For coffee drinkers, a natural choice for a stop over in between Cotabato and Davao cities aside from rest room visits and road side meals, is the Pikit Public Market.

Aside from it being a vibrant and busy market place, it offers Pikit's famous Pamogon "excelsa" coffee.

We scoured for that 'aromatic' redemption and found it for sale in many stalls at P130 per kilo.  

I had been curious about what makes the humble native Pamogon coffee unique. I've been drinking this coffee for a while and I wanted to know more about how this was made.

And in this recent trip to Central Mindanao I wanted to know the answers.

From Kutawato, we traveled back to Davao City Monday to swing from a field consultation for a training in June.

I've got one discovery, which is perhaps no longer new to others. The famous coffee is dried, roasted and processed in Pikit by many vendors using beans bought from Davao and other neighboring places.

Vendors at the market said the coffee is known all through out by the name "Pamogon" because it is traded widely by an Ilocano "kape-talista" who got the Maguindanao monicker of the Maya bird.

I've bought from another store where I haggled and earned a 10 percent discount. But we dropped by the store run by the trader, "Pamogon".

He's got the biggest stock in that "coffee and sugar" section of the market.

Thelma, from whomI bought my one month supply said they buy coffee beans from Pamogon and process the coffee by themselves.

So Pikit coffee is actually coffee from around North Cotabato (and even Davao and other Mindanao areas) "traded" by kape-talista Pamogon and processed by Pikit entrepeneurs. All the while, I thought it was also grown in Pikit.

That is my one simple discovery this week.

KB's presentation in his blog of a passenger's ordeal with a soldier detailed at the Ecoland Bus Terminal in Davao City is comical.

His style is light and it made use of youtube-famed monicker to appeal for a common touch.

The story he revealed, however, no matter how common, is far from light and comical. It is a type of the excesses committed by those in uniform ----and armed.

In his account, the passenger figured in a spat with the soldier who is a member of the bus terminal security team. The scene was in the entrance to the terminal where soldiers hold passengers for frisking. Read his account here.

Key actions: Loud voices, defiance, arrogance ...the list goes on. The outcomes: passenger complained to the soldier's unit and alerted the media about it. Soldier will be reassigned to god knows where.

Major issues: what if it happened to someone who has no access to means of redress? What if it happended in an area beyond media coverage? How many victims of arrogance did not report their case for fear of reprisal?

Does the military keep tab of their personnel in and out of the field?

What happened to Passenger x could happen to passenger y and z. What happened in Ecoland could happen elsewhere.

The passenger's complaint forced the course of action. The military unit, Task Force Davao, knows the risk left by the spat considering it also carries the brunt of media scrutiny.

While it was not a grave offense to human right, YET, it was and still is important to address.

It pays to be vigilant.Today's little leak could be tomorrow's danger.

A FEW MONTHS BACK, I wrote about the snorer, spitter, smoker, and pukers in a bus ride. This time, despite needing to pass an academic requirement, here I am writing about how to survive traveling in Mindanao. After a recent trip to Butuan City, I figured I have to sift through my old journals and collate the dos and don’ts of traveling I have listed down at least over 10 years of running around this ‘promising island’.

For starters, the must haves in your survival kit: a shawl, flashlight, loose change or coins, white flower, a plastic bag, a bottle of water, some candies, alcohol, tissue paper.

Never leave home without a shawl. It protects you from dust and the UV rays when you’re on a long habal-habal (motorcycle) ride to nowhere. It is also useful to cover yourself when you need to pee in the middle of nowhere. Shawls also keep you warm when traveling at nighttime especially in airconditioned buses. Bus drivers would tend to turn it on full blast to keep their seats cool because it is where the machine is throbbing.
This is a constant cause of bickering. Passengers would holler at the driver and bus attendant because the bus is virtually becoming a freezer. The driver would snap back by saying, “pasagdihi ko kung gusto ninyo mabuhi” (let me be if you still want to live).

