A room with a view......and dark clouds over Loon

TAGBILARAN City — Our group has stayed a few times in one of the units around the Bohol Tropics Resort (BTR)at the heart of this city. During a recent weekend trip purposely to visit our good friend Raoul Tidalgo (just back after a radical treatment at a hospital in Houston, Texas), STAR contributor Edmund Silvestre and I were pleasantly surprised when BTR’s Emily Yap booked us in the most expensive room with a sweeping view. It’s located at the third floor, with a separate staircase, overlooking the two swimming pools, the events place, the café, the tree-lined walkway that snakes around the sprawling paradise, and the sea between Bohol and Cebu. (For inquiries about Bohol Tropics Resort, call 0917-8917427 during office hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.)

The three of us woke up to a breakfast (favorite fare for the day: Filipino breakfast consisting of crispy fried danggit with two eggs sunny side up and native tsokolate) served at the veranda. Yonder, we saw a slow-moving, almost immobile ship reminding us of a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner — you know, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. At twilight from the same spot, you witness the dying of day and the creeping darkness that creates a nostalgic-romantic mood, until a full moon lights up the sky.

The room has a big sala and two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and furnished with amenities fit for, uhm, celebs. We learned that big names from Manila have stayed in the room. Raoul and I shared the room with two single beds, complete with a massage chair (very relaxing!); while Edmund took the other room with a king-sized bed.

After we brisk-walked around the vast Tropics, Raoul told his driver to take us on a quick tour of the city which was badly affected by the 7.2 earthquake in October 2013. Thankfully, Tagbi has beautifully recovered. (Two weeks after our visit, Bohol was hit by another earthquake that left residents wilting in the heat during rotating brownouts.).                                            

Along the way, Edmund and I noticed the neatly cemented streets.

“Thanks to Mayor Geesnell ‘Baba’ Yap (photo),” said Raoul. “He really saw to it that all streets in the city, main roads and side streets, are paved. Masipag na mayor, young and a true achiever.”

After an organic lunch at the Bee Farm (a must-visit if you happen to be in Bohol), hosted by Ivy Castillon as requested by her business partner New York-based Boy Echavez, Ivy drove us to the countryside.

A certain sadness enveloped our hearts as we approached Maribojoc town, one of the places badly hit by the earthquake. Traces of the vast damage were still visible in some structures in need of repair. Three years before the tragedy, my relatives and I completed our Lenten Visita Iglesia in 14 churches including the St. Vincent Ferrer Church in this town, now totally gone. We were told that when the tremor stopped, leaving the church in shambles, only the St. Vincent statue was standing with hardly any scratch.

“The residents placed the image inside an orna (glass display case),” said Ivy. “They woke up one day surprised to find that the image’s wings kept on growing longer until they were pressing close to the glass. So they replaced the case with a bigger one.”

Imbued with the bayanihan spirit, the residents gathered the church’s remains (thousands of hollow blocks) and piled them on the surrounding streets, including the massive centuries-old bells lined up beneath a makeshift roof and a font.

“It took more a dozen men to carry those bells one by one,” added Ivy. “When a new church is rebuilt, using those blocks from the ruins, those bells will be hung where they should be.”

The same heart-breaking scene greeted us in Loon town — piles of hollow blocks from the rubble and other grim reminders of the earthquake that destroyed all the centuries-old churches in the province, some of them desperately waiting for funds for the badly-needed renovation.

“The earthquake struck past 8 a.m. after the Mass and the church was flattened, dumapa talaga ang buong simbahan,” recounted a resident. “The people had gone home, saved by a miracle. Imagine what would have happened if the earthquake hit a few minutes earlier!”

The only lonely figure standing was an image of Our Lady of Light which now stands at the altar of a chapel built near the ruins.

Dark clouds hung over Loon as we were leaving. Back at Bohol Tropics, images of Maribojoc and Loon lingered in our mind. We knew that it would take years, hopefully not ages, for those and other churches in the province to rise again...if ever.      

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos, visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on Instagram @therealrickylo.)