Liloan Trippers Speak Out on Stranded Butanding in Southern Cebu

Everyone who has brushed up on news in Cebu have heard about the whale sharks. Though this is located in Oslob, in the southern part of Cebu, certain events have piqued my concern and thus the reason for this post

Whale shark tours are available daily in Oslob, where you get the chance to be up close and personal with the butanding. The fishermen lure the whale shark with a meal of krill, so other bancas or small boats can approach and let the tourists meet the butanding. However, this is done at a distance. I've kinda noticed that people in Oslob are careful about proximity with the whale shark, as per my friends' pictures and mementos of their trip to Oslob and their meeting with the whale shark.

It seems, however, that some people are taking the "up close and personal" too far. Take a look at this picture:

You can see that this is a stranded butanding located in a shallower part of the waters. Nobody even needed a banca to get close this poor thing. Instead of letting the butanding escape into the ocean to live another day to entertain them, these people instead did something different: they tied the tail of the butanding so that it cannot swim to sea and turned it into a form of tourist attraction.

Take note, this is not located in Oslob where the legitimate whale shark watching services are located. This is in Boljoon, a town located right before Oslob. We don't know what's really going on, or if the butanding has been released already, but some people need to be educated about how to properly treat these animals so that this does not happen again.

Liloan Trippers join the call for the local and provincial government to take action on this through local awareness and penalizing those that made the offense. You cannot imagine the amount of stress that this whale shark is experiencing as it is crowded upon by people. It's helpless with the rope around its tail and people preventing it from escaping.

These are gentle giants, but they also feel stress too. You don't treat it as a surfboard. Personally, as an animal lover, I am disgusted by the extent at which these people turned the gentle butanding into a circus animal. Check out a few more pictures of this poor butanding.

~Immortalundead

P.S. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

Fishing at Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon

As promised here is the video that we took of somebody fishing a catch in Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon!

This one was fished off one of "Catch-and-Release" ponds. You couldn't cook the catch you made here. You have to release them back into the water. Good for sport fishing! Fishes are not as big as the game overseas though.

Liloan Trippers Visit Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon!

As we have promised in our previous post, we are going back to Liloan to visit the ziplines that have been constructed in our dear second home. We had two choices, Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon and dPond. Since Papa Kit's is nearer to the center of town where Swerve and I usually meet, we decided to check it out.

Entrance was 100 pesos per person, and consumable in any of the two restaurants that are in the amazingly large property. There were plenty of things that you could do and these would include horseback riding and fishing at the lagoons/ponds. These have corresponding charges, but in my excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the charge schedule found right at the entrance.

There, of course, is the Zipline. As seen from the pictures below, they indeed cross a part of Silot Bay and it's not a simple feat. You have to climb a four-storey structure and once you get to the top, they attach you via a harness to the Zipline and flung you across Silot Bay. For only 200 pesos back and forth, you get to enjoy the beauty of Silot Bay from the sky. Swerver was enthusiastic about trying it, but I wasn't. However, there had been so many people in there as it was a Sunday when we visited so Swerve wasn't able to get his turn.

Oh, about fishing... there are four ponds in which you can fish. Two of these ponds are simply game fishing; when you catch the fish, you'd have to return them back to the pond. Fishing in these waters are no simple feat. The fishes are big! When we arrived, the fishes were right in front but were quick to swim away thus denying me a chance to take their pictures. This guy, however had a lucky catch.

I have a video of him hauling his catch from the pond, and it sure was a fight! I will upload the video to YouTube soon and embed it in a separate blog soon.

To get to Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon, turn right from the Church towards Catarman. The entrance to the property can be easily spotted at the right of the road, just before the road turns slightly left and before you reach the bridge crossing to Catarman. There is also an easily seen sign that indicates the entrance to Papa Kit's.

Don't hesitate to visit Papa Kit's! The experience is certainly worth it! It was for me and Swerve.

~Immortalundead

Support Project: Einstrider!

It's been three years since the Liloan Trippers project had been founded. During the early days of the blog, we were operating with the intent of trying to grab the win for the blogging contest hosted by the provincial government of Cebu through the Mandaue Business Month event.

