The 31st of May was the first of our many planned sojourns into the yet uncharted places of Negros Island (at least uncharted by us).
One side of my wife’s family had their reunion at a resort in the town of Don Salvador Benedicto in Negros Occidental. It was the second grand reunion, attended by hundreds of their clan, some from Cebu, but mostly from around Negros. Frankly, I’ve never heard of Don Salvador Benedicto before, especially that it is a place. Left alone, I would have thought we were going to this Don’s house or something. We spent Friday evening, and then the entire Saturday there. We left Sunday morning for Bacolod.
After decades of not having been to the northern part of Negros island, I thoroughly enjoyed the drive. There were nine vehicles in our convoy. I love it when we load up with gear, ready for whatever may come, knowing that if we needed anything, we’ve got it with us, except maybe the kitchen sink.
We stopped in Bais City to stretch our legs a bit, and to hydrate at a small convenience store across from the market. A soon as we were refreshed, we started rolling again. I just love the feel of the tires rolling on blacktop, gripping it like it had claws. I would love that feeling even more later.
I had lost all air of familiarity as we went through each town north of Bais. After more than 35 years, they all looked different, alien to me. All I retained somewhat was their sequence along the highway to the north. The road leading to Don Salvador Benedicto is in San Carlos City, an unremarkable crossing that, if not for the number of vehicles turning to it, could be just one of the streets you’d find in a city like San Carlos. The lead vehicles in the convoy shot past the DSB turnoff. I didn’t know why but I followed them to the Gaisano mall parking lot. As I got out to ask why we stopped there, someone yelled, “Lunch time!” I looked at my watch. It was 10 past 11 in the morning. So, to lunch then.
There was nothing special inside, and the one place to eat was cheap, although they didn’t have that many selections. What they had a lot of were tables. We had no problem finding a place to sit, something different, I thought. After enjoying a not-so-bad meal, I was ready to go, and I was glad everyone else was, too. After snapping a few pictures outside to mark the occasion, we were off to DSB again. The drive up was exciting to me. There were curves that reminded me a little bit of some of the twisties you’d find in California. My wife had a smile on her face, knowing that I was excited.
I liked the roads in the northern parts of Negros. In fact, I would describe the difference between driving in Oriental Negros and Occidental Negros as a tube of toothpaste. The inside of the tube being Oriental–as you drive to Occidental, you feel like the toothpaste being squeezed out of the tube into the open. So, we were like the freed toothpaste, comfortably driving at a pretty good pace to DSB, without tricycles and pot-pots hindering our progress on the highway.
Finally, we arrived at the venue in DSB. My wife met other members of the clan, some for the first time, and she introduced me to them as well. Friday and Saturday evening went relatively well. And then it was finally Sunday morning, time to pack our stuff and leave. The plan was to go to Bacolod from there, and then take in the local sights the next day.
We really wanted to see the Talisay ruins because we’ve always seen pictures of it on Facebook. We thought a Bacolod visit would not be complete without seeing the ruins. Well, it didn’t turn out that way at all. After leaving DSB, it was decided that we’d go to Campuestohan Highland Resort in Talisay. One of my brothers-in-law and his family came along because of the grandchildren. The resort looked to me like a copy of several resorts that I’ve seen in the States. It has different themes taken from such Hollywood movies as Jurassic Park, King Kong, Lord of the Rings, maybe Transformers, and several others that I could not readily name. They had high-wire bicycles and zip lines. They even have a huge pool, replete with a wave generator. The children enjoyed that visit immensely but we found the weather a little too uncomfortable. People were under every shade available to get out of the sweltering heat.
It was still early enough in the day when we were done at Campuestohan. For my part, I had my photographs, and they were wonderful photographs. Since I was just a follower, not knowing my way around in northern Negros, I just went wherever the others wanted to go. My brother-in-law with the grandchildren decided to head on home. So it was just me, my wife, and her sister in our car. In the second car was her other sister and her husband from Bacolod, so I felt comfortable with him leading the way around there.
We decided we might as well get the Ruins out of the way. I was excited just at the thought of bringing home some of the most beautiful photographs you could take in these parts. When we finally got to the Talisay Ruins, it was impressive, indeed. It is nothing but a shell now of a beautiful Italian-inspired mansion but still is the most photogenic concrete structure in the Philippines. The photos that I took were some of the most beautiful since we arrived in the Philippines–they all looked like postcards. This is a place I would certainly visit again.
