Filipinas Mag

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“You can do it with your eyes closed,” said my vintage friend Gemma, asking me to write about Banahaw. Funny. That’s how I first approached the mountain’s singular wonder —asleep, escaping aggravation by traffic.

Past the highway turn off, I woke to another world—deep blue majesty over emerald rice terraces, vibrant in noonday sun muted by light mist. Wow! Gunung Agung, rice terraces—Bali in October? No, Banahaw de Tayabas in May.
My eyes opened wider. Farther down an Angel of Judgment blew a silent trumpet from a moss-covered chapel. Belle époque! Art historian Patty and I had just discovered an old cemetery en route to a new harvest festival in the old cabecera (capital)—Tayabas, also the original name of once larger, mostly wild Quezon province, north from Laguna to Luzon’s tip along the Pacific Ocean.

Four centuries later, Mayohan welcomed—with refined foothill lambanog (coconut brandy) in tagayán, ceremonial toasting in improvised Tagalog couplets lyric to earthy, an old ritual of exquisite, vanished courtesy. Then came Banahaw, a lilting waltz by the native composer Fabian Obispo. Tinkling its melody, Jun Redor cajoled a dance to that giant peeking through the window. Two charmed Manileña Tagalas needed little coaxing as glorious sunset descended on a day of many firsts.

First sight of Banahaw de Tayabas, that art deco angel, this poblacion (town) of Franciscan finesse and observant engineering led to a first virtual climb—blow-ups in a booth with giant twisting vines, rock formations, ferns, macros of lichens, insects I’d never seen, even in pictures. “The face of Banahaw,” smiled Jun Redor, photographer/ president of the Tayabas Mountaineers, brown as roast castañas (chestnuts) from all that climbing with town mates all speaking melodious time-warp Tagalog spiced with sly humor—and sudden laughter, sparking instant camaraderie.

That was fifteen years ago. I’m no longer sure if it was then that these mountaineers walked us past gutters with clear mountain waters, up the steps to the Basilica of Miguel Arkanghel for another climb—to its dome, young twin to Banahaw’s peak. “This is where we learned to rapel,” said Gadi, deadpan comic. I giggled. They said, no kidding. They were initiated to scale pathless heights on mountaineering ropes tied to Tayabas’ highest manmade point, cross under volcano.

There was no end to delight on that lovely summer’s day. We smiled as Jun extended another invitation—come again in June to really climb Banahaw! Their climb would honor Apolinario de la Cruz, intriguing Hermanong Pulê of neighboring Lucban, who founded the Cofradia de San Jose, a fraternity of prayer in the early 19th century. These mountaineers were also the Tayabas Historical Society. Irresistible!

We’d just realized from a marker in the poblacion—that hero with mystic eyes was executed right here in mid-century. We had all thrilled to Noli Me Tangere, Rizal’s truthful fiction echoing in Reynaldo Ileto’s documented breakthrough “history from below”—Pasyon and Revolution. In this cabecera, Pasyon kindling was lit to fire.

The Cofradia, peasant and ilustrado (schooled) brothers whose subversive Father God also loved indio (native) sons, spread from Lucban through all the Tagalog pro-vinces, grazing Camarines. When the Tayabas governor hunting those dangerous cofrades was killed in a fray, shocked guardia civil (Spanish soldiers) finally trapped elusive Pulê—shot him with muskets in public execution, beheaded him, stuck his head on a pole displayed in warning on the cofrade pilgrim trail.

But that folk movement they tried to quash only fled to thicker forests and higher elevations with five peaks—Fortress Banahaw, a multi-towered guardian looming over Quezon and Laguna. Here, in long hiding, the Cofradia became the hearth of Katipunan flame.

In the month of Manong Pulé’s execution nearly a century and a half later, our climb began in sung prayer at the first station of the trail, a chapel with the “King of the Tagalogs” on the altar with his next heirs —lions of Revolution 1896. Here was the Tayabas center of Ka Ele Ka—Kapatiran ang Litaw na Katalinuhan, Brother-Sisterhood is Enlightened Wisdom—one among the many sects still flourishing in and around Banahaw, Katagalugan (Tagalog country) and far beyond—living echoes of spirit politics with unfinished business: full indio sovereignty, on its own terms, in Inang Bayan (motherland).