Swerve and I had been a practically "Johnny come lately" (in Swerver's own words) to the contest, with only two weeks remaining before judging. It was remarkable how many views and visits we were able to generate in just two weeks since joining; we even overtook the leading blog of that time in terms of visits. Read more about Swerver's recounting of the contest here.

All of that was possible through your support dear readers. Despite the fact that we only used Friendster's Bulletin pages and our Multiply pages Immortalundead and Swerver to promote this site, we were still able to garner a phenomenal response from our avid supporters.

Since then, Swerver and I had been involved in various projects both in and outside the blogging world. I had been involved with organizing and participating in a group of anime enthusiasts, while at the same pursuing my photography interests. Swerver had a lot of interesting exploits as well including his short film Sabongero where he plays Boyax, the lead character.

Watch Sabongero through Vimeo, and find more information through its Multiply page.

As for myself, I didn't expect it but I found myself involved in an independent film project as well. Well, not exactly a film project but a video project. Our project is called Project: Einstrider, a series of short films that revolve around a central story. The story revolves around a world where cybernetic implants are prevalent, giving people the ability to do superhuman feats. However, the approach is kind of like Heroes, where people with abilities still look normal people and lead lives the way normal people around us would.

Please support our project! We have released our first video, Project Einstrider: Ignition, where we show the characters that will be featured in the series of videos that we will soon be releasing within this year. Support us by viewing the video through our Youtube channel.

More information about Project: Einstrider can be obtained through our Facebook Fan Page. A blog is in the works, and would be launched as soon as possible.

Ziplines in Liloan?

After a full two years of hiatus, the Liloan Trippers have heard of a new attraction at Liloan: The Zipline!

There are actually two resorts that offer ziplines for visitors of Liloan. One of these would be the dPond in Kawayanan, Yati, Liloan. The other one is the zipline owned by the Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon. Apparently, they are competitors.

Both ziplines were constructed in 2010. According to a report by the Philippine Star, the Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon zipline was sponsored financially by the family of Democrito Mendoza. Total amount invested in the zipline reached 3 million pesos. The article states that work on the zipline took only a month. The zipline was officially opened to the public on December 2010. They even got an assistant priest at the local parish to ride and bless the ziplines on the inauguration.

The Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon zipline is 800 meters in length, and crosses over a part of Silot Bay. The other end terminates on the island named after the ill-fated lady in the Liloan legend in this blog entry by Swerver.

On the other hand, the dPond zipline is only 200 meters in length. Nick Abella writes in his Wordpress blog that the zipline is 5 stories high and crosses over 3 large fishponds. The system also utilizes dual parallel cables. There are three options for those wanting to try dPond's zipline: the Mini ziipline (35 meters), Big zipline (200 meters) or the Superman-style zipline, which is also 200 meters.

Work on the dPond zipline commenced in September 2010 and was completed in December 2010.

For more information about dPond, check out Nick Abella's Wordpress blog. Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon's Facebook fan page should give you all that you need as well including information on rates and open times.

Liloan Trippers Pay Tribute to Benjie Ordonez

On October 7, 2009, at 10:00 pm, one of the most active and skilled photographers in Cebu City passed away due to a stroke. He left behind a legacy of pictures, knowledge and a friend to most of the people that survived him. His name is Benjie Ordonez, an active photographer, as well as administrator of Istorya.net.

Indirectly, Benjie Ordonez helped the Liloan Trippers during the early days of this blogsite. We used one of his pictures in order to put a graphic description to the story of the American lighthouse as an introduction to the Liloan Trippers project. To view the blog, click here.

This is the picture that will continually remind the Liloan Trippers of this great photographer that now is in the warm embrance of our Lord.



~Immortalundead

Liloan Trippers: Advanced 1st Year Anniversary Outing

As an advanced 1 year anniversary celebration, the Liloan Trippers organized a second tour of the town courtesy of Archie once again and his uncle last June 17. Unfortunately, Swerver wasn't able to participate as he got problems at the last minute. Work-related so he had to forgo this against his heart. We'll have another one soon.

This time I was with two new recruits: Christian and my friend Don.


We just came back from Mulao and having a late lunch, so please forgive the somber expressions we all had. We were bone tired.

Anyway, the tour started as it did when we first had it with Archie and Rolly way back. In a way, this brings back memories but this time, we have managed to snag our first foreigner (Don) and the third recruit to the town after Roniel in the person of Christian.