Speaking of night trips, here’s another tip. Look out for radio speakers on top of your head. Bus drivers also have the proclivity to play the radio in full volume to keep them awake the whole trip. So, please bring cotton balls for your ears or move two seats away to avoid auditory trauma.

Never get a seat beside a window. Scalawags along the highway would sometimes throw rocks at passing buses. Besides, if you sit beside a window and the bus rolled on its side, you’ll definitely get a bump on you head and bruises on your side. I learned it the hard way when I got squeezed between a heavy weight male and the window a few years back.

The flashlight. Landslides are of normal occurrence during rainy season. Sometimes you need to walk in darkness for over a kilometer of mud and heavy rain to get to another bus waiting on the other side of the highway. Flashlights are useful when the bus breaks down in the middle of the night in some God forsaken areas and you’ve got to find an ally, say a grandma or an elderly person.

If you are a woman and you travel alone, transferring buses is like mayhem. Everybody will be scrambling for seats you need to have that much needed flexibility and elbowroom for maneuvering. Sometimes you need to clamber up on the side of the bus and wiggle your way into the window (just be prepared again for bruises). Grandmas would watch your things for you. By the way, just be prepared to be her gofer girl and for inquisitions for the rest of the journey. But you are actually creating good karma here. The sticky part is she will probably be matching you up with her son or nephew. Argh!

Mind you, if you can’t find an ally since all are young and want to grab good seats, brace yourself with your backpack for the pushing and shoving. Mind you, I fell several times from the bus, and I can only imagine what it’s like to be in a football game stampede.

When traveling alone, always make sure to inform the driver or bus attendant that you need to go to the comfort room. There were more than two instances that I was practically left by the bus, but thank god for elderly seatmates who called out to the driver and told him I was left behind. It is also good to know if you are a fast or slow eater. If you are a nibbler, never dare to eat a full meal. Instead thrive on biscuits, boiled eggs and peanuts the whole trip. The bus is always raring to go – finished or unfinished.

Always have loose change say, P 20 or P 50 bills, and coins. These are for transferring buses when the bus attendant does not have enough change. By the way, always clear your tickets with him. Don’t take his word that you’ll be reimbursed or get your change in the next bus. An elderly couple had to argue their way all through out their trip because of this.

Coins are also needed for using the comfort rooms (price ranges from P 2.00 to P 4.00) and buying tissues when the need arises. It is also an effective token to hush up preachers who stepped into the bus and conduct biblical sermons. By the way, regarding hold-ups, reserve at least P 500 to give as token when the occasion arises that is, if you can spare it. A colleague actually has to give P 25, her last money, to the robber who took pity on her and waived it aside. Better that than your cell phone, which should be kept hidden as much as possible

Checkpoints at nighttime are really an inconvenience. You also don’t know whose army is conducting it. So cooperate and be courteous, show your luggage when needed. Soldiers (again whose troops?) can be overly eager they would suspect all boxes may actually contain arms.

This had happened to me. They insisted that an unclaimed box was mine. I have to show my student ID, Press ID and argued that I am carrying only a box full of books (I wonder what they have to say if they see one of them is about Marxist theories). It was a good thing that another journalist was on that same bus and vouched for me. Lesson learned, put your name and address on your box(es).

Plastic bags and white flower are for pukers. You may not be what they call “dagaton” (easily nauseated) but the kid beside you or a pregnant woman might be. Sharing your white flower vial is God’s grace to them.

Habal-habals (motorcycles) are accident-prone rides. Long sleeve shirts, jeans and high-cut shoes are ideal get-up. If you can afford to hire a habal-habal, great! If not, the next two seats behind the driver are the best ones. Sometimes on long motorcycle trips in forested areas, rain would suddenly pour that you need to seek shelter in a hut along the road. Check first if it has foxholes or underground tunnels. I would rather catch pneumonia than be caught in a crossfire. So pack your clothes in plastic bags or bring a poncho with you.