Stunning Moments

The day unfolded stunning moments as poets, artists, historians and mountaineers traced the Cofradia trail from Pasyon text and living folklore on the lips of Mang Juan Lado, a cofrade grandson climbing with us in his 70s. Awe alternated with pain in endless trekking—through ricefields, clambering higher, up another basaltic boulder, a fall broken by panicked grasping at a thorny rattan vine, fierce stinging by black hantik (big ants) in dead leaves carpeting a spectral rainforest half-lit under its thick canopy.

Suddenly, relief—a waterfall! Washing sweat, stings, cuts, bruises in a deep pool, swimming to its watery curtain, breathing air headier than wine, new strength pulsed in bodies and minds sloughing off dead skin. We had reached Tumloy, short for Tumuloy, “enter”—an erehiya, from erejes, “heretics” like the cofrades, literally, “brothers.” One of many erehiyas for communing with the invisible in Tayabas, grinned Redor, young Jungian dangling long firm legs from a boulder.

After Manong Pulé’s execution, co-frades from near and far poured into Banahaw, made shrines of rocks and springs, calling this mountain their new cathedral. Here they turned to ancient Bathala (God), whispered Ileto. We had touched the taproot of 1896.

Pain had become pleasure by nightfall on a plateau watered by a stream in the mountaineers’ Camp One—Alitao, where Pulê was captured. We had earned a night’s rest under a golden moon, lighting the lowlands to the Pacific, fishing boats bobbing on the horizon. And here we fell to dreamless sleep—waking to ethereal dawn in amethyst and saffron.

After coffee we walked, single file on the edges of rice terraces centuries old (built with Ifugao teachers, folklorist Arsenio Manuel theorized) to the altaran—a place for altars. There we linked arms to the sky, chanting to the risen sun. Then a gentle path led to Mang Juan’s ancestral hut, reduced to its frame and a lone bamboo bench. We knelt. Two lovers recited their new poem to Older Brother Pulê who showed the way to the heart of great things.

Our stroll continued with new eyes and ears in a wholly new world—a radiant forest vibrating in a symphony of a thousand birds, roaring waters following in coda. We had reached one of the mighty rivers rushing from the heights of Vulcan de Agua (water volcano), as Banahaw has long been called, watering rice terraces and the lives of two million people at its feet.

But not people alone, I realized, startled from noontime drowsiness by a companion pointing agape to a cloud of lilac butterflies echoing the morning’s dawn over my head, one alight on either shoulder like a pair of winged epaulets. “Another erehiya?” marveling mountaineers surmised. Minutes before, Mang Juan waded to my restful boulder midstream, telling me to stay awake for no apparent reason. Now he said gravely, “Engkanto (nature spirits)! Waiting to abduct you if you slept.”

On An Improbable Mission

Call it suspension of disbelief. Call it magic. I met more Banahaw denizens as months became years—a beetle glowing dayglo orange; white butterflies with red designer polka dots edging wings; a chameleon changing colors; platoons of golden salagubang (beetles); a cricket near nestling size emitting a deafening whir; a stick insect almost the length of my forearm, crimson head, deep violet wings. What colors, what sounds, what sizes life grows to in this sweet isolation!
I had deserted Manila, living in foothills on three elevations, trying to understand the whole dazzling picture. Now came new pain—farmers, townsfolk, artists, visiting mountaineers, holy men all bemoaning impending Holy Week crowds in Banahaw de Dolores and its dark twin, Mt. Cristobal—what new forest fires they might ignite, what tons of city garbage surely foul nature shrines, called puestos in that slice of Banahaw more accessible to media and desire, lofty to criminal.