The first place we visited, just like last year is Silot Bay. What I found out there was that Silot Bay's waters have been cordoned off from the seafaring public because it is already a marine sanctuary. No one can get in there without the Bantay Dagat peeps firing warning shots at them. Here are some pictures (the place looks the same though).



After that, we went up to the former golf course in Appolo, where I saw the shrubs had grown up around that tree which I took a picture of last year. Check it out here for comparison.

Here are the pictures of the site now, including that tree:




We also were able to visit that wharf Swerver and I had been looking for. We were looking at the wrong direction. It was located just below the Appolo Golf Course, and only a few minutes from it. However, it was weird that we were not allowed in because we had an American with us. Anyway here are some pictures that I managed to take there:






Last but not the least were the rocks of Mulao. I really didn't want to go there, but Archie mentioned it and Don liked it since he saw the pictures. I had a negative experience there, but I won't let that dampen your interests. For merits, Archie found a shorter route to the Stone Boat, but though it was shorter those rocks still make for good obstacles to the destination. I was too tired to remember to take a picture of the Stone Boat. Oh well...




Last but not the least was the Parola. Now, no need to post pictures of these as I have been there a lot of times and took quite a lot in different lighting conditions. In Bagacay Light Point, we had two large Red Horse beers and relaxed after such a tiring trip especially after that experience in Mulao River. The halo-halo was forsaken as well since our American friend wanted beer instead.

There have been several things that we uncovered. Although we didn't visit it, we heard talk about a certain blue stone located forward of the Stone Boat. Like it is named, it is a stone of a blue color. However, since it is located in the same place as the Stone Boat, it seems like the Liloan Trippers might never see it in person unless we spend a lot of time preparing for it: i.e. jogging, stocking up on water, and getting the necessary equipment.

Happy Anniversary, Liloan Trippers!

~Immortalundead

What New, Bagacay Point?

What's New, Bagacay Point?
By: Immortalundead

When you talk about Liloan, the first thing that comes to mind is: Bagacay Point. For those that do not know, Bagacay Point is the famous lighthouse that many people from even outside Liloan go to visit and have some relaxation. The place boasts of fresh air -- it is located just a few steps away from the sea.

Besides being a famous tourist spot, the lighthouse is also an important marker for traffic plying in and out of the northern tip of Cebu. Like its predecessor -- the old, dilapidated lighthouse sitting near the sea -- it has helped bring home sailors sailing in the night. For a brief background, check out our very first blog in Liloan Trippers. If you want to see and know more about the old lighthouse up close and personal, see this blog as well.

We wrote in our "Story of Two Lighthouses" blog that the way to the old lighthouse is comprised of tall ferns and grazing animals especially in the afternoon. However, my visit to the place yesterday with Roniel has yielded a few new surprises.



All these high plants that have been impeding our view of the path have been burned down or chopped down in order to make it easier for visitors to find the path.

What's more I found out that the path we had been following during our early incursions to the old lighthouse was not the original path intended by the caretakers of the property for the use of visitors. I noticed it was more dangerous, and Swerver and I agreed that some sort of guide would have to be employed by the property to steer visitors along especially at night. However, since the ferns and grasses were no longer high, Roniel and I found the other path that leads to the old lighthouse:


This is the path or entrance I'm talking about. I may be wrong, but I'm strongly confident because of the marker that stands in front of it. This is the safer place to go. However, we weren't able to use this path in the past because the only path we could see was the one that led to the cliffs and the sea. Not that it doesn't offer a good view; however, it is quite dangerous for some people to use especially at night.

It seems now that the property is no longer government-owned, or at least not wholly owned by the government. It seems like Gothong has some ownership in the place as well judging from this marker in a seneguelas tree. Never mind by the spelling please:



By the way, this tree is located along the way to the old lighthouse.

Roniel and I also spent a few seconds on top of the old light house -- yes, seconds because the drizzle started after we started taking pictures from atop the structure. However, we couldn't help but notice how brittle the structure is: we felt like it just needed a little prodding, and what remains of the "Parolang Putol" may collapse utterly. We urge the municipality and whatever private entity that manages the property to take that into consideration. Given visitors' tendency to climb up the structure, this fact can be dangerous.

