materials such coconut charcoal and hard steel.
For nearly a century now, blacksmiths in Barangay Cobo here have honed their craft to gain a reputation as the “best cutlery producers in the Bicol region and, probably, in the country.”
From its early days in 1919, cutlery-making is still very much alive in Barangay Cobo today.
One could hear the pounding and sharpening of steel in workshops adjacent to houses, where seasoned blacksmiths work at such speed and precision to be able to mass produce their products.
Emily Boncacas, 40, of Barangay Cobo has been in the cutlery business for 23 years now. She says her parents were her main influence in the business venture.
“I grew up seeing my father make scissors. It was our main livelihood. Through cutlery-making, he was able to send us to school,” says Boncacas.
Now married, Boncacas also put up her own cutlery shop. She has four workers who make scissors and grass cutters for her.
However determined to pursue this line of business, Boncacas says cutlery-making is being challenged by the country’s down economy.
She says the prices of raw materials have tremendously increased.
Steep prices
Hard steel from junk shops used to be P16 per kilogram during the 1990s but now, it ranges from P35 to P40 per kilo.
Coconut charcoal used to be P64 per sack but now it is worth P240 per sack.
Boncacas says gone are the glory days of their cutlery business.
“We could not just increase our prices because our buyers would run away,” says Boncacas.
She adds if they could only develop direct market links and even export, their industry might prosper again.
However, Boncacas says, they have no capital to be able to expand their production and to export.
She says cutlery-makers would now commonly rely on the “byahero,” a middleman who sells their products to other provinces in Southern Luzon, Visayas, and Metro Manila.
Russell Nieves, trade and industry development specialist of the Department of Trade and Industry in Albay, says cutlery makers should be able to tap the market directly.
Merchants vs producers
“Prices of cutlery are controlled by merchants. Cash and material advances are given by wholesalers to suppliers, thus, the latter are tied up and could not demand for higher prices,” Nieves says.
He adds that the wholesalers usually get a margin of between 30 and 50 percent, leaving manufacturers a small profit of 5 to 10 percent.
Nieves is the coordinator for the Tabaco cutlery under DTI’s One Town, One Product (Otop) program. Cutlery is Tabaco City’s town product and is celebrated annually through the city’s Tabak Festival.
“Tabak” is a native word meaning “bolo,” from which the city’s name was derived.
The Cobo blacksmiths or the Samahan ng Manggagawang Panday sa Tabaco Inc. (Samapat) is composed of 31 producers of handcrafted cutlery.
Nieves says the association’s monthly product capacity is 7,570 pairs of scissors, 4,980 bolos, 50 samurais, 10,560 knives, 100 pieces grass cutters, and 500 razors.
He says the industry association employs at least 144 workers and the asset size of every cutlery shop ranges from P20,000 to P400,000.
Nieves says the association produces the finest handcrafted cutlery in Bicol, but local producers need to learn product and market development.
He says there is a need for new ethnic designs for scabbards, a generic trademark or brand, fiber glass-based handles, and a common production center where products could be standardized and branded.
The city government has given P100,000 for raw materials and more than P400,000 for the construction of a common workshop facility. The association also plans to put up its own display center.
Edgardo Cedro, president of Samapat Inc. and owner of ABC cutlery, says one thing that keeps Tabaco’s priced industry alive is quality.
“Our local cutlery is better than imported ones, which are cheaper but are not durable,” says Cedro, who recounts cutlery-making was already a running tradition when he was born. The 48-year-old man believes he shall never see its demise.
Inquirer Southern Luzon
TABACO CITY—CUTLERY MAKERS IN this city, who provide blood to an industry built by tradition, are bleeding profits due to skyrocketing prices of primary raw materials such coconut charcoal and hard steel.
For nearly a century now, blacksmiths in Barangay Cobo here have honed their craft to gain a reputation as the “best cutlery producers in the Bicol region and, probably, in the country.”
From its early days in 1919, cutlery-making is still very much alive in Barangay Cobo today.
One could hear the pounding and sharpening of steel in workshops adjacent to houses, where seasoned blacksmiths work at such speed and precision to be able to mass produce their products.
Emily Boncacas, 40, of Barangay Cobo has been in the cutlery business for 23 years now. She says her parents were her main influence in the business venture.
“I grew up seeing my father make scissors. It was our main livelihood. Through cutlery-making, he was able to send us to school,” says Boncacas.
Now married, Boncacas also put up her own cutlery shop. She has four workers who make scissors and grass cutters for her.
However determined to pursue this line of business, Boncacas says cutlery-making is being challenged by the country’s down economy.
She says the prices of raw materials have tremendously increased.
Steep prices
Hard steel from junk shops used to be P16 per kilogram during the 1990s but now, it ranges from P35 to P40 per kilo.
Coconut charcoal used to be P64 per sack but now it is worth P240 per sack.
Boncacas says gone are the glory days of their cutlery business.
“We could not just increase our prices because our buyers would run away,” says Boncacas.
She adds if they could only develop direct market links and even export, their industry might prosper again.
However, Boncacas says, they have no capital to be able to expand their production and to export.
She says cutlery-makers would now commonly rely on the “byahero,” a middleman who sells their products to other provinces in Southern Luzon, Visayas, and Metro Manila.
Russell Nieves, trade and industry development specialist of the Department of Trade and Industry in Albay, says cutlery makers should be able to tap the market directly.
Merchants vs producers
“Prices of cutlery are controlled by merchants. Cash and material advances are given by wholesalers to suppliers, thus, the latter are tied up and could not demand for higher prices,” Nieves says.
He adds that the wholesalers usually get a margin of between 30 and 50 percent, leaving manufacturers a small profit of 5 to 10 percent.
Nieves is the coordinator for the Tabaco cutlery under DTI’s One Town, One Product (Otop) program. Cutlery is Tabaco City’s town product and is celebrated annually through the city’s Tabak Festival.
“Tabak” is a native word meaning “bolo,” from which the city’s name was derived.
The Cobo blacksmiths or the Samahan ng Manggagawang Panday sa Tabaco Inc. (Samapat) is composed of 31 producers of handcrafted cutlery.
Nieves says the association’s monthly product capacity is 7,570 pairs of scissors, 4,980 bolos, 50 samurais, 10,560 knives, 100 pieces grass cutters, and 500 razors.
He says the industry association employs at least 144 workers and the asset size of every cutlery shop ranges from P20,000 to P400,000.
Nieves says the association produces the finest handcrafted cutlery in Bicol, but local producers need to learn product and market development.
He says there is a need for new ethnic designs for scabbards, a generic trademark or brand, fiber glass-based handles, and a common production center where products could be standardized and branded.
The city government has given P100,000 for raw materials and more than P400,000 for the construction of a common workshop facility. The association also plans to put up its own display center.
Edgardo Cedro, president of Samapat Inc. and owner of ABC cutlery, says one thing that keeps Tabaco’s priced industry alive is quality.
“Our local cutlery is better than imported ones, which are cheaper but are not durable,” says Cedro, who recounts cutlery-making was already a running tradition when he was born. The 48-year-old man believes he shall never see its demise.
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