Guimaras before the oil spill

Five weeks ago we visited Guimaras island, crossing over on a RORO from Iloilo. Even from afar the island was a lovely sight: heavily wooded, with an occasional structure peeping out of the trees, clear water gently lapping slips of white sand.

Of course, long before we even caught sight of the island its praises had already been sung, repeatedly and lustily. Guimaras and mangoes are like horse and carriage or pork and beans or Jack and Jill or Kris and James (or maybe not)–mentioned in the same breath, with no pause in between. And they’re not just any mangoes, mind you: Guimaras mangoes are the most luscious, the sweetest, the most inviting of all mangoes, the only mangoes that passed the stringent import standards of the United States. Let the indefatigable former governor of Guimaras Emily Relucio-Lopez tell it, and you’ll be singing the island province’s praises too in no time.

We drove around the island, visiting mango plantations which, unfortunately, were mostly without fruit, harvest having just taken place. A few trees still had plump green fruits on them, and we were lucky to find one roadside stall with some fruits for sale. My companions swooped in and had the tinderas weighing the fruits and packing them in cartons, while I spied some large santol in one corner for the princely price of P15 per kilo.

Our next stop was the monastery run by the Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance. At the time we were not aware of the full and very intimidating name of the order; we just knew that it was a cloistered monastery that made wonderful jams and dried mangoes. Their chapel was open and airy, with beautiful wooden pews. At the back, hooded monks’ robes hung on wooden pegs. Beyond the chapel the monastery grounds were lush and well kept, with a neatly trimmed lawn, beyond which were cottages that I assumed were where the resident monks lived. There was no one in sight, but naturally; everyone was probably in prayers or meditation. A dog barked from somewhere among the cottages; otherwise the only sound was the wind in the trees.

Soon enough the abbot came out to talk to us. He looked quite young, or maybe the clean surroundings and a meditative life retard the aging process and he was really 85 years old. They have monks of different nationalities, he shared, but we were not to see any one of them. We then headed for the little gift shop–manned by a monk given dispensation to talk to people, we were told–and loaded up on even more jams and biscuits and dried mangoes and religious items, which the monk very kindly blessed for us.

Driving by the beach, we headed for Roca Encantada, the summer home of the Lopez clan rebuilt recently to modern comfort and convenience. The house overlooks the expanse of sea, a sight precious to us city rats, and is cooled by a constant breeze, also precious to us, our lungs spoiled by air conditioning and the fumes of a thousand smoke belchers a day.

It was a steep climb up a flight of stairs to reach the house, and with the incessant rain the steps were slippery. Because of this, the caterer could not set up lunch in the house, so we were told to take the scenic route down to the beach and walk the short distance to a nearby resort for lunch, a sumptuous affair (what else could it be?) highlighted by the island’s famed mangoes.

Gonzalo Ronquillo de Peñalosa first established a Spanish settlement on the island to Christianize the natives, with San Pedro Apostol as the patron saint and Santa Ana as the patroness. The Agustinians had first crack at the natives, then the Jesuits in 1751 and later the Dominicans took over.

It may not be a very well known fact of Guimaras history that Douglas McArthur, fresh out of West Point and a mere Second Lieutenant, came to Iloilo as head of a company of the Corps of Engineers. They built roads and the Sto. Rosario Wharf, which today is appropriately called McArthur’s Wharf.

Guimaras became a sub-province of Iloilo in 1966, and 26 years later it gained full status as a province. Emily Lopez was named its first governor.

Every year on May 22 the province celebrates its foundation day with the Manggahan sa Guimaras festival. Additionally, the province hosts a mountain bike festival that has been held since 1994, a colorful Paraw Festival of wind-powered boats held every first Sunday of March, and the Pagtaltal, a Lenten reenactment held in the capital of Jordan patterned after the Oberammergau of Germany.

For a province that is only 580 square kilometers, Guimaras has over two dozen beach resorts. About a third of them are now threatened by an oil spill that is nothing short of a tragedy. The waters, the beaches, the marine life, the corals in a large and growing area have turned into horrid black goo, the result of thousands of liters of oil spilling out from the sunken tanker Solar I.

After initially hemming and hawing about legal responsibilities and liabilities, Petron Corporation, whose oil it is and who chartered the ill-fated tanker, in a statement read before a joint congressional hearing last Monday, finally took responsibility for the environmental disaster that, as we write this, stretches for 320 kilometers of shoreline and adversely affects over 3,000 families in the province.

Photographs showing dead sea creatures and plant life all covered in evil-looking black goo, townspeople valiantly trying to clean up the mess with the most rudimentary of implements, are simply heart-breaking. Reports of booms and dispersants, scanners and sonars, even human hair and rice straw and bacteria to clean up and minimize the damage of this colossal mess are hopeful signs that maybe we can salvage the situation.

Petron chair Nick Alcantara in his statement promised the people of Guimaras that "we will be there and do whatever it takes to clean up and rehabilitate the strait and island of Guimaras. We are committed to restore Guimaras back to its natural beauty no matter the cost. We are ready to work at this for the next three to five years or longer."

It is an encouraging commitment, and we trust that Petron means what it says and will live up to its promise. Not just Guimaras but all of the country, and all of our people, deserve nothing less.