CLARK Moreno and Maila Manalang could have chosen any beautiful wedding venue for their special day, as over the course of their engagement, they had visited numerous venues across Davao City and its surrounding areas, from mountain retreats and garden estates to established event spaces, each with its own charm. Yet after every visit, they were left with the same lingering feeling.
Something was missing.
It's not because the venues lacked beauty; in fact, many were exceptional. But none seemed to capture the atmosphere they envisioned for the beginning of their married life.
Both proud Dabawenyos, Clark and Maila have built much of their professional life in Manila, yet Davao has always remained deeply personal to them. It is a place of roots, family, memories, and belonging. They wanted their wedding to feel connected to that sense of home.
For most couples, the search might have ended with a compromise. But for Clark and Maila, the answer took a different path.
For the past sixteen years, they have run MAS Inc., a Manila-based design-and-build firm serving clients across the country, including Davao City. Maila is an architect, and creating places where life unfolds has long been part of their everyday work. Through MAS Inc., they have transformed ideas into homes, workplaces, and spaces where people live, work, and gather; that is why it was only natural that when they could not find a wedding setting in Davao that truly felt like home and represented who they were as a couple, they began imagining one themselves.
Tucked within Marilog's picturesque rainforest, that vision slowly began to take shape.
They called it Salagbanog.
The name evokes both the Philippine eagle and the eagle's nest, symbols particularly fitting for what they were creating. One speaks of strength, loyalty, resilience, and enduring partnership, while the other speaks of shelter, belonging, family, and home.
Rather than transforming a conventional venue to resemble nature, they chose to create a place within it, surrounded by towering trees, mountain air, shifting mist and a landscape that gradually became part of their own story.
Clark and Maila worked with what was already there. Changing elevations, natural clearings, mature trees, and an ethereal, naturally sloping terrain became part of the plan rather than obstacles.
Preserving as many trees as possible became a priority. Instead of clearing wide swaths of land for roads and pathways, they brought in a small backhoe that could carefully navigate between the trees. This allowed the roads and paths to form around them rather than at their expense.
Some of their most memorable days at Salagbanog were also among the messiest. The couple would follow behind the backhoe in the rain, their legs sinking into thick clay mud, watching paths and roads emerge almost in real time.
What had existed only in their imagination was suddenly taking shape before their eyes.
It was surreal, but also enlightening.
With each new path, they understood more clearly that they did not need to force the land into a predetermined plan. The trees and terrain could guide them.
The more time they spent there, the more Salagbanog revealed what it wanted to become.
Today, pathways weave between mature trees rather than replacing them. Those trees frame its gathering spaces, cabins, and views, giving Salagbanog much of its distinctive character.
The property is alive in other ways, too. Numerous species of birds move through the trees, their calls creating a natural soundtrack that is quite literally music to the ears. A serpent eagle can often be seen hovering overhead.
Closer to the ground, chickens wander freely while ducks casually go about their day. They were never brought in to create an experience. They simply belong there.
Salagbanog was not meant to feel overly manicured. It was meant to feel alive.
Clark describes it less as a project and more as a feeling.
"We weren't trying to create something grand," he reflects. "We simply wanted a place that felt honest. Somewhere people could gather, slow down, and connect with one another."
Salagbanog was not conceived from a business plan or market study. It grew from shared experiences, countless conversations, and a desire to create a place that truly felt like home and represented who Clark and Maila are as a couple. For two proud Dabawenyos, there was something especially meaningful about creating that place on their own soil.
Then came August 17, 2026.
On that afternoon, the place they had spent months imagining finally came alive. Family and friends made their way into the mountains, arriving at the unmistakable chill of the Marilog highlands. They walked beneath the trees and through the natural slopes before gathering at the ceremony grounds.
Surrounded by forest and rising terrain, the setting seemed to belong naturally to the mountain.
There, before the people closest to them, Clark and Maila exchanged their vows in the very place they had created for that purpose.
