"Bangkerohan"

Once upon a time, in the sleepy province of Surigao del sur, at the town of NPA-infested Lianga, there were two happy and prosperous barangays named Diatagon and St. Christine. The two barangays were separated by a river.

The two barangays possessed complementary facilities and structures with each other. Barangay Diatagon has the hospital, wet market, catholic high school, main office of the logging company and the Catholic Church with a resident priest. On the other hand, Barangay St. Christine has the beach, the motor pool, veneer and power plant of the company and lastly, the public High School of Fisheries.

The only bridge connecting Diatagon and St. Christine was a lone massive wooden bridge constructed and used by a logging company. The problem is that, the wooden bridge happened to be located far and outside the center of each Barangay. People from each barangay have to walk a mile or two just to cross the bridge and vise-versa.

The problem opened an opportunity for enterprising fisher folks. They built wooden banca “baroto” and established a ferry station called “bangkerohan” in the closest point between the two barangays.

Bangkerohan was a scene to remember for highschool students who lived in one barangay and went to high school located in the other barangay. An overloaded “baroto” that capsized in middle of the river is an event to remember.

In my case, I used to lived in St. Christine and attended at Diatagon Catholic High School. My parents happened to be jobless and cannot afford to pay the of 4.00 pesos monthly due for the service of Bangkero. It took me sweet and tears to walk several miles to and from school just to cross that far wooden bridge.

I could remember the heat of the sun punishing me while I walked and enduring the pain of hunger from school. A breakfast of “Kamote” and “Kalibre” were simply not enough to sustain until lunch time. There were times when I was tempted to swim across the river just to save time and effort of walking far to that wooden bridge. Many times too I almost got drawn because I have to swim with one hand while the other hand was holding my things and clothes up high so it wouldn’t get wet.

That river has claimed many lives of young adventurous kids. The logs floating and the water current are treacherous for the careless ones. Good thing I was a good swimmer. I enjoyed crossing that river once in a while, although there's always fear in me of being grabbed by an “Okoy” (Mairman) or bitten by a “Tangkig” (Seasnakes). He he

Now I can afford to pay that unaffordable 4.00 pesos monthly pay over for bangkero’s service or even many times over. Given that chance, I wouldn’t dare change a thing of my past. I am more or less a contented person now. I cherish and treasure my memory and adventures simply because I can’t afford the fee for “Bangkerohan”.

Mindanao

I was born and raised in an island that Magellan, General Mc Arthur and General Yamashita didn’t like or dared to land their ships and set their foot for conquest. That Island is the home of the rarest and wildest animals on earth. It is also the home of the bravest people that American soldiers ever encountered leading to the creation of a .45 caliber pistols. That Island is coined as “the land of promise”, the land of Mindanao.

Mindanao as a place is still a strange to most Filipinos living in Visayas and Luzon specially the middle and upper class level. Most Filipinos who haven’t set foot in Mindanao know it only as a chaotic place. All they’ve seen and hear are the killings, kidnappings and other horror stories most journalists, local or international, loved to write or plug in TV. In fact, most of the upper class Filipinos in Metro Manila knows more about the shopping and tourist spots in the cities of Hongkong, Malaysia and Singapore than any city in Mindanao combined.

For more than 400 years of Philippine history, Mindanao is rarely mentioned except in the famous “Luzon-Visayas-Mindanao” phrase. Other than that, Mindanao almost did not share any glory, fame and importance in the aspect of heroism, leadership and historical event in the Philippines. Mindanao is nothing but a source of food, raw materials, human resource and large number of votes for national candidates who aspires to juicy and powerful positions.

In the history of national leadership in the Philippines, Mindanao had less or almost zero participation. Among the past presidents of the Philippines, those from Southern Luzon were among the best. The three past Philippine Presidents from Visayas islands like Ilo-ilo, Cebu and Bohol were among the most admirable in terms of delicadeza and ethics. That recent Presidential bet from Bicol would have been a good one had he won or did not die recently.