After that visit, we went to Bacolod and found a hotel. I felt the day was productive, and the Ruins made for a great ending. The others wanted to go out for dinner, but I managed to convince them to stay in, and have dinner in the hotel restaurant. I guess I was just tired, but they didn’t know that. So we did, and our dinner turned out great. The next day, we left the hotel and visited one of my wife’s cousins in Cadiz. We spent the night there with a plan to go back to the same hotel the next day. He owns a resort there, so he made us pick where we wanted to spend the night. If we picked the resort, we get to choose our cabin, as opposed to a room in his huge house. I urged my wife to pick the resort because I liked the idea of a cabin. The resort is called The Little Jungle.
That evening, before settling in, I was talking to my wife’s brother-in-law (my sister-in-law’s husband) about how I enjoyed driving on mostly all the roads in northern Negros. I was just telling him how different I found driving there was, compared to Negros Oriental. Then our conversation turned to our pickup trucks. We have the same pickup truck, but I noticed that his had a rear sway bar. I found out that he had it installed in Bacolod, and he asked if I wanted to have one installed on mine as well. He told me long sentences describing the benefits of a sway bar. Well, I was so convinced that I couldn’t wait until the next day, but I had to because it was already a quarter to midnight. As we settled in for the night, a visitor came crawling on the wall–a house gecko. They’ve never scared me. I let them be because lizards are good to have in a house. There’s a benefit to having them–they prey on insects and other critters smaller than them. So when you see one, just give it a pass.
Having had a little more than enough sleep, I felt great waking up to a beautiful morning. I was still excited to have the sway bar installed on my truck. My wife’s brother-in-law assured me that with it, I would be able to negotiate curves must faster, and yet feel like the truck was slower. He said it would handle better on rutted roads. Well, what avid driver wouldn’t want that?
After breakfast, off we went to Bacolod. He told me the shop was just after the Isuzu dealership, so I asked my wife, who was a tiny bit more familiar with Bacolod, to let me know when she saw the dealership. After everything he told me about how different my truck would feel with the sway bar, I thought the truck did feel a little hard to handle. Maybe I was just so convinced by him that my mind was feeling differently from what my hands and body were feeling. As he started to slow down, I knew we had arrived. Well, after three hours, the sway bar was installed, along with a little tweaking of the frontend control arms, and a wheel alignment. The owner of the shop noticed that one little detail about the arms, and I believed him. I was glad I did.
As I slowly drove the truck off unto the roadway, I did feel a little difference, even at low speeds. It was mostly from the frontend tweak. My wife’s brother-in-law said, “Just wait till we get to the highway. You’re going to really love it. It’ll feel better than a brand-new truck.” I couldn’t wait to test it. I knew that going back to Dumaguete, we’d be taking the Kabankalan-Mabinay-Bais route, but I haven’t driven through there before. He told me the road through there would be just what I needed to test my truck. Let’s go already, I thought. However, like before, I had to wait, and let the excitement pile up some more. Deep breaths help, but it depends on how many you take. I took quite a few before the anticipation pangs subsided.
Finally, another beautiful morning. We all were ready to drive back to Dumaguete. I packed our gear in the back of the truck, and then we started rolling again. After a couple of stops at a bank and a pastry shop, we were on the highway, driving at speed, when it suddenly poured down like crazy. The rain was so hard I thought it was hail, but in Negros Occidental? It sure did sound like each drop dented the truck body. We drove through it, windshield wipers at high, the rain coming down faster than the blades could wipe it away, tremendously reducing visibility. After about 30 or 45 minutes of that, it stopped just as suddenly as it started. We were back at speed.
I was so impressed with the roads between Bacolod and Mabinay. It wasn’t because it looked different from all the other roads, but because of the near-absence of slow tricycles and pot-pots. Our trucks were able to run like they are supposed to run–unhindered by constant braking and coasting. It made for a more relaxed ride, too.
My truck performed as described by my wife’s brother-in-law and the owner of the shop who installed the sway bar and made the frontend tweak. I was able to go faster than usual on almost all the curves because the truck unwaveringly held its line, enhancing that feeling of total control on blacktop, but this time with longer and sharper claws to grip the road. Best money I’ve spent on my truck, so far.
