Wonderland down South

What I love about attending the Silliman University National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete is that while it takes center stage for the week or so spent in my adopted hometown, the literary activity is never the only one that supplies and holds interest.

So many other things happen to gain our fascination. And there are always fresh stimuli that introduce themselves.

Take the e-trike, or E+E-Cab, an electric-powered tricycle in bright yellow that trumps all the usual buzzing “trikes” in town. This one catches the eye as a futuristic space bubble or rounded capsule. And it’s noiseless, barely hums as it effortlessly glides along.

After an afternoon workshop session at the Sky Room of the SU Cafeteria, Jimmy Abad and I had the opportunity to ride a prototype (the first of three in the works) driven by no less than a lady, Kotska Fleischer, with John Mark Teves riding shotgun. They ferried us to our lodging place of choice for the past couple of years, Florentina Homes & Hotel. The next day it was Mercy Abad’s turn to be taken for a breezy spin around town. 

Kotska and Mark sported calling cards that billed them as sales agents of Torrex Development Corporation, apparently a family venture that has partnered with Egg & Egli (E+E), a Swiss car manufacturing company “that produces clean-energy modes of transport, with a definite emphasis on emerging markets and the developing world.”

The bodywork for the sidecar and driver’s shield uses polymers, while the cab’s interior features eco-friendly materials such as treated bamboo slats and natural fibers. It’s a marriage of space-age design and indigenous flavor. The ride is comfy, with two passengers seated side-by-side, enjoying ample legroom and a grand view through a large curved glass windshield.

Powered (4.3kW at its peak) by a 2kW/52V LifePO-4 battery, the E+E-Cab can tool around for as much as 45 kilometers at full charge. That’ll take riders all the way to Bais City from Dumaguete. Envisioned is a power distribution network to serve the vehicle’s energy requirement, meaning a chain of E+E-Stations for battery charging.

It’s all green hi-tech, with fast-charging, modular stations to be designed for compatibility with regular power grids. At their greenest form, the electric trikes may eventually be equipped with solar panels for renewable and emission-free power.

No emissions, no noise, no pollution — that’s what the E+E-Cab promises, with a low-cost base vehicle, locally manufactured sidecar, brushless DC motor of 50V/150Amax/7,000rpm at a top speed of 45 km per hour, and torque that can carry 290kg on a 10% slope. Its daily operating cost is estimated to be only a hundred pesos daily in terms of electricity. The energy consumption rates for e-trikes will thus save the equivalent of up to 3,000 liters of fuel per year per vehicle.   

Onward to the future then, Dumaguete! Or make that the whole of Negros Oriental. Why, with Ro-Ro ferry service, we can even hope to cross over Tañon Strait and drive all the way to Cebu City, with maybe only a couple of pit stops along the way — which can also be used for quick, clean dips in the sea. 

Running parallel to this welcome development are the solar-energy plans and efforts of a new company, East Corp., or Environmental Advocacy on Solutions and Technologies, Incorporated. Its president and consultant/designer, Eric Hanquinet, is already well known in Negros Oriental for the Siit Arboretum Botanical Garden he established in Siaton, an hour’s drive south from Dumaguete.

I had long heard of Eric and his botanical garden, which is visited regularly by schoolchildren, plant researchers and lovers of flora. We finally got a chance to meet up with him when the Abads and I stayed for a lovely weekend at Antulang Beach Resort, also in Barangay Siit.

Eric turns out to be a genial, knowledgeable fellow with a thoroughly engrossing life story. A free spirit originally from Belgium, he’s travelled all over the world many times over after acquiring his first sailboat in England. That was decades ago.

Finding himself in Australia in the late ’80s, he sailed to the Visayan Islands, and heard of the best anchorage in the region, the well-protected and ever-placid Tambobo Bay off Siaton. When he came over and fell in love with the place, no other sailboat could yet be seen enjoying the safe haven. Today, Tambobo Bay hosts no less than 30 to 40 pleasure craft at any given time, its owners either choosing to live there permanently, or leaving their boats parked safely till their next return.

