TACTICAL SECURITY RELIEF WORKS AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE

AFTER THE 7.2 EARTHQUAKE shook the islands of Cebu and Bohol on October 15, 2013, the company where I worked in, authorized me to organize a relief mission to concentrate on the severely damaged areas. My company – Tactical Security Agency, Inc. - employ security guards assigned at the different PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG Fund branches in Bohol. Aside that, a lot of our guards came from these places and it is my task to determine which guard will be given aid.

I decide that we concentrate on the areas between the town of Talibon in the north, then going south to Tagbilaran City, as the very places that will be prioritized for relief goods giving, to include the islands. Approved during the discussion were the procurement of rice, canned goods, instant noodles, biscuits, sugar, milk, chocolate drinks, coffee, salt, “bihon” and dried fish and the people that will comprise the team.

After allocating funds good for twenty-one families of our security guards, the company’s relief mission moved forward. So, on October 26, this blogger commenced to undertake this humanitarian mission alone. I facilitated for the transfer of relief packs for the first batch of nine families from Cebu to the Port of Talibon.

The original plan was to distribute the goods on two company motorcycles to be shipped from Cebu but it was shelved due to safety, less info on road conditions and unreliable supply of gasoline on the affected areas. The PhilHealth office in Talibon then becomes the depot of relief goods intended for the guards who are residents of the towns of Getafe, Buenavista, Talibon, Inabanga, Sagbayan and Carmen.

Then on November 2, this blogger again went on another solo relief operation for the second batch comprising twelve families, with which relief bags I again facilitated for shipping from Cebu to the Port of Tagbilaran. The PhilHealth office in Tagbilaran City was used as the storage area of the relief goods servicing the guards who are residents of Tagbilaran City, Catigbian, Loon, Antequiera and Dauis.

During the two trips I took, I made many guards happy. Not because of the relief packs but because this company took pains to recognize their importance in our policies. We take care of our people and that’s what counts. Our security guards are our frontliners and we never abandon them when SHTF comes so we give back. They are our jewels. It is for this reason that Tactical Security is on top of its game in a very competitive industry.

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PINOYAPACHE GOES TO UBAY

I HAVE NEVER BEEN to Ubay, Bohol but, today, I'm gonna change all that. Yes, the today I mean is the night of October 14, 2011. Tonight, I'm going to board a boat from the Port of Cebu for Talibon, Bohol – my first time. We leave at 10:00 PM but I already slept an hour ahead on a cot too small for my frame.

Yeah, it really is small and I remedy that by changing position: with my head at the bulwark side and my feet hanging at the end. Simple. Improvise and adapt. BTW, I am an “outlaw bushman” and I mean what I write or say.

The boat arrive at Talibon the following day – October 15 – at 2:00 AM. Since it is too early and too dark to find my way through unfamiliar territory, I decide to sleep for another two hours. I wake up to a beautiful red dawn instead after I rubbed sleep from my eyes. Oh yes, give me that camera please!

I walk in the early morning from boat to terminal and sat on an aging public jitney that would take me in the fastest time available on a land known for a creeping sense of time. I don't mind. I am ahead of schedule anyway. My official itinerary says that I would be at Ubay by 7:00 AM and I have already a surplus of one hour!

The jitney did leave at 5:30 AM and it rumble its way along the highway passing by Trinidad and reach Ubay at exactly 7:00 AM. Immediately, I need something to eat and look about Ubay's own distinct taste but found none and gets consoled instead with the biggest “ukoy¹” that I have seen and eaten.

After the meal, I look for the fabled sea produce of Ubay at its wet market. I carry with me a rectangular Tupperware® inside of my Baikal 35-liter backpack for this purpose but I was disappointed. I meet instead a meth-head who signalled to me that he sells amphetamines! Shucks! I could only shake my head of why and how this vice reach this far.

From afar, I see boats secured along the single wharf of Ubay and I understand that this town is the gateway to Bato, Southern Leyte. I'm tempted to go over the waterfront area but I need to go to the National Dairy Authority fast as I am not here for leisure. I hire a motorcycle and am brought to Calanggaman in less than 30 minutes by the driver.

I introduce myself to the farm administrator and commence my work taking pictures of the government-owned dairy farm. The ranch is pure pastureland set on rolling terrain and small catch basins. It hosts a small dairy plant and a milk-storage facility is undergoing construction.