Last but not the least, is the revived Sugba sa Parola. We have been here the last time, but we weren't able to take pictures because Roniel and I didn't bring any camera. At last, we give you pictures of the new establishment in town:

So there you have it. Those are the changes that you can find in Bagacay Point, in Barangay Catarman, Liloan, Cebu. That stage you see up there in the pictures is where people who want to sing videoke can sit and face the audience. There is a TV facing up to the singer, giving him the appearance of a big-time performer in front of a crowd? You wanna try it? I definitely don't lol.

It had been quite a trip, snapping pictures of just about everything we can see. At the end of the day, we treated ourselves to a bottle of Red Horse courtesy of Sugba-Sugba sa Parola. It wasn't free, of course:

* all pictures were taken by me and Roniel.

Liloan Trippers is No. 6 at Google's Results

Liloan Trippers is No. 6 at Google's Results
By: Immortalundead

The response had been quite phenomenal when the Liloan Trippers was first launched as per our participation in the Mandaue Business Month's "One Cebu" project, wherein we joined the blog writing contest.

As everyone can recall, even though we lost that contest, we still were able to enjoy the phenomenal support of our contacts in Multiply and in Friendster. Even my neighbors who happened to chance at my Friendster bulletins also viewed and read the blog (although I wonder if they understood or appreciated what they were reading). As a result, we were still able to put up a good stand even though we joined only a week or even less from the supposed date of judging. We were even able to outrank the other two participants' ranking in topblogs.com.ph, all of it thanks to your wonderful support.

For a week, Swerver and I visited a total of five sites in Liloan and wrote about them, namely the famous Lighthouse in Catarman as well as its predecessor, the Spanish lighhouse, and other places such as the Bay of Silot, the Stone Boat in Mulao, the potteries and the landang factories. Swerver and Darmae were also able to visit Titay's Rosquillos, but I was not able to join at that time because of weather and work issues.

We could've visited other places if we had time, but when the contest was over we had to turn our attention to our freelance jobs since it is where we earn our dough from. Noble had our intentions for Liloan been, but reality bites: we still had to earn a living.

From time to time, we do visit Liloan to take some pictures or just relax and have some of that delicious halo2x. I have managed to recruit another person into the fad, namely my friend Roniel Flores from Lapu2x. However, we still haven't found any time yet for visiting those other places we saw in that handbook the municipal office lent us, like the Suzuki Cave.

It has almost been a year since the end of the contest, yet I still continue to post updates or write some supplemental articles to our previous articles because of one reason: Liloan Trippers holds the number 6 spot for search results for the keyword "Liloan" in both Google.com and Google Philippines. It's too good to let go, so I will continue to make research through the Internet and perhaps conduct a few more interviews if I could in Liloan. I can't say I'm good at that though; I suck at interviewing but there's always a first time.

Both of us had been quite busy for some time. Swerver is now both an actor, a writer and an active blogger in Multiply. I myself had been swamped with some projects early on at the start of this year, for which I am thankful for. Hopefully, there will be a time when the two of us -- and perhaps the four of us including Eyean and Roniel -- will be able to explore and research once more about the lovely town of Liloan.

Liloan's town fiesta is next month. Anybody planning to come along?

Rosquillos

We can never talk about Liloan if we don't mention the mouth-watering and sweet-tasting cookie called rosquillos from Titay's. For many Cebuanos, Liloan is even synonymous to rosquillos. If Carcar has ampao and "itlog mo noy orange", Liloan's perennial pride has been the rosquillos. The truth of the matter is that when Liloan joined Pasigarbo Sa Sugbo's Festival of Festivals, the town showcased its uniqueness and pride by featuring the Rosquillos Festival to all onlookers.



Rosquillos is a cookie curiously shaped as ringlets. The Spanish word “rosca” means ringlet. The ingredients for rosquillos include flour, egg, sugar, shortening and baking powder. But many people have felt that there must be a secret ingredient why rosquillos tastes so good.



Titay’s Rosquillos traces its roots all the way to 1907 (the year before UP’s founding), when Margarita “Na Titay” Frasco one day got bored and started experimenting with her baking ingredients and all of a sudden made her new culinary creation. Like a real scientist, Na Titay used her neighbors and passerby as lab rats who were offered the snack as a freebie for every purchase of a bottle of soda. The yet-to-be-named cookie was “baptized” by then Cebu governor Sergio Osmeña, Sr., who called it rosquillos in reference to the Spanish wine ring cookie known as Rosquillos de Vino.