Mindanao, with its big land area, rich natural resources and huge population, is still about to contribute a Mindanawon Philippine President. This may or may not happen, but if it does, that Mindanawon President might offset all the bad economic, political, and social havoc that Ilocano past President have done to this country. But this is unlikely to happen if Mindanawons have no culture of unity and pride of its home island.

Maybe, just maybe... a Mindanawon Philippine president will be elected someday and bring back peace, prosperity and unity to this country so that Filipinos won't need to go and be slaved for work abroad just to live decntly.

"Coastway"

“Coast way” is the name of the beach we have in Diatagon. The beach stretches more than one kilometer beside an airstrip covered with green Bermuda grass. The Airstrip was used for the logging company’s turboprop airplanes.

The beach and the airstrip were perfect combination for swimming and playing badminton or volley ball. You can view the bay (Lianga bay) and the lands on the other side of the bay tens of miles away. The cool, fresh and clean wind blows endlessly. During low tide, a large portion of rocky beach is exposed where beach-goers can go shell hunting or catch strange sea creatures like “tabugok”, “halas-halas”, kasag and tuyom that sticks their painful needle-like fingers to your feet.

When I was about 10 years old, I always anticipated weekends when my family would have picnic at “coastway”. My favorite picnic food were “Lupak”, (mashed young cardava banana mixed with coconut meat and sugar) the “Sinugba” (grilled fish) and “Biko” (sweetened sticky rice). Catching small fishes and putting them in a battle was a memorable adventure.

Every Sunday, hundreds of families would have picnic at “coastway”. They would build huts made of colorful blankets, sticks and ropes, making the beach looked like a colorful Carnibal full of children playing, teenagers flirting, mother gossiping and fathers drinking. You could see smokes in every hut courtesy of endless grills of big tuna fish and pork bellies. Countless Beer Grande and family size Coke bottles were laid in the beach waters for it to be “cooled” or so they say.

This is the story of “coastway” many years ago when the Lianga Bay Logging Company was still operating in Diatagon. Today, “coastway” remains the same minus the hundreds families that go picnic every weekend and minus the airplanes that were parked in its hangar.

Diatagon

Diatagon

Have you ever heard about "Diatagon"? What a strange name isn't it? But this name, strange as it sounds, is among the sweetest word I can ever hear. The mere mention of such a word opens the flood gates of my happiest, saddest, sweetest and most of all deepest sentiments of memories.

Diatagon is the name of a barangay located in the northeast part of Mindanao in the province of Surigao del sur. It lies within a bay called Lianga Bay and it faces the Pacific Ocean, possessing the thickest virgin forest that can ever be found in the Philippines or maybe in the world.

Before World War II, Diatagon is an inaccessible jungle. Its forest infested with rare wild animals such as the Philippine Monkey-Eating-Eagle, phytons with bodies as large as Coconut trees large wild pigs and deers. It can only be accessed by ships at that time.

In 1954, An American company was granted concession to log an area of about 59,000 hectares of virgin forest. The forest was so abundant of trees like lawaan, yakal, molave, narra, apitong and magkuno, said to be the hardest wood in the world. The vast forest resources was inexhaustible and indepletible, or so it seems.

In 1956, the Americans started to set up their operations in Barangay Diatagon and Barangay St. Christine. They build a power plant, water system, an airstrip along the beach for its airplanes, logging roads toward the deepest part of the forest, village for its officers and key employees, log pond, seaport, veneer and plywood manufacturing plant, motor pool, a private hospital, a big gym, tennis courts, basketball courts and many other facilities. The company also help and assisted in setting up the schools within its vicinity. Suddenly, Diatagon became a state of the art community complete with facilities and utilities. An ideal place to live and grow old.

From early 1960s up to early 1980s, Diatagon had become the most prosperous barangay in the entire province of Surigao del sur. The company, Lianga Bay Logging Company Inc. had employed at least 800 workers. They paid compensation comparable to the best and most generous companies in the country.

The workers then set up a cooperative. They build a big store where all their basic needs can be bought. Every worker has his own "credit card" payable through salary deduction. It allows workers him to shop without cash. From groceries, rtw, wet market, bakery products and even luxury item you can get them all from that store. It was so big that it was recorded as among the most biggest and most successful cooperative in the Philippine cooperative history.