PAL Mountaineers had been at it for two gallant years with Bantay Banahaw (guardians of Banahaw). We joined them in a baptism of fire and barely survived. It’s one thing to encounter magic, totally another to try halting thousands from cutting saplings for tent poles; stripping vines and trees for potions; flicking lit cigarette butts on dried grass; littering discarded shampoo sachets, candy wrappers, film cans, tetrapaks around sacred waterfalls; painting graffiti on magnificent grandfather trees; carving their names on majestic boulders; relieving themselves wherever—this nightmare needed powerful juju!

We swallowed the medicine, resolving to knit an alliance in history, culture and ecology to help stem the tide. I remember light rain falling on Barangay Bugon in Sariaya and a rainbow’s end dipping into its shallow lake. Signos! A sign. We vowed to save this one mountain among all imperiled others in our needy, heedless time.

Our alliance would begin a campaign, weaving foothills into a defense perimeter in, around, beyond Banahaw… All that we divined would come together with everything we already knew, advance science urgently with music, artful tri-media and peerless community organizing.

This improbable mission began networking allies in foothill towns and barangays, the Foundation for the Philippine Environment—then invited wildlife scientists, first asking about birds. Besides those turquoise kingfishers ubiquitous around rivers and springs, wherefrom that Snowy White Owl, a twilight apparition swooping down old lowland rice fields, now asphalted Tayabas subdivision? What was a Palawan Fairy Bluebird doing on that upland tree in Dolores? Where have all the royal kalaws (hornbills) gone?

The herpetologists’ fieldwork confirmed our guesswork: Reptiles in Tayabas were as healthy as its waters were pure. The ornithologists gave fascinating context for those exotic birds, unpalatable even to ravening native hunters. Not only is Banahaw a feeding zone for winter migrants crossing oceans. It’s also an “ecotone” where northern and southern species interbreed mutants! In this marvel of biodiversity, the first skimpy index of Banahaw flora must lengthen, an inventory of its magical insects begin. Work of a lifetime.

Just then Nature tolled a deadline in ominous chords of geology, hydrology and meteorology. Scientists called that super-typhoon with 150 mile winds in October ’95 “a hundred-year rain.” Rosing swept homes built on dried riverbanks in Tayabas, pulverized walls to rubble in Lucban. Down Sariaya’s slopes, planted to vegetables by landless hunger on long denuded, untitled foothills came water, huge uprooted trees, illegal logs, mud and boulders sliding in apocalyptic rumble—cracking Maharlika Highway open to its guts, making it impassable for two years.

Trauma throughout the foothills gave our cry—PANGANGAHOY, ITIGIL NA, stop cutting trees—an awesome push. “Nagdilang anghel,” said the folk, “Spoken in angel’s tongue.” By ’97, under newly minted Environmental Impact Assesment (EIA) law, these folks were primed—for first-ever research in and by the grassroots, guided by scientists instigated by an awakened Sariaya mayor, Juanito Magnibas, for the required Environmental Impact Study (EIS).
Not only did that Banahaw EIS make history, newly militant native katalinuhan (intelligence) halting a South Luzon Expressway extension through Dolores and Sariaya uplands “with a view”—and less rights of way to pay. Next, the Pal’awan came up with their own EIS on ancestral land eyed for airport runway expansion in Puerto Princesa, capital of Palawan, island province named after their ancient tribe on the Sulu Sea. Long memory is an ace when word gets around.

By 2000, alarmed by a new study, a lackadaisical Dolores lowland municipal council began charging belated entrance fees for a sanitation system—fecal choliform from the uplands was already poisoning their drinking water! And, after five years with alliance provocateurs, the unwieldy Banahaw Protected Area Management Board finally came alive—and leapt to weighty decision, closing Dolores’ ravaged puestos on Holy Week for the next five years.

Update – 2004: Forests fast regenerating in Dolores elevations. Last I looked, Banahaw was Southern Luzon’s only re-maining 2.5 percent forest cover, also home to wildlife refugees from forests still in heartbreaking fall in islands and waters of unique biodiversity—our first, and last, crown jewel.

Breaking news – 2009: Possibly another five years of closure. Back in Manila, closed eyes telescope time and space, returning enchantment timeless and true. Oh, may beauty in pain and peril show the way again to a new, more telling Cofradia moment.

Let the magical forests grow! Siya nawâ.