Wanderlust by Claudio V. Tabotabo (October, 2004)

After an hour of walking we came to the crest of mountain where houses of stilts stood far and near. In our left the sun appeared over the peak. Its soft morning shaft of light that pierced through the coconut leaves gave us a feeling of well being. Minutes later we took off our sweater. In the distance a wisp of smoke from one of the houses below us bellowed towards the windless space above. Further behind us was the vast ocean, too wide but on the mountain I could measure it with my finger. Boats dotted the blue water. But after three hours of walking, the horizon had lost. What remained it sight was the wide blank in blue.

Further into the south, the mountains were too dark to behold at. Going there was like going to the unknown. Folks in town said that, the mountains of Zamboanga del Norte are penetrated again by another wave of rebels. The folks tried to dissuade us from our mountain wanderings. But their warning and all the other uncertainties like the intense heat of the summer sun, where to pass the night and the questions concerning the food cultivated our natural impulse to wander. We will not go because it was easy. We will go because it was difficult. To reach that cone-like promontory where a hawk looks down at the tiny creatures below was a great success. We wanted to know what lies at the back of the mountains. We wanted to experience how it feels to be on top of the world. So there we were discovering the provinces, and surely we had discovered things.

To make this certain, we came to the highland boundary of Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur. These two provinces met in the mountains a few kilometers from Pangandao, the farthest barrio of Manukan, a town of Zamboanga del Norte. The plight of people of Pangandao is the picture of the life of the other highland barrios of the twin provinces.

The people are poor. Poor as I say it. Nineteen every twenty residents are Subanun (the cultural community of Zamboanga Norte and Sur). For a living, the residents work as hired hands in the farms own by visayan, and paid as low as P.30.00 a day. Sometimes the work is paid with ginamos -salted fish that is the month-long viand. Occasionally, the copra producers hired Subanun in drying out the coconut. But very bad, copra today is only 18.00 a kilo so that its production is forcibly stopped.

Life is extremely hard. Death of starvation is at the threshold of the houses in the highland. The harvest from the small farm could no longer support the expanding family. Gone were the days when lands of Zamboanga produced plenty out of their natural fertility. The repeated cropping made the lands closed to barrenness.

Supplemental to the people’s staple were fish and crustaceans form the rivers. But this time the presence of gold mining in the surrounding places made every form of life in the rivers toxic.

The people have no other option than to borrow money from the Chinese copra buyer. They presented the land title of their lands, and the copra buyer lent them money. But without completing the year, the lands do not belong to the farmers anymore. And because they have a standing account with the Chinese, the farmers could not sell their products to the other buyer that offers higher prices. This is another meaning of what they call "human bondage".

On the same hand, the people in the highlands of Zamboanga peninsula still engaged in the superstitious medical practice. This happened because the government’s health program failed to go deeper into the enclaves of mountains where the greatest mass of people are the target. The characteristics of road, the weather condition and the peace and order situation hindered the health practitioners in doing out their programs of action.

So why stay in the barrios when the streams of life there are already dry? Many flocked to the cities in the hope of finding a living. They join in the long lines of unemployed. Some found a job, a backbreaking job which salary is not even enough to pay the bed spacer.

These problems should have been the topics of the politicians in their campaign speeches. But no one had touched the issue. The politicians focused their speeches on their autobiographies.

In the afternoon when we came to Pangandao, the candidate for mayor (wife of the mayor, Manukan Zamboanga del Norte) delivered a speech before the barefooted audience. The Chinese copra buyer was asking for the vote of the poor farmers. In return, what could these farmers expect from the Chinese politicians?

Talin Hisula, a professor of literature and a journalist, my climbing buddy said, "pay no attention to the Chinese, let’s go. We will discover our country." We proceeded, and finally came to a small waterfall in the heart of the forest.

For moments we observed the surroundings. The afternoon breeze passed gently giving us a new kind of sensation after walking under the scorching heat of the sun. I looked up at the canopy of leaves. The leaves quivered like small hands waving at us. There was a feeling of excitement like I was meeting my fair lady. I walked few paces and listened. Again my excitement grew stronger. In the forest there is a mystery that none of the human race can unravel.

There was no sign of humanity around the waterfall. Everything was a creation of nature. Between roots of trees intertwined the rocks water came out and formed a swimming hole.

We moved closer to the water. A small snake skittered away across the stream and a couple of rabbits scuttled back to the bushes. Suddenly a hawk swooped above and perched on a branch. The bird looked down at us. Talin said, its sight is sharper than a camera. But John Updike in one of his stories has a superlative description of a hawk. The hawk if only could read, the story master said, it could read a newspaper below even if it is flying high that no human eyes could see him.

For a fraction of an hour, I was free from the dull, humdrum world of everyday. I saw and touched the perfect creation of the Almighty that most city lad missed.

As the hawk was looking down at us, a thought came to me. The bird perhaps was asking and was wary for the presence of a human being in his abode. Wary because the natural set up of things in the world was destroyed by a human being. The hawk, snakes, rabbits and all forms of life in the wilderness are forwarders of ecosystem. While man who claims to be the superior of all these animals is the progeny of destruction to nature.