After that, I transfer to Lomangog and visit the Philippine Carabao Center where I am able to drink fresh carabao² milk sold in plastic bottles. I order four more and finally get to use the empty and bulky Tupperware® that I have been carrying all along. Finished with my purpose, I directed the driver back to Ubay to do sightseeing and souvenir hunting.

After taking refreshment at a local bakery, I snuggle myself inside a van-for-hire that is bound for Tagbilaran City at 10:00 AM. The route would pass through the eastern and southern part of Bohol that would host places whose names sounded so sweetly and very familiar from what tales I heard of long ago from my grandparents and their acquaintances. Places that I have not been to and have not seen since.

It is such a treat then to be given an opportunity to cruise by this sun-splayed land of wide open spaces, chocolate hills-like mounds and robust streams that are populated by smiling inhabitants who loved to pronounce the letter “y” as a “j” and the “k” as an “h”.

It's just a shame that I could not use a camera due to the enclosed design of vans that keeps cool air from escaping but does not really cool the passengers at all because all are packed like sardines and air could not circulate freely. Sweat comes down from somebody else's forehead as the cramped space and lack of movement take its toll on the body.

I really hate riding in one. It would have been better if the windows are kept open but women don't like the idea of having windswept hair and caked makeup so it is kept shut. Never mind if the engine is overheating and some foul air from someone's behind is released.

Fortunately, by my location nearest the door, I am able to inhale natural air every time a passenger disembark or going in to ride. Sure, it is taxing to a person of lesser ability in body and mind but I welcome the disturbance. The breeze cools me as well as giving my body the needed blood circulation.

The van arrive at Tagbilaran at 12:30 noon. Since it is too early, I decide to visit again the PhilHealth office in Mansasa which I last went to two years ago then pass by the ThreeSixty Pharmacy in J. Clarin Street to leave a package before ending my time in Bohol reading a book at the fastcraft terminal.

As I was reading, the Apostleship of the Seas in Tagbilaran celebrated a mass inside the terminal and I ditch the book. Assisting the dear priest is another priest from the Archdiocese of Seattle, USA who was with a group of Catholic Americans doing pilgrimage. After that, it's time to leave Bohol again and the vessel leave Tagbilaran for Cebu at 4:10 PM and the in-house movie entertained me so much that I chuck the book again.

By the way, I came to realize at mid-sea that I have completed my circumferential journey of Bohol two years late. In October 2009, I arrive at Tagbilaran and travelled overland to Talibon. This present trip closed this chapter when I arrive at Talibon, thence onwards to Ubay and, from there, Tagbilaran; churning out a distance of more or less, 560 kilometers.

You know what, my complete tour of Bohol Island took two years in the making compared to the twenty-eight years³ I did for the island of Cebu – my home province. Maybe, in the years to come, I would replicate this feat in other island provinces and not just step on one place and brag that I had been there and done that in Lakbayan.

Anyways, this blog ensures its readers and followers that Warrior Pilgrimage is also about adventure travel and it may also try the not-so-travelled circuit routes in the future as in the case of the islands of Palawan, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-tawi or Sibutu as part of its itinerary. Let's just cross our fingers that PinoyApache will accomplish these and bring goodwill among the inhabitants.

Document done Libre Office 3

1Shrimps or anchovies baked in thin flour and eggs and fried in oil. A local delicacy in the Visayas.

2Swamp buffalo.

3June 28-29, 2009: going south and north and back to Cebu City. One stretch of road is left untravelled though and that is the coastal highway from Bogo to Tabogon to Borbon which I passed on January 4, 2011.

BOHOL IN MY MIND

IF BOHOL WERE a stone's throw away, I sure would have loved going and staying there for keeps. I have been there many times when I was a tot in the company of my grandparents and I was their favorite. I remembered hearing during their conversations of the names of places where we visited like Tagbilaran, Tubigon, Clarin, Sagbayan, the Chocolate Hills, etc.

Back then, in my own little world, I have never seen a wide country with so many trees and plants and insects as I have discovered in Bohol. For me, Bohol was the jungle of my imagination and totally different from my bald Cebu. Waking up on early mornings there would find me hunting for fighting spiders or, during early evenings, catching fireflies and keeping them inside a glass jar.

In the countrysides, I find myself amazed by the sight of an endless army of brown hills and marveled at the flight of a pair of giant fruit bats gliding past me. Bohol fed my deep and bottomless childhood curiosity and great sense of adventure. That was a long time ago but the scant memories still linger.

I went to Tubigon though for a few times in early 1986 when I was a crew of a ferry boat but my freedom were just confined to playing basketball games in the town square or fishing along in its kilometer-long pier. The boundless mangroves is a marvelous sight when approaching Tubigon from the sea and the topography seemed to be flat when viewed near.

