Off to Tawi Tawi

Once again I found myself bleary eyed and smoking in the Centennial Airport’s coffee shop. sipping a Coke Light and taking drag after drag on my cigarette, I seriously consider kicking the dreadful habit. It may be sugar-free but the carbonated water must surely be screwing up my guts.

Like countless times before, I’m waiting for the 4:50 morning flight to Zamboanga City, the gateway to most  places in southern Mindanao. This time around a priest named Fr. Rey Roda got shot in a little known island called Tabawan in Tawi-Tawi.  

My crew and I trade jokes about crash-landing in the middle of the Sulu Sea as the PA system anounced the last call for boarding passengers. We let the other passengers board first knowing they’d all be bottled up at the end of the tube anyway. After a few minutes we pass through the counter to the clear annoyance of the attractive ground crews who probably had their minds set on breakfast or sleep.

Having just bought a digital slr, my mind was bent on documenting my trip. The camera was an impulse buy, one of the many I have done. But this time around I was convinced the expensive purchase made sense. In my seven years as a journalist, I only have a handful of pictures of the places I’ve visited or the events I’ve witnessed. Back then blogging wasn’t even in my subconscious, but it is now, so in my internal corkboard I had another feel-good justification ticked off.

We touch down in Zamboanga airport with a slight shudder an the distant screech of rubber on tarmac. At the back of my mind, an imaginary puff of white smoke erupts behind us, like so many movie shots of landing airplanes.

As soon as the plane stops the other passengers quickly get up and jostle at each other to get to the overhead luggage bins. Maybe most people riding planes are just plain impatient, which is probably the reason they opt for the one hour flight rather than the 24 hour cruise by boat.  

Having got to their hand-carried luggage they glare at each other impatiently, craning their necks at the exit knowing fully well nothing was going to happen until the ladder was brought up against the plane.

Then with a collective heave they’re off, shoving and pushing as if an expedient exit from the plane would guarantee a quick access to their luggage still hidden deep within the airplane’s bowels.

We collect our luggage and savor a smoke in the luggage claim area. One of the joys of being in Zamboanga is that the airport is probably the last few places on earth that allows smokers to do what they will.

Zamboanga is just a stop however in our journey.   The next leg requires a ride onboard a rickety propeller driven plane.

During the turboprop ride, we fly over the spectacular islands of the south, glimmering like emeralds on a carpet of deep blue.  

I guess real planes have to be propeller driven, noisy and acting like it could fall apart anytime, to impart the real wonder of flying through the air.

Sitting in the clinical quiet of modern jets somewhat takes away the flavor of flying. In an old plane reeking with the smell of jet fuel and ancient, dried up puke, the sense of adventure is very much alive. 

 With every shuddering bank and heart-stopping dip through airpockets, the danger and thrill compels you to marvel at the way the plane was built. We’ve all seen some sort of documentary explaining the physics of flight but I feel it still doesn’t convincingly explain a 20 ton plane lifting off the ground and soaring above the clouds. Call me naïve, but I’d rather have my sense of wonder intact than actively rely on the logic of aerodynamics everytime I see a plane in the air.

From the air Tawi-Tawi’s capital Bonggao looks picture perfect. A scattering of stilt houses cling to the coastline and the entire island is wreathed in a crown of emerald shallows. 

A large rock towers over the capital like some slumbering golem. They call this rock the Bonggao Peak, a summit sacred to the muslims who erected one of the earliest Mosques upon its lofty crags. In all my travels to this province I have yet to attempt a summit on the majestic monolith.

A few of my friends from the industry have made ascent and they tell me the place is overrun by monkeys who pester pilgrims for food.  The next time I'm in Tawi-Tawi I shall make this climb.

Passing beneath its imposing shadow I openly wonder what could be found at the peak. Our driver warns me against making a non-commital wish to ascend the rock saying bad-luck comes to those who make the promise but end up not fulfilling the obligation.

Bongao isn’t much to look at. Without the picturesque sea in its background, there’s to set it apart from the small towns found elsewhere in the country.  

Tawi-tawi’s claim to fame is it’s pristine islands and crystal beaches, places of beauty that at the moment are unsafe to visit without a heavily armed escort of soldiers or security personnel.

The people are nice enough though. There’s even a small community of Christian, mostly traders who have refuse to abandon the place despite the sporadic kidnappings and killings of merchants by lawless elements lurking throughout the islands.  

During the casual resident to agog traveller conversations, they speak of a not so distant past when southern Mindanao was a peaceful place where traders could take their boats to the most remote islands to barter.  