Eric researched on local hardwoods and started a boatbuilding industry in Tambobo. To supplement his income as a well-journeyed nomad, he supplied an Australian company with jewelry items. Eventually, he realized that he had had enough of a life centered on water and air, or wind. He decided to sell his last boat and move inland for a new romance, this time with earth and fire.

This was when he began to lease several hectares of forested land in Barangay Siit, which he has since transformed into a botanical garden with an exemplary arboretum. While he enjoys professional and personal relations with Silliman U. and various other institutions, his efforts at introducing all kinds of tree and plant species have purely been on his own.

Taking us on a brief walking tour of his spread, basically only around the area proximate to his open circular house with concrete steps spiraling towards a bedroom loft, he pointed out foreign species he had planted 5, 10 years ago, and which now towered over the area, among them the Tabebuia rosea, a timber tree from tropical America, which can grow up to 30 meters, and fast.

Others were the Parahybum or Tower Tree, also called the Brazilian tree fern, as well as the bauhinia caronia and bauhinia monandra, which are unlike our usual bauhinia in leaf shape and flower colors. There was also the palo verde, a small shrub-like tree that’s usually found in the Sonoran Desert in southwestern U.S.

Most of these trees, he said, had adapted well to local conditions, which included poor, dry soil. I asked him if he had ever tried to plant the Aussies’ beloved waratah that bears lovely flowers. Eric said he did try, and got some seeds to sprout, but that they didn’t prosper any further.

Mercy and I learned that the Buddha bamboo which we have both cared for doesn’t really like much water, and that it prefers to struggle in arid conditions; otherwise the bamboo starts to rise high and reverts to its original spindly form, losing its attractive Buddha-belly feature.

There’s so much more to learn from Eric, whether it be on the lorcha, a sailing vessel he discovered had been built in Iloilo during Spanish rule, or the variants of pygmy calachuchi being produced in Thailand. And of course on how all his efforts at biodiversity conservation round up his life as an accomplished nomad.

But our time with him was short, and so we urged him to bring out his seafarer’s log and have it encoded, then add to it — his now decades-old foray into earth and fire — so that we might have engaging literature of the first water.

I certainly hope Eric finds time soon from his new adventure towards alternative power technology, so that he authors a wondrous book as a further legacy together with his fabulous garden. 

We must also commend Wing del Prado for her continuing labor of love that is Florentina Homes, which keeps getting enhanced with her own artworks as well as those by other Dumaguete artists. This time we stayed in the Florentina Hotel annex, which features a four-story tower, on which top floor is the circular Tower Room of expansive views.

I loved my third-floor room that led out to a balcony with a pocket garden, replete with a grass lawn. That was where balik-Fellows Joel Toledo, Allan Pastrana, Ceres Alabado, and 2013 Fellow Trish Shishikura had a nightcap with me on midweek, with the skies as our canopy, apart from the wooden trellis that had yet to be fully embraced by a purple-flower vine.

I made sure to ask Wing’s gardener for cuttings from at least five species growing lush in that garden balcony. Thanks, Wing. And thanks again, too, to Edo and Annabelle Adriano, for the nightcap at their place. Jimmy Abad, Sawi Aquino, Bron Teves and I were introduced to their friends, Suzette and Dong Villegas.

Dong turned out to be a great-grandnephew of Pantaleon Villegas of Bacong of the 1890s, a.k.a. the legendary Leon Kilat whose life story served as the basis for my first novel. I had to acknowledge to Dong and company that my middle name Aguinaldo also hinted at historic lineage. Maybe his lolo and my lolo had also met — which earned Leon Kilat the title of General to lead the Katipuneros in Cebu.  

Lastly, thanks to Suyen Adriano for the brownies to-die-for that she baked for our week-long treat in Dumaguete. Ana Joaquina, as she is formally named, enters college this month, at Enderun. More brownies to come, cookies, too, and cakes galore! Life’s a wonder cake to have and eat, too, when enjoyed with friends in Dumaguete and green environs.