After more than a century of home baking tradition, the patented secret family recipe has been passed on to the next Frasco generations paving the way for Titay’s to continue making delicious and one of a kind rosquillos. People going to northern Cebu have made it a habit to drop by her store to buy and enjoy the rosquillos. Titay’s Rosquillos gains the prestige of being known domestically and internationally. For foreign nationals who want to get a taste of rosquillos, most Filipino stores abroad have a display of this cookie wunderkind.

While Titay’s is synonymous with rosquillos, the family baking business has expanded to an array of homemade delicacies ranging from galletas de bato, torta, peñato, binangkal, polvoron, mamon, monay, otap, caycay, CPA (chicken pork adobo), bao-bao, elorde and a lot more mouth-watering pastries.

But before you taste other different animals, you got to try out rosquillos first for its charming tongue treat. And because rosquillos recipe can never be replicated in any other home than Liloan.

The Mulao Adventure

Once again, the Swerver-Immortalundead tandem (better known as Liloan Trippers) braved the perils and hindrances and found themselves once again in Liloan, with our fellow freelancer and photographer Eyean tagging along.

I will not enumerate the places we traveled here, because I've already done so in a previous blog. Instead, I will tell you about the (mis)adventure we had in the rivers of Mulao in our quest to find the boat-shaped stone that people were talking about.

The trip started in earnest around 12:30, just after lunch near Wiggy's Beach Resort. The Liloan Trippers, together with our tour guides and transports Archie and Rolly, started motoring off to the far-flung and elevated barangay in Mulao. Once there, Archie picked up another guide, his friend Charlie. Charlie had warned Archie that the trek to the boat-shaped stone was a tough one but Archie thought Charlie was joking. The end was history.

After a few minutes' motor trip up the mountain, we started descending towards the river. Once there, we learned that we were going to wade into the waters, dressed in jeans and all. It's a good thing that we were lent slippers or it would have been more dangerous in shoes. All unprepared, the Liloan Trippers still chose to go forward with the adventure.


An hour's worth of currents, rocks and stones, and soft soil, we found ourselves in front of the awe-inspiring, dark colored boat-shaped rock. Our three local friends went through the obstacles like Legolas skipping lightly over snow, but the Trippers lagged behind blaming our unpreparedness. Still, we refused to give up. I wasn't able to take pictures because of the fear of getting my camera damaged since it didn't have a sling, but Eyean was able to. His pics will be shared later.



A few minutes were spent at the stone ship, where Archie decided to take a dip while Swerver, Eyean and I eyed the ship. It was a wonder. The three-storey structure precariously perched on two rocks with an approximately 2-meter gap between the two bases. What's amazing is that the bottom of the stone ship was shaped exactly like the bottom of a real ship. On close look, the thing was shaped like a Noah's Ark, which led may have led to its nickname "The Stone of Faith."
We decided to pack up and go back the way we came after a while. The trip was smoother this time, because the Trippers were now confident of their traveling skills. However, we still lagged behind because our legs felt like rubber and were heavy as steel. But the trip was shorter this time. At the end of the road, our three guides got us some coconuts to replenish our lost salts and water.



~ Immortalundead

The Latest Escapades of the Liloan Trippers

Yesterday the authors were offline and unable to make updates. But do you want to know what the authors were up to yesterday? We went to Liloan -- once again -- and toured the town the whole day.

First, we revisited Suba Channel for the sake of our latest recruit, Eyean, who also brought his camera just for the trip. His photos will be uploaded and used soon.

Next, we went to the Landang factories where we learned about the manufacturing of landang, a very important ingredient for binignit.



We visited that former golf course above the memorial gardens where we saw the "lamakan" and an overlooking view of Punta Engaño and the Lighthouse.



Afterwards, we went to some of the potteries and ceramics makers in the area.



Then, we went to Silot Bay. God, the place was beautiful.



We visited Wiggy's Beach Resort before lunch...



Last but not the least, we braved the rocks of the river in Barangay Mulao...



... all the way to the boat-shaped, gigantic, piece of rock.

More blogs about these later. We have a lot to tell.

~Immortalundead and Swerver