Thursday, August 26, 2004 The island of fire By Reynante Maata Travelogue
EVERY Black Saturday, arbularios or herbalists from all over the Visayas and Mindanao gather in Barangay San Antonio in the municipality of Siquijor, Siquijor province to recharge their healing powers.
The gathering, according to folklore, is a meeting of covens of practitioners of the occult that in the minds of the superstitious conjures images of witches, faces streaked with tongues of flickering fire and mumbling eerie incantations around a huge boiling cauldron from which waft the odor of a heady brew. But contrary to folk beliefs, what may be called witches are merely ordinary men and women gifted with healing powers handed down to them from generations past.
The heady brew is nothing but a collection of tree barks, roots, herbs, insects, and so-called "secret" ingredients poured into the cauldron of boiling coconut oil. The rhythmic monotone incantations invoke occult forces to give the brew the power to heal. And that the event takes place on Black Saturday makes the brew more potent since it is at this time when Jesus Christ is dead to the world and forces from the realm of the spirits are believed to roam freely to share their healing powers to human kind.
The island of Siquijor has always been known for its arbulario or mananambal and on the extreme, its magbabarang, practitioners of the black art.
The image has stuck. Particularly since it is isolated from the larger islands of the Visayas and Mindanao, lending it a unique mystical charm.
Katugasan
Before the coming to the Philippines of the Spanish conquistadores in the early 16th century, natives called the island katugasan because of the profusion of molaves or tugas in the dialect. On a pre-dawn in 1565, Spanish conquistador Esteban Rodriguez, a member of the Legazpi expedition arrived on the island and noticed an uncanny luminiscence shrouding the molaves. The effect, caused by swarms of fireflies massing on the trees' canopies, was a fiery image, prompting the expedition to call the island "Isla del Fuego", the island of fire.
That early morning, the expedition landed. Inhabitants, perplexed by the arrival of the white-skinned visitors, scampered surprise shouting "Sikihod! Sikihod!", a tongue-twisting word that the Spaniards later changed to Siquijor for convenience.
In 1795, the Spanish administrators sliced the island into five municipalities: Canoan (present-day Larena), Katugasan (Siquijor), Capilay (San Juan), Tigbawan (Lazi) and Cangmaniac (Maria). From 1854 to 1901, the island was under the political control of the nearby and much larger island Bohol. From then on, the island became of a sub-province of Negros Oriental with one more town created, Talingting (Enrique Villanueva).
On September 17, 191, the island became an independent province.
The Island of Fire
Today the island province is seeking its place under the sun. And it has much to offer. Aside from the Black Saturday folk healing festival on Holy Week, the island prides itself of a number of cultural and natural attractions.
On Araw ng Siquijor, September 17, the province's Charter Day celebration, the highlight is the weeklong Solili Binalaye Festival. The event dramatizes the marriage ritual practiced in Lazi, Siquijor in which both parents of the bride and groom prepare a feast and take turns advising the couple on the realities of marriage life. The rituals are depicted in a street-dancing competition.
The whole island is a veritable resort of white beaches. Two of the most well known resorts are Coco Grove in Tubod, San Juan and Salagdo-ong, a government-subsidized retreat.
For cave enthusiasts, there is Cantabon Cave in Siquijor town. Its long, winding and difficult underground trail, marked by streams and stalactites and stalagmites, to the cave's end is a challenge and a delight to any spelunker.
Up on Mt. Bandilaan is the province's Nature Park. The park is home to a butterfly sanctuary, the only one perhaps in the Visayas and Northern Mindanao. The area also boasts of its shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes, five natural springs, caves, and the Way of the Cross.
Despite its reputation as an occult centre, the island hosts St. Isidore Labradore Church and Convent in Lazi. Completed in 1891, the convent is believed to be one of the biggest if not the oldest in the country.
Though rustic in its outlook, the towns of Siquijor are home to families of pensionados and pensionados themselves, the former adventurous islanders who left the island generations ago to amass wealth and prestige outside the province but have returned and unwittingly contributed to the growth of the island province.
At the moment, the provincial government is harnessing the island's tourism potentials, not only to promote its historical and cultural heritages but to open more job opportunities to the people.
"Governor Orlando B. Fua is just waiting for the tourism office to draft programs... he assures his support, especially in funding them," said Jossette Caducoy, the province's new tourism officer.
Ms. Caducoy disclosed that the regional tourism office held a series of seminars last month among the personnel of the tourism office on effective methods to promote the island.
"We have formulated some plans and tour packages to promote Siquijor... hopefully the tour package can get off this coming Charter Day celebration," she said.
The molaves may have gone along with the fireflies. But the fire within the heart of the people of Siquijor continue to burn as they reach out to the region, to the nation and to the world.
For as long as this flame flickers within the bosom of each Siquijodnon, Siquijor will continue to remain the Island of Fire. (with reports from the Siquijor Provincial Tourism Office)
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