Hell, someone even killed a priest in one of the islands here.  

Fr. Rey Roda was gunned down near his school by armed thugs who came by boat in the late afternoon.  I've heard some argue that this is the natural consequence of a Christian cleric embedding himself with Muslims.  But I beg to disagree.  From what I know of the priests in this part of the country, their mission is no longer one of conversion but one of education.  Priests like Fr. Roda took it upon themselves to educate the muslims in Tabawan...apparently some people in this part of the world see the education of the citizenry as a threat to the status quo.  

I wouldn’t recommend vacationing there at the moment. Unless one secures an invitation from the governor who makes it a point to secure his guests. Most of the resorts here lie fairly close to the coastline and therefore the open sea. Without anyone telling me, I know that come high-tide, the waters along the beaches would be deep enough to allow high-powered speedboats access to a beach head and that my friend will be your ticket to an undoubtedly memorable vacation with your abductors to be.

Jolo memories

I think it would be safe to assume that Jolo in the province of Sulu isn’t one of the places one would include in a tour of the Philippine Islands. Distance aside, there’s that little gang of thugs called the Abu Sayyaf playing hide and seek with government forces up in the mountains. The perils keep this little known corner of the country, isolated, misunderstood and certainly mysterious for most Filipinos.

But these factors are precisely why I get sent to this province time and time again. My job as a journalist requires it. The dangers on the island of Jolo, or in any point in the 18 island municipalities, are real. There’s no glossing over the fact that terrorists, both foreign and domestic ply the little known coastlines and countless islands.

Yet beyond the obvious threats lie a land with so much promise and beauty. No I don’t say that in the way tourism officials trumpet vacation spots to foreign investors. The beauty of Jolo lies in its untamed nature and isolation, virtues that would have been lost long ago to the merchants of commercialism and greed had the natives given up the fight against their perceived oppressors.

In the lull between encounters, journalists sometimes make the journey to a Philippine Marine battalion camp called Buhanginan in Patikul, some 15 kilometers outside Jolo, the Provincial Capital. Unfortunately, this area along the southern coast of Jolo Island is also the favorite beachhead of the ASG coming from Basilan or mainland Mindanao. But what the heck, all the places here are dangerous in the first place so it doesn’t really matter. Besides, knowing an entire marine battalion is just a stone throw’s away make swimming here a more relaxing experience. Having built by soldiers primarily from Manila, the camp’s guest huts are named after the major five star hotels in the Metro Manila. A bit of sarcasm, helplessness and definitely longing helped shape the character of the camp throughout the long years of fighting and the steady stream of soldiers who completed their tour of duties in the strife-torn island.

I bought a three pronged spearhead from the market in Jolo that I fashioned into a harpoon of sorts. After an hour in the sun and surf, I managed to bring back two small fish I had speared. It was a good thing the battalion Commander had his cook whip up lunch for us otherwise, we would have had to make do with the midgets I caught.

Around three in the afternoon, we had to head back to Jolo. A quick stop at the market gave us enough time to gather the unbelievably cheap spread of fresh seafood. For five hundred pesos, we bought a 3 kilo triggerfish called pugot, two huge squid, a kilo of crablike creatures called curacha and a basin-full of clams called imbao. The guys wanted to try sea turtle eggs and even though eating these things are banned....well we bought one apiece just to see how they taste.

We headed back to our hotel for dinner and started roasting the fish just outside our hotel rooms. The clams I grilled and topped off with butter, onions and fried garlic. The curachas were deep fried and the squid roasted over coals.

The meat of the pugot is akin to tanigue or mackerel although a bit on the bland side. It really tastes best grilled and the tough skin and scales blackened to thoroughly cook the meat inside. One fish can feed around 6 people. The curachas as the pictures show, are red even before you cook them. They exude a nice, sea-like odor when fresh which turn intoxicatingly rich and pungent once cooked. There’s not much meat in the little varmints but they are LOADED with crab fat. The big carapace is full of the orangey, cholesterol laced, heart-attack material crab fat that is sooo tasty. The turtle eggs were delicious t not really extraordinary. It doesn't make sense to dig out these eggs and endanger the sea turtle population. Chicken eggs taste better. The strange thing about the turtle eggs were that no matter how long you cook them they never seem to firm up so that you end up half slurping, half chewing the yolk and white.

Thinking back I still feel dizzy after dispatching two curachas at one sitting. More on Jolo the next time around. I think ‘ll sit down for a while…