We were zipping along until we got a little past Mabinay. It was downhill from there, and the closer we got to the turnoff to Dumaguete, I gradually started to get that familiar feeling again, but worse than before. Now, we became the toothpaste again, but this time we were going back inside the tube. As we finally made the right turn to Dumaguete at Tamiso in Bais, we were completely inside the toothpaste tube. Our progress along the highway was now under the mercy of trucks, some tricycles, swarms of motorcycles, and just unruly pedestrians walking on the edge of the highway, blind to the dangers zipping by just a foot from them. The trucks and tricycles were at a snail’s pace because they were so overloaded, while the little motorcycles buzzed by like blind bats without echolocation.
I’m sure a first timer here in Negros Oriental would think that there must be thousands of accidents here each day just from watching the chaos that we call traffic. Tragically, I didn’t and continue not to see the so-called traffic control officers, not even inside towns and cities here.
The toothpaste got so dense that the 50 or so kilometers from Tamiso to Dumaguete became so exhausting even for us, who were just riding the truck. It got so bad past Bais into Tanjay, and finally, between Tanjay and Dumaguete. Bumper-to-bumper on the highway at eight in the evening, only because tricycles are allowed on the highway. They are so slow, and too many, sometimes in one stretch, that a car simply cannot get past them quick enough before encountering oncoming traffic.
There are some parts of the highways here in Negros Oriental that have already been widened. Unfortunately, lighter concrete has been added to the darker asphalt so that a visual distinction has been created–dark inner lanes and light outer lanes.
The one thing that was neglected in the process was to educate the driving public, who already lack knowledge of the courtesies and rules of the road. Even if it were required by the Land Transportation Office that drivers pass a class, and a test prior to being issued licenses, thousands simply would not apply because the LTO has no effective way of making them do it and, thus, remain unlicensed. As a result, the uneducated drivers think that the lighter outer lane is for parking, and should not be driven on. So drivers cross double yellow lines to pass slower vehicles that refuse to give up their blacktop monopoly on the inner lanes. In essence, the lack of realization, participation, and enforcement by those entrusted with traffic management, causes otherwise good drivers, to violate the law.
It is infinitely worse within Dumaguete City. As far as traffic goes, there is anarchy in this beloved City of ours. Drivers do not stop for pedestrians at crosswalks, and worse, pedestrians seem to have forgotten that vehicles are supposed to stop to let them cross the street.
The Traffic Management Office, because they do not have enough personnel, hardly has any presence on the streets, and even when they are there, they do not assert their authority. They stand on the side, effectively becoming spectators instead of enforcers.
This is understandable for an office that hardly has any support from the City government itself. According to my sources, the TMO has ideas on how to improve the traffic situation in the City but unfortunately, every move they make must go through a process, and without that support, their proposals never get to see the light of day.
Tell me then, what good are they? Couldn’t we hire just anyone for cheaper, if all we wanted were people to stand on the side of the street and watch traffic violation after traffic violation occur before their own eyes? I tell you, they must be so overpaid if their effectiveness is like that of rainwater used to cure cancer.
I have been to the TMO, and in the short time that I was listening to them, it was obvious that they have given up. They are there because those orange T-shirts must be worn somehow.
The City is swarming with undisciplined drivers (licensed and unlicensed, and LITTLE KIDS), then you have tricycles that might as well be roadblocks. Many people think they could be assigned routes that would free most City thoroughfares, as well as be kept away from the highways.
Why the City likes it the way it is now is almost impossible to understand. In restricting the tricycles or pedicabs, as they are so endearingly called, livelihoods will be disrupted, but so what, if it will improve conditions for the many? It would take guts and unwavering resolve on the part of those City officials who can make it happen. But do they have the chutzpah to make it happen?
Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the parking situation around the City yet. Believe me, though, as bad as it is, it is minute compared to just the moving traffic. So I’ll leave you to make your own serious observations of it as you drive around the City.
The way I see it, Dumaguete has become modern, it certainly has. It is not the Dumaguete I left almost 40 years ago. It used to be a warm, charming City, where people did not complain because of the lack of things to complain about. The City fathers had an easier time then. Their mere presence and positions were enough to make the people feel safe and reassured. The problems they had were few and easier to handle because they did not let it fester.
Today, I think Dumaguete needs leaders who are not only capable of progressive thinking but who are also brave enough to accept even the most politically threatening consequences of their actions.
As it is, they are slaves to their fears, rendering them incapable of doing what should be the right things to do, horrified at the thought of possibly ruining future political opportunities. It is all talk, nothing but talk. And they’re the only ones who don’t seem tired of it.
Dumaguete–its modernity is suffocating itself. Just saying it, the way it is.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
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