First appeared on Blogger on November 16, 2007.

LAST OCTOBER 15, 2007, I WENT to Mactan Island on some official business. I went to Pier 3 to board the River Ferry launch that was to take me to that island from mainland Cebu. It was 2:30 PM when the launch proceeded to cross the Mactan Channel. The rain had just stopped minutes ago where there was heavy downpour that lasted for about an hour before that.

As the launch was now cruising on the livid blue-green waters of Cebu Harbor, I noticed swarms of marine birds, unusual in number, dived and skimmed on the water’s surface. They happened to peck and pick on the flotsam and jetsam that the floodwaters of the Lahug Creek disgorged, whose river mouth is now but a square hole underneath the asphalt-and-concrete berthing area.

As far as the eye could see, discarded pieces of plastic in huge volumes and other kinds of household debris and industrial wastes were floating and bobbing on the surface, scattered over the whole width and length and depth of the channel. It was brownish and dirty and fast approaching the dirty notoriety of murky Manila Bay.

The harbor waters wasn’t THAT dirty 30-35 years ago. I remembered in my pre-adolescent years when the city’s waterfront area was my favorite playing ground and hang-out. I learned (or was forced) to swim there after being pushed intentionally and I swam like a dog. Back then, whenever my time would warrant I would take a dip there. Sometimes, as a sport, we would dive from a departing boat and swim back to the pier and the one who left the boat when it is farthest from the shore was declared the winner!

Marine life were abundant back then. Jellyfish would parade like an army of strange aliens. Squid or cuttlefish would appear in droves when no moon appeared in the night sky and find refuge under the glare of lights of berthed ships. All kinds of fishes could be angled from its depths as well as crustaceans caught inside cagetraps from beneath.

Seashells could be had by the mere picking during low tide by swimming towards the exposed reefs, sandbars and rocky beds nearby Pilipog (Shell) island which is a half-kilometer away from the Aduana*.

Today’s condition of the sea is a far cry from that sea of long ago where I used to swim.

As the launch moved on in the middle of Mactan Channel we passed by Mandaue City. The Subangdaku River let out the same kind of debris and wastes, marked by swarms of marine birds, and they took on a pattern as if it were parading in a straight and wavy line going south. Farther north, it was the same discouraging look as the Butuanon River and other northern rivers aped the previous two.

I have done my share by watching the part of the Lahug Creek where I am living and discouraged my household and my neighbors from disposing their garbage on the waterway for it would surely wind its way to the sea. It has been my advocacy for many years now and, I know, it is not enough. It would take a whole mass of people with the same mindset as I have to reverse this trend.

People living upriver and below mine find it convenient to throw their wastes directly on the creek. My heart ached when I see whole canvass sheets, garbage wrapped inside plastic shopping bags, discarded rubber tires and islands of styropor stuck on the river bed impeding the flow of water and it will take a great downpour to erase that stigma. Which the harbor waters graciously receive into its depths that, I know, is a never-ending vicious cycle imposed by man on his environment.

After witnessing the condition of the Mactan Channel after a heavy downpour did it occur to me to involve myself more by writing this story on my blog and disseminate this information into as many people as possible thru the Internet. I would broaden my advocacy on the World Wide Web.

I surmised, that modern science and technology have made plastic and other synthetic material more harmful to man than good in an indirect manner. Especially, if they happen to be used by some people living in Metro Cebu.

Then you add the government bureaucracies that line the shores of this narrow channel who don’t give a damn about its environs and content themselves passing some toothless garbage ordinances that nobody wanted to enforce! Lack of foresight, laxity, ignorance, carelessness and a "don’t care" attitude make up for disastrous elements that may cloud the future of our children.

If I may have my way I would opt to ban plastic and other synthetic materials and those goods contained therein for it doesn’t do no good if they happen to be in the hands of those mindless zombies. For the future of our generation, I say, we BAN THOSE PLASTIC AND SYNTHETIC MATERIALS!

Document done in RoughDraft 3.0, Trebuchet MS font, size 12.

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* The old Bureau of Customs building. Now the alternative seat of the President of the Philippines and known as the Malacañang of the South.

I HAVE CLIMBED Mount Manunggal six times. First on September 26, 1992. The last on July 14, 2005. While climbing Manunggal is very hard as it is quite steep, what made it harder is it has no forest cover along its trail. Deforestation is quite obvious as lands which used to abound with forests are now utilized to grow ginger, garlic, onions, cabbage, eggplants, etc., etc.

They say that this part of the area is called the Central Cebu National Park, but, I say, it is the Central Cebu National Farm. Slash-and-burn farming left its mark on the earth as stumps of burnt-out trees are left like tombstones to remind us of man's indifference to his environment.

As always, we start down from Tagba-o in Barangay Tabunan, where we crossed a river that divides Cebu City from the town of Balamban whence Mt. Manunggal is a part of. From the river it was steep climbing all the way. Although Manunggal is only 3,009 feet above sea level, my club, the Cebu Mountaineering Society (CeMS), considered and rated it to be a major climb.

The heat of the sun made it harder for want of trees and the trail is slippery and wet caused by the ever-present dew brought in by fogs. With a heavy backpack you can negotiate Manunggal from the river up to the campsite in about four to seven hours, depending upon your physical fitness and area familiarity.

Returning to Tagba-o is quite easy: you could walk or run downhill (provided you have strong and arthritic-free knees) and with a lighter pack it's over in two hours. In all, Manunggal is a good training site to prepare for harder major climbs outside Cebu.

