Freespirit
Beginnings
Unless I insist that all Filipinos came from the "royal oats" sown by the ten Bornean Datus when they first came to the country, I take no roots nor bearings in Western Visayas... and so, I insist – but with due respect to the people of the region.
I first came to Iloilo City in the early 80s as a delegate to the national congress of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines. It was a very fleeting visit, the place hardly remembered as we were more embroiled in the issues confronting student writers then than doing the rounds of the province.
I shunned another opportunity to frequent the area when I was with the public affairs department of one of the top corporations in the country. For one reason or another, I wasn't able to visit Iloilo or other parts of the region (except Bacolod City and Boracay), the 8 years I was there even as I move about every nook and cranny of the Philippines. When I left the company, I had in my desk a bunch of unused plane tickets all bound for Iloilo.
Until five years ago, Western Visayas for me was synonymous only to the big political names that color the region: Drilon, Defensor, even Jose Pidal. I also know it only to be the home of two provinces lodged among the country's bottom 20-- Antique and Guimaras. Yet, I also know that it is a destination area for tourists as it is host to Bacolod's Maskarra Festival and Aklan's Ati-atihan, and yes, for better or for worst, to the world renowned Boracay.
Call it serendipity, but soon after, my succeeding engagements as consultant of the Philippine Office of an international development organization brought me to the inner depths of the region. My encounter with ordinary folks in Guimaras and Northern Iloilo brought back a sense of what I lost along the way. And this, I found in areas where there is more water than land as I saw how people there coped with day to day concerns. I joined fisherfolks in the island barangay of Bagongon in Concepcion Iloilo as they laid out artificial reefs in the sea. Together with the community at the Jordan Marine Reserve in Guimaras, we let out to its natural habitat an endangered pawikan. The interest spawned by these discoveries led to more.
Skeptic to the hilt, I found fresh hopes in some local government officials I met from the region and believed once again that there is hope for this country. There was Concepcion Mayor Raul Banias who is now Presidential Assisatnt for Panay and Guimaras, there was Ajuy Mayor Jett Rojas who is now Sangguniang Panlalawigan Member of Iloilo and there was Jordan Mayor Nene Nava who is now Governor of Guimaras. The three and their respective communities were the main ingredients in the book I was commissioned to write -- "Walking the Extra Mile." The title was inspired by them and their people as they took that one extra step to make a difference.
With this, I took a second look at Western Visayas. And then I remembered that indeed, there was something about the region I grew up with and learned along the way even as I lived far across it. As an aspiring writer I looked up to Graciano Lopez Jaena, one of Jaro's most Illustrious sons. In the days of our student activism we took our hats off to one Antonio Tagamolila. Today, I know that both Guimaras and Antique are no longer in the list of the country's poorest but among the most promising provinces in the country and that I know too that some of my colleagues during that Editor's Guild Congress are now in the helm of local politics like Lauaan Mayor Aser Balajadia in Antique.
In sum, Western Visayas for me now has ceased to be a simple spot on the map. Whatever reasons fate has for shutting me out of the area in the past is probably the same reason why the area was superimposed before my very countenance now.
Be that as it may, I take liberty in saying all these in this maiden issue of my column to lend a bit of transparency as to who I am and why I am here. And, in so doing, be allowed to just move about without having to insist that I too, came from the barren soil sown and enriched by Datu Sumakwel and his peers. With this, I take a bow.