nameabledays Archive One

Marcos made it “Region I,” couching his parochial and “balkanic” intentions in administrative jargon; Gloria included it, of course, in one of her “super regions,” and both are probably right, whatever their intentions—we need some sort of official borders to be able to govern our present and our economy, never mind the past, the future and what political maps and divisions do to our souls (or the tires of our automobiles). Whatever. Let me just show you the pictures and say little (though when you say “Region I”—that’s the two Ilocos, plus La Union and Pangasinan—you would mean good roads, then that makes a lot difference from when you say, say, “Region V,” where i come from, with its all-important Quirino Highway that should save you some two hours driving time, perennially in disrepair, or intermittently being repaired in a million-pesos-worth of pampalubag-loob).


Well, who’s complaining when you pass scenes like these, in only the two Ilocos provinces I visited with, this time, my Nikon F60 (when my digital Fuji FinePix S5000 was disabled with, I was told, a defective CCD). Which is the reason why these pictures took a bit of time filling these web pages—my partners in the book of poetry-cum-travel project still had to have the pictures converted to digital images. Ah, the suspense and excitement as I waited—I was afraid of out-of-focuses and over- or under- exposures and a thousand other hitches, glitches, puzzles with pictures you couldn’t see immediately as you took them, the way we’ve been spoiled by the digital age where everyone is a photographer and every shake, trip or slip can be erased. And so here at last is Ilocos, my Ilocos (courtesy of Nikon)! You’ll thank the gods you got this chance to see these jewels in the crown of our country beautiful.


From our base in Laoag we went northeastern-most to Pagudpud and even ventured beyond the boundary into Claveria in Cagayan, and explore a bit the towns of Bangui, Burgos, Batac, Sarrat, Paoay, making pilgrimages into our baroque colonial past. Moving our base to Vigan, we traced the main highway to Manila, but not before walking the cobblestones of the refurbished ilustrado quarter of Vigan poblacion, the Quirino house and, before finally motoring off down to Manila, drinking beer at the plaza, under the watchful eyes of the poet Leona Florentino’s monument. In our imagination, we heard the footfalls of guardia civil marching toward Padre Burgos’s house, the sighs of Isabelo de los Reyes (Leona’s son) and Msgr. Gregorio Aglipay as they contemplated the inevitable schism with Rome at the end of Revolution, and lovelorn verse being recited from one of the balconies, under the waning moon being overtaken by the first rain clouds of the season, on a bright night in enchanting Ilocos.


THE PHOTOS. From top: Jar man: a Vigan burnay maker; a traditional earth and wood pugon or oven for drying tobacco; garlic and onion stand on the road from Burgos to Laoag; watermelons arrayed on a streetside in Paoay; market day in Bangui; classic Vigan at dusk, the 18th century facades with pedicabs; & with horse-drawn calesa; massive buttresses of Paoay church; the church itself in the afternoon light that enhances its walls’ light coral hues; old man & his trade of native knives and cutlery & gnarled acacia beside, surely older than him; market vendor in Paoay; Sta. Maria church, baroque, brick & red; the churchyard overgrown with history; the viaduct at Pagudpud (a section in disrepair, as mentioned in a previous post), and views at the brink of the world.