Development and Survival: Quick notes from Caramoan

This isn’t a travel blog. Though if you’re up for a trip to Caramoan Islands, send me a PM and I’ll share the essential details my girlfriend and I picked up on for anyone who intends to go there. There will also be no shortage of travel blogs and sites that can do a much better job of getting you there.

This is more a reflection of sorts; a cobbling together of takeaways from my conversations with our host, Kuya Ramil, our tourguide and boatman, Kuya Sonny, and a whole cast of residents and small business owners we chatted with during our time in Barangay Paniman.

I just came from a more academic trip prior to Caramoan, so I’ll be the first to say that this won’t have the same rigor of a Rapid Area Assessment. Though I left the islands feeling that there is so much more to learn about the place. In terms of building a story, I’ve only spoken to one group of stakeholders and thus this account may be simply just theirs. But let’s see how far we can go with the words of the people we met those two and a half days.

Caramoan, even before the coming of the first Survivor production in 2007, has already been in the midst of change. The little town of Paniman, specifically, used to be a fishing village. The movement of the typhoon belt southwards towards Mindanao has also changed the ecological balance in the waters between Catanduanes and Camarines Sur, changing the water’s temperature and ultimately reducing the volume of fish catch the communities traditionally relied on. (And amusingly, former fishermen like Kuya Sonny note that the fish return in large quantities just before a storm hits.)

With a lower volume and lesser reliability of their catch, they sought alternative means of income and, as if on cue, the Survivor productions rushed to fill a void. Survivor gave jobs to the local community of Brgy Paniman in the form of laborers, crew workers, boat men, security personnel, and personal assistants. The productions have left clear marks on the community from the props that have been repurposed into housing fixtures and decorations, to the pride that one can hear from the little anecdotes they share about how their house, this island, or that farm was used in shooting. The productions provided the much-needed income generating activities to a town that was quickly losing its primary means of income. For the likes of our host, Kuya Ramil, he earned P1000/day for three months of working as a boat captain for the US production.

But perhaps the biggest mark of Survivor on Caramoan is an externality — tourism.

The islands steadily grew in popularity as Survivor productions streamed in from Serbia, Israel, France, Sweden, India, and eventually the United States. The most lucrative income-generating activities for the entire adult, working population of Brgy Paniman are in the tourism sector, whether it be hosting homestays for as cheap as P300/night to running hotels for up to P1,500/night or running package tours that are pegged throughout the entire municipality at P1,500 for the short trip island-hopping (only 10 minutes to the nearest island) or P2,500 for the long-trip (1 hour to the nearest island). Of course there are those who will earn through food and beverage services (a rough average of P100-150 per person per meal), and retail souvenir sales (knock-off Survivor Caramoan shirts at P120-150).

Comparing the P1000/day Kuya Ramil earned in working for Survivor US, he earned almost P7000 for two days of hosting our group of five — more than three times the income for less work (by this point he was also ‘subcontracting’ his tour activities to his friends like Kuya Sonny).

So it wasn’t a total surprise when folks like Ramil and Sonny actually feel bittersweet about Survivor this 2013, a good six years since the first production came in and their tourism industry was born to supplement and eventually replace fishing.

Because now, Survivor productions actually eat into their income from tourism. Case in point: when the productions start rolling, some islands and water ways become off-limits. Tourists are then given a shorter, abbreviated experience that have caused a lot of frustration and customer dissatisfaction. It also doesn’t help the local villagers who feel that they are earning less when the tourists are kept away and they only have the income from the productions to rely on. In the past years they’ve learned to juggle the two, however. But there remains a sense of dissatisfaction among the working class in Paniman that (a) the wages they are paid by the productions fail to completely compensate for their lost income, and (b) they feel a mix of powerlessness and anger at the thought that foreigners — visitors — have barred them from the islands that they’ve come to call home.

There is no association to coalesce these fishermen, tour operators, and guides. There is no formal organization present to help them settle and air these disputes. They find the mayor and governor to be incredibly distant entities. Something that may seem as trivial as P30 ‘environmental fee’ that all tourists pay once they arrive at Caramoan is being questioned. “It’s called an environmental fee,” these locals challenge, “but no money has come from the local government to help in cleaning up the islands of the tourists’ trash.” The barangay captain, a fisherman too, has at least shown the effort to conduct and lead island clean-up operations himself (which consists of the locals going to each island to pick up the trash like Jollibee boxes and diapers, by hand). Instead what people get for paying the environmental fee is a small stub with the mayor’s face on it.

If I had more time in Caramoan, and perhaps had the opportunity to engage other sectors such as the LGU of Caramoan and Camarines Sur, and the private entities that produce Survivor in the islands, I would be interested to know if there is a developmental plan in place for the tourism sector of Caramoan. I’d like to know what they perceive to be their competitive advantage in terms of tourism and what role the local communities of Paniman and Bikal (another jump-off point for the island hopping) have to play in determining their strategy moving forward.

I asked our tour guide, Kuya Sonny, if people like him ever received training on how to be a tour guide; he couldn’t say. And yet he had an instinctive sense of the history of each island and memorized the water ways that are safest and rock-free. Not everyone has the same instinctive knowledge, he’d say; some guides just leave their customers and don’t bother to entertain them at all (I observed this myself in the other groups that were with us).

I also detect a certain lack in terms of mere support for tourism; in the time we went around the little town of Paniman, I did not see a single map of the place or its islands. There wasn’t even one on the boat. The only map I had in Paniman was in the Google Map I had in my tablet; even the images there were received with awe and surprise by the locals — as if I had a piece of sorcery in my hands.

The development of tourism will entail a series of hard, deliberate choices on the part of CamSur’s leaders and the local community. I can imagine the broad strokes: people want to profit while at the same time protecting the natural assets that allowed them an industry in the first place. That’s always easier said than done.

On the way home, Frances and I mused that it would be great for CamSur to introduce something like Cebu’s SuperCat to supplement or even replace the ferry between Sabang port (the take-off point from Naga) to Guijalo port (the gateway to Caramoan). But the mere prospects of that divided us eventually: What will happen to those who operate the current ferries? Will the local communities of Paniman be able to accommodate what will surely be a massive influx of tourists? Or is the SuperCat a bad idea to begin with. Is keeping the place relatively challenging to get to a part of the strategy to preserve it? But if more tourists aren’t brought in, then the community’s incomes may not rise beyond its current levels, potentially stunting its long-term growth. And so on.

But I hope debates like these don’t scare away Caramoan’s leaders. And I hope that if such debates are had, they are done so in earnest. After all, I believe the Department of Tourism’s argument is that it’s more “fun in the Philippines.” I agree. Though you know what they said about playing hard? You work hard, too.

Flanking us are our fishermen-turned-tour-guides, Mang Escundo (left) and Kuya Sonny (right).

Thinking Twice about What I Believed in Two Years Ago

Play “Belief” by Gavin DeGraw

It isn’t easy going back to school, I admit that now. But even as I suffer through the work, I can’t help but feel excited for what I do. I wouldn’t lie: I wish things would somehow be easier. I miss the comfort of teaching and the easy passion I bring to the job, pretty much the opposite of the grinding and rallying I have to do just to pass a class in AIM.

But this was never meant to be easy. I know I’m being stretched in ways I’ve never been to become someone I’ve never even imagined. I always tell my students, “I am here to teach you how to think.” And to that I say now, “You have no idea.” Though this is how my students must’ve felt. Looking back now, they suffered through my classes, too, only to see how I’ve been setting themselves up for success in the latter quarters when they moved away from theory towards practice.

And today I just finished my proposal for my Management Research Report — pretty much the ‘practice’ part I am expected to do towards the end of this course and for possibly the rest of my professional life. How can I not be excited for what lies ahead?

I wrote this post almost three years ago when a student asked me what it was that I really believed in. I find myself asking that question now. Thus far, AIM has been one giant gut check – it strips you down to discover who you really are, what you stand for, and what you’re meant to do. I haven’t been blogging lately but a part of me felt compelled to revisit this post and check where I stand.

I believe that each one of us has it in us to be happy. No one can tell us what true success is. No one can show us where happiness lies. Just be at peace with yourself, and everything will fall into place.

I now say this: that we make our own happiness. I still believe that being at peace with oneself is key, but that there are proactive things we can do to facilitate that peace and make ‘everything fall into place’. That proactive thing to do is to accept and to embrace — that the world is what it is and that people are the way they are. It is not easy of course, but more often than not the impossible can be done with the help of a little compassion or better, love.

I believe that our country is still at its adolescent stage of development. It is finding itself, making mistakes, and learning from it. And like any adolescent, it is torn between enjoying its youth and rushing to grow up.

This is funny. I believe pretty much the same thing but I would opt for a different metaphor this time around. I don’t know what that is yet — I’m now wary of the pitfalls of metaphors — but I have a clearer sense of the mistakes our country is making, who are making it, and what can be done about it. That is the crux of what I’m learning in Development Management and so elaborating on this will require an entry of its own. Or a thesis.

I believe that teaching is what I have to do right now, but not forever. I am doing what I am supposed to, and I’m doing it where I have to. But every story has to end some time. Especially love stories.

And here I am, no longer teaching. What has to be asked then is whether I believe I’ll return to teaching after AIM. All I know is that I’d love to teach again eventually but whether that is all I’ll do after I graduate is uncertain. What is certain is that there are simply too many possibilities for me after I’m done here. Even if I’m contractually obligated to return to Philippine Science, I don’t think I’ll rush to confine myself to the classroom immediately. There is so much more I can do to make schools work even better.

I believe that my love for alternative rock music is the best thing I got from my high school years. Goo Goo Dolls. Vertical Horizon. Matchbox Twenty. Fuel. 3 Doors Down. They’re some of my best friends to this day.

I’ve been listening to music less and less, and I miss it. One fine moment I had this past week was accidentally hitting shuffle on my music player and having it play “Slide” by Goo Goo Dolls. That was heaven. But the best thing I got from my high school years? Far from it. For if it were merely music I got then that is regrettable. Looking at my students now, I am glad they’ve made and kept their high school friends more than I have. It is hard to say then that I got the best of anything; all I know now is that I’m missing something.

I believe that you don’t learn everything from school. That is what I learned from my best teachers. They instilled in me a genuine love for learning that lasts to this day. There is something to be learned from every person we meet and every moment we share.

Not true about AIM. Here, I feel like I don’t know shit. Which is a really good thing.

I believe that religions are but different languages speaking of one universal truth. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Anyone who masters this will have seen God.

It’s unfortunate the world has gotten so weird and wonky about religion. Faith should be a simple and beautiful thing.

I believe I’ve made some big mistakes in my life, and I am stronger because of it. I fell in love too fast. Too hard. I’ve given up on myself. Given up on others. I was consumed by own ego. I wallowed in my own pride. But that’s the thing about failure. We become better persons when we pick ourselves up.

You’re so dramatic, Martin. Just learn to make better decisions and embrace the consequences of your actions. What will be will be.

I believe that you don’t apologize for being who you really are. But sure, you apologize when you screw up and hurt others. Each one of us has the potential to be profoundly unique, yet we often get stuck picking identities in this media-saturated world. But don’t hesitate for one moment when it comes to showing everyone your full potential. Don’t listen to those who tell you what you can’t do. Shine your light, and in the process you inspire them to shine theirs.

We can help who we are because we can help what we do. Of course everything we do will never be perfectly enlightened; at times we will be blinded by emotions and false, misled reasons. What matters is that we own up to everything in the end, no matter what. Imagine a world where everyone simply took responsibility for their actions.

I believe that my work of forming leaders is the most meaningful to me right now. And I’d like to do more of it and possibly on an even larger scale. I believe our country will be a better place when people chart their own destinies. I know I can contribute more to this.

Working on it!

And lastly –

I believe that I can make a list of ten things I believe in, or even more, but we will only really need one. “And what is that, sir?”

Love.

Wasn’t that obvious?

A Return to Student Life

Tomorrow begins the second week of graduate school. I could have written in last week, but I was too busy packing and anticipating the events of the coming day. I’d probably just sound like any school kid before the first day — curious, excited, terrified, elated. At that time, I didn’t feel like writing yet.

But now some of it has sunk in. I now have a clearer idea of what’s in store. I’ve already been sleeping very soundly in the dorm. I’m no longer a ship waiting for landfall: the terrain is fully in sight; so here is what I see.

First the basics. I am taking up a Master in Development Management (MDM) at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). What does that degree do for me exactly? Well, first and foremost, AIM began as a business school and soon its MBA program became known as one of the best — if not the best — in the Asian region. The MDM program grew out of the institution’s desire to contribute to development in the country. Simply put, they wanted to do what they can to help solve poverty. And poverty comes in many forms: wherever and whenever you see deprivation, you’ll see poverty — in the hungry, the sick, the uneducated, the unprotected, the marginalized, the underrepresented, you can go on and on.

That’s where I come in. I am part of the 24th MDM batch. My classmates come from all over the Asian region. In my class is a social worker from Bhutan, a microfinance manager from Nepal, an NGO worker from Bangladesh, educators from Cambodia, and more. My Filipino cohorts hail from the military, the police; I have classmates who are doctors (one barangay doctor, one private, one government), business professionals, the clergy, and the social work sector. I am the only teacher, the only from the academe. But those that stand out in my mind are those who pursued MDM because they’ve hit a plateau in their careers or have grown bored with their lives and are now in search for something more. It’s amazing how with the desire to better themselves they took a risk on themselves, and even more amazing is how AIM took a risk on them. “There is a place for everyone here,” our teachers say.

In the next 11 months, all of us will go through the same rigorous training in various tools in business, management, and development in order to become leaders at the fore of our sectors and organizations. The vision of MDM, as Dean Mike Luz puts it, is to have us in the top management positions of our organizations in five years. It’s a bold statement, but it summarizes their aspirations for us, their students. It is a promising, empowering goal.

I’ve been a teacher for my entire professional life; it is the only job I’ve known. Getting to stand side by side with classmates with incredibly diverse backgrounds and experiences is both humbling and empowering. There were moments when I felt small compared to what my classmates had already done and achieved, but then whenever I get to share my own experiences, knowledge, and thoughts, I see that they, too, find something new, strange, and unfamiliar in what I say. It is definitely a challenge to be the only one in my class representing the teachers and educators in our country — and that’s even before I remember that I still carry the good name of the Philippine Science High School.

We are currently in the pre-MDM stage which will go on until January 25. It is composed of a series of classes on the basics of Statistics, Economics, Accounting — subjects which our core curriculum will build upon. Everything is still currently ungraded, but there is already some mild pressure to work hard. Just last week, I already slept just before midnight reading up on Accounting and preparing for recitation the next day. Come January 28, the real work begins. Our program has three main modules composed of twelve weeks each. The culmination of the program is our Management Research Report (MRR), a thesis-type requirement wherein we write about the problems faced by a real organization, and recommend a management solution to address that problem. As of the moment, I foresee that this MRR will take me back to Pisay.

So how is it like being a student again? It’s exciting, really. I feel that I’m a better student now than I ever was before — I study better, prepare for class better, and appreciate the various methods employed by my different teachers. I guess this is a topic I’ll be writing about more in the future as I get with the program.

For now, all I can say is that I’m living my life’s most exciting year yet. I am incredibly blessed to be where I am that I simply cannot play it small. We’ll never run out of space to be better, and here I have the chance to be the best me I can be. What matters is not that we made, but that we make it! We become the change we seek.

You Only Live Once

One thing I learned lately is that it is possible to run out of time.

It is certainly possible to leave things unfinished and incomplete, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we leave frustrated and unfulfilled. We hold ourselves to various standards whenever we choose — some with their head, some with their heart; all like to think we take in equal measures of both reason and faith.

I stand by a simple idea: that I never question my own choices. That after I decide I never ask “What if?” nor do I think about the what could have beens. What matters is that at that moment I make that choice, I own it. I know I have given it my all and more importantly, that I do not leave room for regret. There’s only one way to go and that’s forward. We only live once.

The world as I’ve known it has definitely ended this 2012. I’ve never taken this many risks in one year and I feel transformed by each one, though not so much because of where they’ve brought me but more because of what they’ve taught me about myself. I believe in myself again, strange as that sounds, and I know for certain — in the same certain way I’d tell my students that they — that I am meant for greater things.

I have so much to tell you. I hope to get to all the kind words and questions in time. And between the well wishes and the wonderings, I hope to tell a simple story of why I’m leaving a job that means the whole world to me: ”I’m not done yet.”

And you only live once.

A Beginning

My Tales from the Friendzone

The ‘friendzone’ defies explanation because it doesn’t need any. We’ve all been there at one point, maybe twice, maybe thrice — even me. But it’s a cold, dark place only if you let it be.

