Batanes:
Another World
For Batanes - for those three numinous syllables that conjure the distant,
the forbidding, the beautiful - one tempts fate.
The Batanes Archipelago lies on the northernmost tip of the Philippines,
on a vast expanse of surging waters where the Pacific Ocean meets the
China Sea. It is only 525 miles from Manila, but it may as well be another
world.
From the air, as the Fokker 50 glides down the landing strip at the foot
of Mount Iraya, the land serves up a breathtaking welcome. Pastoral hills
rolling down savage seas. Sea birds riding the waves. Puffs of foliage of
the deepest green. The wind's way on tall grasses. Low clouds now held in
their place by a rainbow with its fragile promise of fine weather.
Villages of stone huddled on tractable shores. The morning sun swaddling
the land with golden light. An island inchoate, still warm, it seems, with
the force of creation.
Always, the sea. It rams
against limestone rocks, crashes onto shores and, in Valugan, laps on an
incredible beach overlaid with smooth stones. It never rests.
On fine days it froths. Roiling, it can send waves thirty feet to the
crest, haul ashore from the seafloor rocks as big as houses, or bury an
entire village under sand. Most Batanes families have lost a member to the
sea.
Always, the hills. Up in what folks call Marlboro Country one half expects
a tattooed cowboy or Julie Andrews singing a paean to nature to
materialize among the cattle grazing by.
Batanes is the Philippines' smallest province both in terms of area
(21,099 hectares) and population (14,663). It is made up of three islands
and seven islets including Y'ami, where, on a clear day, the folk say, one
can see Taiwan.
Batan, the largest island, contains the capital town Basco. One can circle
it in two hours by car. In Sabtang island hillside homes hang above the
sea, allowing the folk to fish from their window. Strong current prevent
boats from ferrying commuters regularly to Itbayat island. Also, there is
a technique to getting on or off shore. There are no piers or beaches. The
island is reined in by towering cliffs that drop sharply into the sea. To
go ashore, one waits for a strong wave to thrust the boat up to ground
level then jump off. One goes through the same acrobatic feat to climb
aboard.
The Ivatan, the people of Batanes, have inherited the land's insular
character; Unlike most Filipinos who emerged from an eclectic gene pool
through intermarriages, the Ivatan are of purer stock. They uniformly bear
the features of their ancestors: the Malay's brown skin, the Chinese
almond eyes, the Spaniard's aquiline nose.
The anin, or typhoon, is the central fact of Ivatan life.
That Batanes is constantly battered by typhoons is a
myth; when a typhoon does come, it lashes with a velocity that can break
the barometer.
Every Ivatan has a favorite typhoon story. In 1921, the cathedral was
unroofed and the wireless tower twisted. In 1905, strong winds suffocated
cattle to death. In 1918, a fishing boat was swept away to Annam; five
years ago, a fisherman was set adrift to Taiwan. In 1952, someone
determined to recover his GI roof chased after it; he got it back at the
town plaza, rolled into a ball, driven about like tumbleweed. In 1987, a
Philippine Navy landing ship tank ran aground in Basco and a school
building was blown away in Mahatao. The governor tells of that stormy
night long ago, with the family gathered in the living room waiting for
the typhoon to pass. The roof gave way, disgorging in their midst a cow.
Next day, there was a feast.
In defiance of nature, the Ivatan have built fortress like homes. The
typical Avatar house is made of limestone quarried from the hills and
roofed with grass. Walls and roof are a meter thick; windows and doors
small and
narrow. During a typhoon, rope nets secure homes.
The kitchen, a separate structure, is the most important part of the
house. Built around a great stove, it is very like a campfire - warm,
safe, a source of communal well-being. When the aruyo trees grow unusually
long, tender leaves, the Ivatan are sure a typhoon will hit them in a few
days; it is time to fill the kitchen with provisions. Come the typhoon,
the entire family lives there.
Life is fundamental. The Ivatan live without television, moviehouses,
shopping malls or restaurants. If the frippery of the twentieth century
has passed them by so have its ills. Nobody locks his door. No one is too
rich or too poor. Every one is a farmer or a fisherman. Besides a spartan
life, the Ivatan are bound together by religion. In their uncertain
universe God is the only certainty.
Many Ivatan, especially the young, have moved to more hospitable shores
but they return on occasions, as did Juliet Ponce, now a Manilan, who came
home to wed. Many stay by choice. The governor's wife, an outsider, fell
in love with Batanes at first sight and made it her home. Allowed a second
life, Gregorio Delatado, 88, will live it again in Batanes, the best place
he knows.
Batanes is not for tourists out to shoot Kodakchrome views. It is rather
for those still blessed with a sense of wonder, for whom uncharted roads
lead to discovery. There are plans to urbanize Batanes. The young are agog: the old dread
change.
In the old days, the Ivatan believed that when they die they become stars.
On cloudless nights, the Ivatan's dark world is lit by hundreds of
brilliant stars. Up there is balm to pain of change. Up there is a cairn
to folk memory.
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