My grandmother fed me stories of how she and grandpa, Gervasio Lavilles, hid in the interior part of Bohol during the Japanese occupation and how they were able to evade the Japanese patrols sent on a mission to locate him. Grandma would also recall how she gave birth to my mother in Sagbayan in 1943 while on the run as grandpa, time and again, outfoxed several enemy patrols who will pass by just a few feet without noticing them.

She says the Chocolate Hills in Sagbayan and in Carmen was where their hideout was located and during the barren episode of their existence their dog, Dinky, would source and hunt food for them which kept them alive. Later, after the war, they bought a parcel of land in Sagbayan. The property in Sagbayan contained a cave, a subterranean river and a lake.

I'm sure there are many tales that I would love to write about my grandpa but it would be in another article. Not just yet. Right now, I am in the middle of the Bohol Strait on board a fastcraft in the early morning of October 28, 2009 and looking forward to my first real (and mainly conscious trip) to Bohol. The craft slowed down as it approached the port of Tagbilaran and I am amazed at the still clear water in her waterfront.

A passing shadow of a sea hawk greeted me as I stepped on the pavement and her presence reminded me that Bohol is still ecologically healthy. Finally, I have gone beyond the wharf of Tagbilaran City and walked outside to smell the familiar odor distinctly her own. I hailed a tricycle and I am glad that this unique transportation system doesn't have a fixed route and follow the principles of a taxicab in ferrying passengers. With this state, I am quite sure I will never get lost and I don't have to worry about the ticking meter.

Excellent!

The opportunity of coming to Tagbilaran had been anchored on an errand by my employer to send packages to the PhilHealth offices in Mansasa and to faraway Talibon in the north. As the tricycle took me on a tour, I keep noticing that the streets of Tagbilaran were quite clean and swept of unwanted wastes and, from across a narrow strait of water, I saw Panglao Island so famous for its white beaches and cavern pool.

After my purpose in Mansasa had been done, I raced to the Dau bus terminal to hie a vehicle-for-hire for Talibon. The terminal's design included a rainfall catch basin in its center and this was planted with mahogany trees. Sadly, the purpose of the catchment area was defeated due to poor maintenance as a lot of these disposable plastic bottles and drinking cups were thrown there. The “hole” became a possible breeding ground for dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

Leaving a quick snack, I climbed inside a rickety passenger van and squeezed my six-foot frame in between seats that refused to fold through a door handle that barely work. I hardly breathed as I shared my row with three other people and we were packed like the insides of a sardine can and it was so hot as the ancient airconditioning system failed to cool the interior. Good thing the side glass window nearest me still worked catching wind and ventilated the insides as it cruised the highway.

Despite that difficulty, the wonderful sights along the national road won me over. The wide rivers of Cortes and Inabanga are still very clean and hectares of mangrove forests and swamp palms remain untouched as it blended well with development along the sea coast. I passed by Tubigon again and it has changed a bit although it still retained a laid-back atmosphere.

Then I arrived at the port town of Talibon at 1:15 PM and it is my first time there. I delivered the package and talked with the branch manager for a half hour. I went outside and I took pictures of the town hall and the Nombre de Santissima Parish for souvenir. Omitting lunch, I raced back for Tagbilaran passing over the same beautiful highway. This time, I am on board a newer vehicle-for-hire and seated on the front seat.

I arrived at the Dau terminal at 5:00 PM, I hopped on a motorcycle-for-hire back to Mansasa. From there, I took a “taxicle” bound for the Agora district and took a well-deserved meal. Actually it is my breakfast, lunch and dinner for the day eaten in one setting. How's that for traveling with set deadlines? True to that query, I missed my return trip to Cebu, but I'm not worried, I possessed an open ticket.

That night, I make use of Plan B and spend my night at RDAK office in Carlos P. Garcia Avenue thru the courtesy of Wilbert Pepito – Regan King's top honcho in Bohol. I would have loved to stay late and wake up early and take a morning stroll but my shoes gave up today. So I slept early instead and gave my tired body a much-needed break.

In the morning, after a humble breakfast with Wilbert and his staff, I left my temporary billeting place and make for the wharf. I left Tagbilaran at nine and arrived two hours later in Cebu's Pier 1 in time for a great lunch at my home. My ever-loving wife prepared a steaming stew of shrimps with horse radish. Hmmm...yummy!

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer.