Kalayaan: Where have all the soldiers gone?

PAGASA, Kalayaan – Three scenes stuck to mind from my first visit to this island fortress 22 summers ago: a chubby young Marine captain who beat a forlorn bukangkang bamboo musical instrument as we inspected his domain; huge, hideous coconut crabs that clambered up treetops to clip off and drop nuts with powerful claws, then scurried down to tear open and gnaw at the fruit; the carcass of a C-47 transport plane from which enterprising station troops stripped metal sheets to fashion into armlets, watchstraps and belt buckles.

On my return this week, the captain was long gone, probably now a general playing not the old reed but a hip iPod in a city posting. The rare giant crustaceans have all since been caught to satisfy gastronomic urges of this frontier island’s new residents. In place of the C-47’s remains are a mighty crane and bulldozers that erect modern facilities of a commercial and tourist spot.

Many other sights have disappeared. The concrete landing strip that made Pagasa look from the air like a colossal unsinkable warship is overlaid with soil and grass. In lieu of Navy vessels, fishing boats are docked on the north side. Machinegun mounds that used to dot the shore have given way to fish-drying silos. The government’s pullback of such military essentials is deliberate. A policy to civilianize this 37-hectare island has it looking now no longer like the Philippines’ remotest border outpost, but a true municipality of Palawan.

Credit for the civilian makeover goes largely to Rosendo Mantes, elected mayor of the Kalayaan chain of seven islands and one shoal. Fired with a vision to rebuild his town from a military garrison, he began in 2002 signing up volunteers to live on Pagasa, the biggest isle, initially on two-month rotations but with the end of staying for good. When on my first visit there was only one civilian, a weatherman seconded by the Air Force for precise readings of supply drops, there are now over 300 craftsmen, mostly in the municipality’s employ. The Marines have pulled out, but the Navy and Air Force stayed with a contingent under Lt. SG Roger Boquiren. Civilians outnumber them seven-to-one. Backed by bay-watch volunteers, Navy patrols drive away poaching Chinese fishers.

Apart from Mantes, Kalayaan has a town council under a vice mayor, a barangay captain and councilmen for Pagasa, and one policeman. There used to be three single-story buildings abutting the runway, one each for the Marines, Navy and Air Force. Now they are being edged out by the municipal government’s plenary hall, a multipurpose pavilion, a health center, an election supervisor’s office, a water filtration system, a diesel-fired power plant and, still rising, a solar electricity distributor. The Air Force radio tower used to be the island’s tallest; a Smart cellular site now rises higher. Soldiers and civilians share three satellite television sets. Most residents work on the municipal poultry, piggery and livestock farms. Others catch and dry fish or gather seashells for native handicraft. For good measure, they erected near the airstrip an imposing bust of Tomas Cloma, nicknamed "Admiral" but a very civilian merchant mariner who discovered Pagasa in the ’50s and called it Freedomland.

There is still some dependence on the military. If not fishers who sail all the way from Malabon or Masbate, Kalayaan’s civilians bring provisions to and from Palawan by hitching rides on Navy ships (28 hours) or Air Force planes (1-1/2 hours). Mayor Mantes rode with Armed Forces deputy chief Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan, defense undersecretary Rafael Santos and party in the dark, noisy cabin of a C-130 Hercules. (Still, it was a fast, safe flight, as pilot Maj. Jonathan Caballes, copilot Capt. Victor Malaya and navigator Lt. Levie Miranda skillfully landed it on the grassy rain-drenched airstrip.) On the way, Mantes talked about converting Kalayaan into a fish port and ecotourism spot. A travel agency already has tied up with a small airline to bring sightseers over to dive, fish and island-hop. A resort developer sees potential in setting up huts along the white-sand beaches. But first, Mantes pleaded with Adan, the military needs to repave the airstrip. Aware of the meager Armed Forces budget yet agog over the prospects, Adan noted that a joint venture with a private constructor would work. From a border flashpoint with Philippine neighbors, Kalayaan could become a fiesta island paradise.

Kalayaan’s other isles are Lawak, Patag, Kuta, Likas, Parola and Panata, each occupied then as now by two soldiers. The eighth territory is the uninhabited Rizal Reef. In the ’80s Malaysian frogmen had swum in to raise their flag; the Navy promptly blasted it to pieces. Lawak, in the vernacular meaning expansive, is actually the smallest. Panata has a lagoon in the middle, where Marines used to raise five sharks at a time. There was once a ninth island, Pugad. One stormy night in the ’70s, the Marines who had regrouped at adjacent Parola decided to stay till the weather cleared. On rafting back the next day, they discovered it had been taken over by a company of South Vietnamese troops. Retreating, all they could do in the following mornings was to curse while the invaders sang their national anthem. They exacted sweet revenge months later when two gunboats from "liberated Vietnam" arrived and shelled their compatriots. Dozens of Southern officers swam from Pugad to Parola to surrender and avoid certain hard labor.

Such military excitements are long past. Claimants of the Spratlys, of which Kalayaan is at the far edge, are into joint marine use for peaceful coexistence. Civilians and station troops were in high spirits when we flew in with the Air Force’s Blue Angels female rock band. The ensuing "boodle fight" over half-a-dozen lechon, courtesy of generals in Palawan, was a prelude perhaps to future tourist influx.

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