Be attentive to the habal-habal driver’s instructions. If he says never point or dare to look at a certain hill or mountain, obey! Snipers abound and anybody is just fair game. As long as there is a cell signal, update someone back home of the exact location of your area and what you’re wearing. At least your whereabouts could be traced if anything happens to you.

The “last trip” to Mindanao’s innards could mean a full passenger vehicle. There’s nowhere to go but go “taplod” (sit on top of the jeepney or bus). Try to find a seat in the middle, but chances are these are already taken. So you have nobody or nothing to hang-on. What do you do? Pray! Try also not looking down the cliffs if you can help it okay?

Boat rides can sometimes be so surreal. All are in a state of liminality even the cows and carabaos could just be meters away from you. So if I were you, make sure that your cot is on the upper deck. Otherwise, you’ll worry the whole time about the what ifs of a foot and mouth disease you’ll get from them the whole night.

Be careful with your questions. I realized on the field that sometimes people would easily open up to strangers. A simple ‘kumusta?” (how are you?) could release a torrid of emotional trauma. Let them cry. But if you don’t have the emotional stamina for it, let them drink from your bottle of water. Never mind if you go thirsty for the rest of the trip.

What else? Prayers help a lot. You need it when you are caught forging a river and there’s a sudden flood in San Fernando, Bukidnon, or when the bangka you are riding in Siargao stopped in the middle of the sea, and there’s a whirlpool gaining momentum. Whew! All you can do is just have faith and just surrender to God’s will. (An Istambay sa Mindanao post courtesy of Penelope C. Sanz/ MindaNews.)

We played ball early afternoon, after a hearty lunch of seafoods and grill today in a friend's place along Jacinto Extension.

I was with a group of photographers visiting a friend to help him up with some academic requisites. While I began to feel envious of their cameras, I entertained myself with mangosteen and luckily another friend invited me out of respetar if I want to play.

How could I refuse. My last streetball game was in 1999, when we all anticipated the coming of the Y2K bug. That was eons ago. Back to that streetball. I didn't really play in top form but I still could dribble, dunk and evade offensive playmates. Of course I fouled out and a kid told me my game was "bala." (lousy?)I really cared less. I still got those points coming, anyway.

That kid was honest. I sure played bad compared to my playmates. He didn't see me play many years ago when I was still ... never mind you won't believe anyway.

Since I took on the job of a reporter then editor then back to reporter, I have considered myself unfit for my erstwhile sports dreams. No bias to those who stayed fit, but I kept my seat warmed and evaded games of that sort.
It was a shameful comment because you know kids dont lie. But my friend said, "no pain, no gain" so I was unfazed. Instead of sulking on my physical limitation for now, I took it as a challenge. Do they call that catarchic experience?

I think it would be best to cover work with the confidence of a sportsman. Oh well.

I resolved to plan my week with sports. No, not only to debunk that kid's merciless snide, but to defy self perception on fitness. Its a plan. :)

Big Thanks to Ferdie C!

Honestly, I hopped by www.exploreiloilo.com and I liked the site. It's maintained by a 19-year old nursing student. It contains beautiful images of Iloilo City, including old churches, malls and their new "airport of international standard."

Even if, however, I find Iloilo City via exploreiloilo's appeal surprisingly attractive and also memorable since it was my city from 1994 to 2000, I still think Davao City, can do far better. The blog also houses news stories, among others on the city and a quick and inviting AVP promotional material on the city (I liked it).

I know there are many Davao blogs that feature the city's tourist spots and developments. I am yet to find one, though, which fused a wide range of interests into one site that could showcase the city in the blogosphere.

Or maybe I just do not know much about that. Anyway, Madayaw Dabaw!

Somebody told me my energy was amazing, it was already past 1p.m. when we took the ferry from Sasa Onse to Babak pier.

It wasn't, however, a sound decision. Of course, not because the coverage was not worth it.

I always find solace in the island across that's why I wasn't able to resist the temptation to tag along. Rural life is irresistable, especially when work gets into your nerves as stressful. To cross the Davao Gulf with the 15-minute boat ride was like taking a dose of stress management.

