Aliwagwag Falls
Originally uploaded by anetz.
All those years growing up in Cateel, all those holidays from university and work, this was a name that for me conjured unseen beauty and mystery.
It was said to be accessible only by motorboat if the occupants were willing to disembark to drag it over slippery boulders. This was to be done for a series of thirteen rapids. I don’t know if this was true.
We have a propensity to choose those magical numbers: siete, trece … seven, thirteen. Old carpenters and home builders used to recite oro, plata, mata to determine the number of steps in the main stairs leading to our salas. To make it end on oro – gold. Always. For good luck.
There were no photographs. The lenses of cameras fogged up in the vicinity of the falls especially in the afternoon.
Then the bridge was built. Aliwagwag Falls became accessible.
The rainforest around it also became accessible to illegal loggers. One overloaded truck caused the bridge to collapse and that killed several people.
The load? Logs.
It is no longer too misty to take photographs, even in the late afternoon when a light drizzle falls.
When I took this photograph, a thought came unbidden: are there no longer enough trees in the surrounding rainforest? The fog did not obscure my camera lens. Or was that fine day just my buenas, my suerte? My good luck.
January 19
Banning by royal decree, of the Masonic Order in the Philippines: 1812.
Third Sunday of the month which this year falls on the 20th is Holy Name Sunday, the fiesta of Tondo, Pandacan, Cebu City and other shrines of the Santo Niño.
from Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños
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