I first visited the friendzone when I met June (not her real name). I was thirteen years old and she was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. It was a Halloween party, and that silky white skin of hers lit up against the glaze of a bonfire in that cool, October night. Her hair, black as black, fell just before her shoulders and those cheeks — God, those cheeks — were lifted up by the perfect arc of her smile. At thirteen I was in love with the girl of my dreams, the one made for me. But only if I could talk to her. Only if I had a smoother way of staring at her during the Christmas eve masses. Were my intentions that obvious when I asked her to prom three years later? And did I miss something when she said ‘No’?

Because despite my weakness — oh, how she made me weak — I got around to calling her friend. We eventually hanged out with other friends, spent nights in each others’ homes. We guys talked about girls, they talked about boys, and we talked about each other, laughing at the funny kid who stared at June from across a bonfire four years ago. But it didn’t last. Our two other friends eventually became a couple, putting June and I in an awkward spot. I felt like I was thirteen again, waiting to see if all it took was time. But time eventually drifted us apart. We all went our separate ways for college and I never saw June again.

I never had her, but I had her friendship once. This is what I reminded myself when I met July (not her real name): that as my first act of wisdom I saw to it that I would never sacrifice a friendship for the sake of romance. So July became one of my best friends. We took judo together. We joined the team. I even took German for my foreign language even if I had the least inclination towards anything European. We would text each other at night, she’d lend an open ear whenever I’d go through personal stuff, and I’d edit her papers the night before her deadline even if it was the same as mine — things that friends do.

I was obviously deeply attracted to her, the most beautiful soul I’ve ever met. Her kindness, empathy, and compassion were all so pure, so unconditional, and lovingly disarming. And whenever I look at her — oh, how she looks — there is no other adjective that comes to mind than angelic. Her long, sun-kissed curls glisten in the campus sun, as she carries herself with a natural grace, that relaxed smile, and those soft, piercing eyes. We were just never available for each other in college. While I was free she had a boyfriend, and when she was free I had a girlfriend. But we kept in touch. Even until after graduation as she moved on to law school and I to teach in high school. She still asked me to edit her papers, we still talked into the night. And when we were finally available for each other, we dated more than once but it never felt real. Like I didn’t want it to be. Until eventually I just disappeared from her life, and the next thing I heard from her is that she’s met this fantastic guy. They marry eventually.

I lost her because I was afraid of losing her. That somehow I held on to this notion that it wasn’t worth losing the friendship for something more. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Or rather, it was foolish that I didn’t even try.

So for a while, I took it wiser not to try. That as the years went on, I committed myself to teaching and nothing more. I grew jaded from romance, not just by the actual relationships I’ve had that failed, but also by those I never had. The friendzone can be a cold, dark place, indeed.

But only if you let it be.

Nervous and cynical of my own track record at relationships, it is no surprise then that I stumbled into the friendzone for the third time in my life. We began excited by the things we held in common but as the months wore on, it became a clash of differences, squabbling over the smallest things. I chide her for the lack of urgency in her texts, and she mocks me for the way I pronounce incredibly difficult words such as inasal (it’s not a soft ‘a’), alaxan (it’s not a long ‘a’), and Moalboal (it’s not like ‘coal’) and how I stubbornly insist on spelling halo-halo as halu-halo. I’d expect more empathy from a linguist, but then again I’m not helping myself whenever I choose to hang out in The Fort instead of BF Homes.

But when the going gets tough, nothing closes our ranks like railing against the freethinkers, Roger Federer, and Filipino politics. We also unite over good movies, great food, and thinking about our dreams. We’ve become safe harbors in each other’s lives, motivating each other to be more ambitious, to face our problems head on, and to dream a little harder. And though we’ll most likely never put our relationship status on Facebook, it need not be asked whether what we have is more than friendship. After all, what can be more than friendship?

Because the friendzone is a place that can only be as wide and deep as your heart allows. You only have to let go of your expectations and your fears to see what you’ve really got while you still have it, and to enjoy what else might be if you simply allow it to be. There is no perfect scene, no perfect time, to appreciate the person standing before you.

Because whenever I see her — oh, how I miss her — I need not put a label to that mischievous smile, those warm, affectionate eyes, the hair that glides through my fingers, and those hands that keep me safe. Whether it’s under the Cebu sunset or the night lights of the Singapore GP, she shines for me, this girl who travels, who takes me to places as if they were mere pit stops, wherever its location, region, or zone.