I also got lost in the process because I didn't beat my press deadline. I filed my stories only by 7p.m.! (It meant: yes still in for the next day stories, that's why the word "amazing" struck me. )

At the end of the day, however, I didn't harbor any feelings of guilt or regret, though I was sorry for my work delay.

I thought I deserved to be lost at times in order to find myself. Wew! That was deep.

In the trip I realized that I didn't even spend a minute dipped into seawater or combed any fine beach last summer! I was deep into work and I think I needed redemption.

Sure I had trips to Surigao and Misamis Oriental, good enough, thank God.

And then Wednesday came, IT brought me unprepared to the island and exposed to a test of strength avoiding the beach. At one point, I almost asked Tatay Rene of Sun-Star Davao to hide us in his relative's house in Catagman and place us under house arrest. Their place is near Penaplata where Samal's officialdom feasted.

Of course, I reached Samal for work, and so for the same reason I have to leave.

I found a ride, at the back of a top down vehicle of Bombo Radyo's Jun Baring where I figured in matter-of-lifey chats with city employees. In the private pier where we took the barge back to THE city, we chatted with vendors selling roast peanuts and ice cream bars over a recent crime scene nearby. Samal made me so at ease amidst the haste.

It was hard shifting from the quick tour of duty to DUTY. From Samal to Davao. From
amazement to reality.

I shall return. That's a deal.

In October 2005, I spent around a month of fellowship with Shan people from Burma exiled in the northern Thailand city of Chiang Mai (CM). It was a month of learning and realizations. A trip to a South East Asian country gave me an exposure to international issues such as on Burma.

My role would be to help Saengjuent, an intern from the CM-based Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) to apply or at least help process the things he learned from MindaNews when he went to Davao City in August 2005. The SHAN director, Khuen Sai, (middle, 2nd photo) asked me to help him train the younger members of their news agency on news writing.

I had four students in the workshop each of them played different roles in the agency. There is Arn Tai ("Ahn Tie"), the most senior who writes news in Thai language. There's Harn Mueng ("Hahn Moong") the translator to English from Shan language. Also, we had the guy who writes Shan language news, Noom Korn ("Noom Kohn") and the agency's internet guy "Muengjuent".

They were a bunch of young and telented Shan news workers, very much eager to learn.

If we have no classes and meetings, they would encourage me to go out of town and explore the countryside. I spent time visiting areas where SHAN have contacts with communities.

They also brought me to tourist attractions in CM, like the Doi Suthep (as shown in the photos). That's a mountain resort ran by the Kingdom of Thailand. The Thai King spends his summer time there.

Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) are neighbors. I heard they have a love-hate relationship through centuries. Now, Burma is under a military regime. The Thai government is using moderate diplomacy towards the military junta: they have close economic ties but from time to time Thailand joins the international community in pressing Burma for democracy.

As a result of internal hostilities between Burma and several rebel groups from ethnic states of Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the country and find their way along the Thai-Burma border through the years. The border is closed to passage in most points, but still a big number of refugees cross, largely in Northern Thailand via undisclosed routes.

The Thai government has designated "refugee camps" in selected areas. However, they are not refugee camps, in toto based on international standards---according to groups helping refugees.

According to some sources in the camps, the refugees from Burma's states are considered by the Thai government as economic migrants, not refugees. Apparently, they lack support for livelihood inside small camps and have to look for informal jobs in proximate Thai towns along the border without identity.

I talked to many of these "migrants" in the camps I visited. I visited three but allowed entry only to two: in an area near Piang Luang and in an area north of Fang. They told me stories of violence, persecution, rape, extreme poverty and "culture of fear" in their homelands under the strong hands of the military.

I would have wanted to enter the third camp, near Mae Hong Son, which is a tourist city where Kareni (from Burma) women are shown to tourists like a "human zoo." If you could remember photos of women with very long necks clad with some kind of a neck apparel, that's it.

