Some Notes on Lake Sebu

There I was chatting idly with the documentor I had just met, Ms. Bon and I go, “Do you know Ning?” And she goes, “Yes, Ning. blah blah blah blah” (storytelling about Ning and those FGD’s Ning told me about years ago with the lumad and the evil settlers! ... Hehehehe, Hi Ning!)

I don’t know what to say about how it just happened again that I found myself in the vicinity of Ning’s life and important milestones/ persons/ locales. It’s a bit like how I met Ning in the first place. I just get thrown into her path regularly. In 1999 (was it?), Magya came by our old San Pedro 8 house and told me about this nice cute and funny Fil-Brit girl who had come to the office, with whom we must hang out (Magya and I being frequently thick as thieves).

So there I was at Lake Sebu, inadvertently stirring up the dust from Ning’s previous travels. Ahhh Ning, we are meant to be, I see yet again ;-).

Another thing. Staring at Lake Sebu, it became pretty easy -- a consciousness slipping over smooth as silk -- to see how the land belongs to the lumad. Can you imagine them? People indigenous to the land, whose land it is, who fish, and live and breathe with the lake and the land. The land is their life and they make their life with the land.

Sa kanila talaga iyon mga kapatid. Kitang-kita, maliwanag pa kaysa araw, ang nagiging masamang epekto ng tinatawag nating “development aggression.” Ang pagpasok ng kung sino at kung anong negosyo sa ngalan ng kaunlaran na nagpapasira lamang sa mapayapang pamumuhay ng mga lumad at laluna na ng kalikasan. Para bang napupunit na styropor na nakakarindi sa tenga.



At some point during the three-day meeting I attended, we took an hour-long boat ride around the Lake. Huddled in my sarong (me being lamigin), I sat pensive and silent, my stillness and lack of words disturbing some of the people I was with, being so at odds with the men’s joviality, for they were mostly men in their forties and fifties during that boat ride. They asked, “Mingaw man kaayo ka ‘Day?” (Why are you lonely?).

The thing is, I wasn’t. Lonely. I was happy! I was just annoyed that I was riding a motorized banca when I would rather have been rowing / kayaking round the Lake, losing myself in the stillness and in the silence. At least until I start to scare myself and row back to the resort for some company, hehe!

Being an out and out introvert, I live in my head :P. (But I can be fun too ;-)).