I recently spent a few days in two of the three islands of Camotes together with my brothers, one of whom was vacationing from Spain to visit our relatives in mainland Cebu and in the said islands. While in Camotes, I got a message from Manila-based Tudela native Roger Polancos. He reminded me of the years I have been away from the homeplace of my parents. My late father was from Tudela while my late mother was from Poro. The two towns, which are adjacent to each other, are located in Poro, one of the three Camotes islands. The other islands are Pacijan, where the town of San Francisco is located, and Ponson, where the town of Pilar is located. Poro, in turn, is connected to San Francisco via a land bridge that cuts through the mangrove forest of Poro and San Francisco.
I used to spend many summer vacations in Camotes, travelling there mostly alone to stay with my relatives. I forged many friendships there, especially in Tudela town. The friends dwindled through time mainly because of the lack of job opportunities in the islands. When it was time to build a family, my friends would go either to the Cebu mainland or to the National Capital Region. I used to ask myself if there was ever a way to change the setup. It was easy to see that industrialization was a no-go. Former governor Lito Osmeña consulted Japanese experts about it and they advised him to develop Camotes’s tourism potential.
I could still recall a chat I had in a pump boat with the late former governor Pablo Garcia, who was invited to the opening of Mt. Moriah College in Poro years ago. We talked about the need for hotels and banks in the islands. I was pleasantly surprised during my latest visit, therefore, that business establishments have sprouted in San Francisco and Poro. We stayed in a hotel in Poro before transferring to a resort in Santiago, a barangay in San Francisco. When money became tight, I was able to withdraw from an ATM machine in Poro.
San Francisco is more naturally endowed, especially with beaches, than Poro and Tudela. Pilar is also naturally endowed, but unlike the other towns it is in a separate island facing Ormoc in Leyte. Barangay Consuelo in San Francisco faces the Cebu mainland and is near Danao City where barges do several trips daily to Consuelo. Outgoing governor Gwen Garcia, who is a political rival of the Duranos in Danao, recently opened a Liloan to Poro route. Her daughter Christina is, of course, married to a Frasco, a family that controls the politics in Liloan, which belongs to the 5th District like Danao. The district representative is Duke Frasco, Christina’s husband. Unlike Garcia, Pam Baricuatro, the incoming governor, is allied with the Duranos. That has obviously changed the political dynamics in the district.
I did visit the port in Poro where a ship plying the Poro to Liloan route docks. I was still a reporter when the port was built during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and when Agnes Magpale was still a board member representing the 5th District. (To be continued)