I did not enter that "tourist spot". I agreed with my Filipina colleague in the internship program, I don't want to add to their "commercialization" even if I know that they have consented the attention.

Back to the third camp. I could not enter because journalists were barred from entering these camps. Our guide, Si Moon, who works with a Shan NGO in the area, brought us to a quasi-camp, just beside the no-journalist refugee camp.

I was told that it would be dangerous for journalists to come in because the Thai authorities would "make it difficult for you". I have insisted on a more logical explanation, but shut my mouth when my hosts showed some reluctance. I did not insist at all. What are they hiding there?

Well, at least we entered the "quasi-camp". It is called so for a number of reasons. I could remember perhaps two: one, although I'm not very sure about it this time -- that's where candidates for political asylum live; and two, that's where the disabled were taken cared of.

In that camp, I met and heard the sad but brave stories of the ex-soldiers in the first photo. Oo Reh (right) and Saw Teru (left) both 35 when I met them on 18 October 2005 along the Thai-Burma border near Mae Hong Son, (eight hours drive from Chiang Mai). Chiang Mai is almost two hours away by plane north of Bangkok.

Both of them are victims of landmines planted by the Burmese military and also by their own army. Oo lost his arms and one eye. Saw lost his sight. They both admitted ignorance about landmines when their commanders ordered them to clear their way of the mines.

In the Burmese war zones, military leaders, according to the two victims, use forced labor to clear areas from landmines. Many innocent people died because of these 'illegal' war weapon.

As we spoke, I hesitated to continue interviewing them because our presence and our questions seemed to have opened wounds that were about to heal from their tragic past. Oo expressed deep sadness of missing his family across the border. Saw said he did not know if his parents are still alive in Daw Tau Ka a village across Mae Hong Son, where landmine exploded and injured him.

But Saw also corrected us. He said their wounds won't heal anymore. "If you see us in pain, there is not much we can do to take away that experience from us". He said he also could not help from being "sad" about his ordeal. Instead, he appealed for journalists to help them help others. "There should be no more additional victims of landmines," he said.

"Please write about us. Please tell them to remove all the mines around the world," he said. "You do not know how painful it is. It is not like a bullet that could kill you in an instant. This one we bring all our lives. It has to stop!" (Oo and Saw spoke in Kareni and Burmese, while Si Moon translated it for us.)

It was indeed a depressing moment. I know the situation has not improved across the border. Both of them and tens or perhaps hundred of thousands more had been displaced from their homes because of hostilities and continuing tension between military forces of the Burmese junta and the rebel groups.

But I know I was there for a reason. I remembered both Oo Reh and Saw Teru when I came face to face with Myanmar's tourism minister who told the press during the ASEAN Tourism Forum in Davao City in January 2006 that there is peace in Myanmar and that people there are happy.

Both victims, like the good soldiers that they said they are, told us also about the things that make them happy. Saw listens to music while Oo finds time interacting with the other residents in the camp. Both are taken cared by a small foundation helping victims of landmines across the border.

It was indeed a learning experience for me. It made me resolve to become a journalist who works for peace and to give voice to those who find themselves ignored. I saw and felt no difference between these people and those I met back in Mindanao who had been continuously plaged with evacuation, hostilities and poverty too. All of these are problems of human insecurity, prevalent everywhere.

When my Shan friends gave me a unique send-off dinner, where we squatted around spicy and exotic Shan and Thai food, in Chiang Mai on 21 October 2005; I felt the camaraderie among neighbors refreshed in my mind. I might have entered a "collective" that is different from mine because of cultural, historical, racial, economic and other divides; still I think we just belong to one neighborhood in Asia. I still think there are more similarities than differences.

Asians are divided in many respects, but are common in many things too. That trip made me see further, beyond my constructs of myself and the world. It opened my eyes to an interconnected world where there are local manifestation of global problems. And perhaps, local solutions too that have bearing across borders.

(The internship program was sponsored by the South East Asia Press Alliance or SEAPA based in Bangkok, Thailand)