One of the most meaningful highlights of the ceremony came when three Obu Manuvu-Matigsalug Datus blessed the couple and the offerings they had prepared for the land. It was a deeply symbolic gesture of gratitude, respect, and connection to the place that had become so central to their story.
What had existed for months as sketches, conversations, construction, revisions and possibiliti was suddenly filled with people, music, laughter and celebration.
The result was intimate, cinematic and almost dreamlike. It was a wedding seemingly tucked away from the rest of the world, unfolding within a place Clark and Maila had created long before it became the setting for one of the most important days of their lives.
Capturing it all was Lito Sy, a WPPI Double Master Photographer and a true Dabawenyo, whose photographs documented not only Clark and Maila's wedding, but Salagbanog's first celebration.
That same sense of homecoming extended to those who helped bring the celebration to life. The couple intentionally chose Dabawenyo suppliers and local talents for their wedding because they wanted to support the creative community of the place they have always called home. It made the celebration feel even more deeply rooted in Davao and in the people behind it.
The celebration unfolded across the property. Guests moved from the ceremony beneath the trees to cocktails and eventually to the evening reception, experiencing different parts of Salagbanog along the way.
Seven comfortable cabins housed family and some of those closest to the couple, allowing loved ones to stay together in the mountains. Beyond the cabins, a simple container-van accommodation for administrative staff and event suppliers is discreetly integrated into the property. These allow Salagbanog to comfortably support the people and logistics behind larger gatherings.
As daylight faded, Salagbanog took on another character. The trees that framed the celebration by day became almost enchanted at night. Lights appeared through the landscape, the mountain air grew colder, and the emotion of the ceremony gave way to music, performances, stories, laughter, and dancing.
"We had imagined this day so many times," Maila recalls. "But seeing our family and friends actually here, walking the paths, staying in the cabins, celebrating beneath the trees, that was when it became real. Salagbanog finally felt alive."
The place had worked exactly as they had hoped. It was not simply a beautiful setting, but somewhere people could stay, gather, explore, celebrate, and feel at home.
Today, Salagbanog remains a work in progress. Pathways continue to be refined, cabins and gathering areas are evolving, and new possibilities continue to emerge among the trees and natural contours of the land.
Perhaps that unfinished quality is precisely what gives the place its soul. Salagbanog is still growing, not toward a finished idea, but toward becoming a place that can hold many different experiences and stories.
What began with one celebration has opened up a much larger possibility. It can be a place where families and friends gather, where people retreat into nature, celebrate milestones, slow down, reconnect, and simply enjoy being together.
And perhaps that is the most meaningful evolution of Salagbanog. Not simply what it has become, but what it can become for everyone who finds their way there.
Salagbanog was never conceived as a business first. It began as an answer to a simple, deeply personal question.
What kind of place truly feels like home and represents who we are as a couple?
The answer, it turned out, was not found in a ballroom or a manicured garden. It was back in Davao, high in the mountains, beneath a canopy of trees, in the chilly air, surrounded by birdsong and the life of the forest itself.
But having experienced Salagbanog at its fullest, filled with people gathering beneath the trees, sharing meals, walking its paths and simply enjoying the mountains, another possibility became clear.
Perhaps something created from such a personal experience was never meant to remain entirely personal.
Today, as Salagbanog continues to grow, so does the idea behind it. To share the experience of this place with others. To welcome families, friends and communities into the same landscape that inspired its creation. To give people a place to slow down, reconnect with nature and appreciate the simple pleasure of being together.
There will be more weddings, retreats, celebrations and quiet escapes. Others will walk the paths once carved through clay mud behind a small backhoe. They will wake to birdsong, watch mist move through the trees, gather in the mountain air and, hopefully, discover their own reasons for remembering the place.
The trees will grow taller. The grounds will continue to evolve. And with every gathering, new stories will become part of Salagbanog. What began as a search for the right place has grown into something meant to be shared. A place where others can gather, celebrate, reconnect, and create stories of their own. CONTRIBUTED STORY