Mount Manunggal is known for being the crash site of the presidential plane, Pinatubo, which crashed on its shoulder killing instantly the dear President Ramon Magsaysay and eighteen others on March 17, 1957. A monument honoring Pres. Magsaysay stands at the crash site, which, incidentally, is the present main camping area for mountaineers. A shrine was also made to house the relic of the Pinatubo – the plane's main engine block.

Later, a chapel was built by the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) for their outreach project. One good reason why Manunggal is attractive to climbers is the presence of a very cool spring which never falters in water volume, come drought or El Niño.

On my second climb on March 1993, many mountaineers converged there on the occasion of Pres. Magsaysay's death anniversary and I felt in high spirits due to a show of solidarity and presence of the same kindred souls like I do. I got to know and made friends with climbers from other clubs. We lit a big bonfire as different groups presented different entertainment presentations. It was very memorable.

A year later, we climbed Manunggal in the dead of night knowing that by day the trails will be full of people and very muddy and slippery caused by too many stomping feet. Familiarity with the trails of Manunggal had given us an advantage in doing a night trek. But by day, we observed, too many people had climbed up and many people are still coming. It was an unusual crowd and an air of a fiesta lent the air as people not belonging to any mountaineering group began to destroy vegetation they see, throwing at will plastic and other garbage around. What made it worse is that a lot of plastic were carried off by the breeze and scattered in different directions!

I saw many hogs, goats and hens being brought up to be slaughtered later, but, one pig I saw escaped from its leash and ran downhill so fast leaving its caretakers stumbling in its wake. Amused but disgusted at the same time, we folded our tents after lunch and went downhill for home to protest against the organizers who were promoting that year's climb. Never again that I and CeMS would participate in any activity that would destroy or neglect the beauty of our mountains.

All my other climbs at Manunggal were done not on the occasion of the Pres. Magsaysay death anniversary anymore and, once, on December 27, 1995 I made a solo ascent there and I felt peace with myself and the world. My last climb was with a group of unarmed policemen on training. We started from the trans-central highway in Barangay Gaas, Balamban where we passed by Pingis waterfall, then a boulder-filled river before climbing up. I saw now a different Manunggal.

The monument, the relic and the chapel are still there, but, they have “neighbors” now. Shanties have sprouted selling their wares. The ever-flowing spring is now boxed inside a concrete and water pipes protrude like an octopus' arms to irrigate the farms below. Oh, a row of outhouses are built near the spring. Too many structures built have despoiled the sanctity that is Manunggal.

On the other side of the mountain's shoulder, a DENR (Department of Natural & Environment Resources) station, a visitor's lodge and several huts were erected for purposes of maintaining the government's reforestation project and to house VIPs every time the commemoration of Pres. Magsaysay's death is held every year. It is also that time the mountain's ecosystem croaked and groaned through many agonizing moments as a sheer number of ecologically-impaired people converge to make fun of the environment leaving piles of uncollected garbage and bending and distorting every blade of grass or leaf and branch.

A road now connects Mount Manunggal (making it more accessible to these kind of people) from the trans-central highway and it is all of twelve kilometers or so in length, one-third of which is concreted. We exited through this road and I bade goodbye to my dear old Mount Manunggal one last time praying that the government's reforestation effort would cover all of the unabated intrusions, the shameless activities and unrestricted development that we have effected upon one of the homes of the rare and endemic bird – the Cebu flowerpecker.

Nearby is Mount Mauyog, almost equal or higher in altitude, but still unspoilt. Very few have camped there and that will be my future camping destination. On my way to Mauyog I will pass by Manunggal and, maybe, give her a kiss accorded to that of a mother. An ailing mother. I will be still around to watch over her concerns and complaints and give her a voice for all the world to hear.

Epilogue:

YET despite man's indifference towards his environment there is always a thin ray of light that gives hope to protect the environment from wanton exploitation and nerve-numbing development. A few voices will start that fire and ignites them into something productive. It takes only a few bold steps to make it roll against a brick wall of dissent coming from people having interests in that area of concern.

I salute the Honorable Eduardo R. Gullas, Cebu 1^st District Representative, for doing something to protect our watershed (of which Mount Manunggal is part of) by sponsoring a bill known as the “Central Cebu Protected Landscape” in the Philippine House of Congress which was then enacted into a law. It shall now be unlawful to develop Cebu's watershed area composing the Central Cebu National Park, the Sudlon National Park, the Kotkot-Lusaran-Mananga river system, the Buhisan, Mananga and Lusaran watershed.

Although it doesn't bar people from coming to an fro in sheer numbers that create an ecological impact on Cebu's mountain areas, especially in the Central Cebu Mountain Range, but it does put a stop to all those development that is now starting at its fringes. At least, in this lifetime I lived to see something that ensures the survival of our children and their children's children.

SAVE MOUNT MANUNGGAL

Upheaved from the crust of the earth,

Rising immense and towering above all

Of Cebu's¹ peaks, all north and south;

A mountain of a rock called Manunggal².

Where now have your creatures fled?

Your rivers dammed and re-channeled,

Forests logged in the name of progress;

Destruction unleashed without remorse.

Mount Manunggal, mecca of mountaineers!

Spread before us your once lush valleys,

Satiate us with your once cool rivers,

Leave us something to celebrate and enjoy.

Mount Manunggal – graveyard of airplanes!

Where the great Magsaysay³ met his end.

Shrines now rose and adorn your skyline,

Whose twilight dimmed now by a setting sun.

- Poem done on September 29, 1992.

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This document is done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer using Trebuchet MS font with size #12.