I visited Tudela town in the Camotes group of islands together with my wife Edizza for the wedding of the daughter of my late cousin Nenita Garciano Diocampo. Angelica Mae Diocampo or Maimai married Aljon Lumangtad at the Tudela parish church and the newlyweds held the reception at Casa del Rio in Barangay Puertobello a few kilometers away. Maimai works as municipal assessor of Tudela while Aljon is based in Australia working in aircraft maintenance.
My cousin Nenita passed away months after her husband Jeremias caught the Covid-19 virus and also passed away. That point was in my mind when Maimai asked if I could be one of the principal sponsors to their wedding. Maimai, I thought, needed all the support she could get from her relatives. Nenita was the youngest daughter of my late uncle Mario, a buyer and seller of livestock in the town where my late father Tiyong was born.
I once wrote a book about Tudela as part of a book writing project funded by the Provincial Government under then governor Gwen Garcia and vice governor Agnes Magpale and managed by the University of San Carlos. It was then that I realized that aside from the barangays in the town proper of Tudela, Puertobello, which is located several kilometers away, also plays a big role in the town’s economy. It could even have qualified as the town center had the municipal hall been built there.
Casa del Rio has a good view of the Hagutapay port and the island of Pilar. The port is small and hosts an old small ship that plies the Camotes to Ormoc City route. Ormoc is in Leyte. Pilar is in Ponson, one of the three major islands in Camotes. The other major islands are Pacijan, where the town of San Francisco is located, and Poro, where the towns of Poro and Tudela are located. Camotes is in the fifth congressional district whose congressman is Duke Frasco, husband of Gwen’s daughter Cristina.
I visited Camotes in many school vacations and developed many friends there when I was younger. But many of them left for jobs and other sources of livelihood in Cebu mainland and in Luzon. Those were the times when, as a journalist, I asked myself where the future of Camotes was headed. When the late Lito Osmeña was governor, the Province hosted a forum with Japanese planners who noted that tourism was Camotes’ future.
But tourism has also changed Camotes’ traditional setup where Poro was the capital. The center of gravity now is San Francisco or San Fran, which has a lake and white sandy beaches. The other towns are still looking for come-ons other than tourism and a viable development plan.
Poro hosts a mangrove forest with San Fran and its plains, previously planted with sugarcane, is in the interior barangays facing Cebu and Pilar. Pilar is also naturally endowed but not with white sandy beaches. The town’s other tourism come-ons need a development plan and support, with help from the Provincial Government, of course.
Our visit to Camotes showed the slow but sure economic growth of the place. I hope Gov. Pam Baricuatro and Rep. Duke Frasco will unite in realizing their leaders’ dream for Camotes.