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?

What Happened to the Liloan Trippers?

It's been a month since the Liloan Trippers ever made a post in our beloved Liloan travel blog. Main reason is, we have never been to Liloan in a span of a month. That's because Swerver and I had been too busy attending to our individual jobs. Yes, the pressures of the Mandaue Business Month contest are gone but it doesn't mean we've forgotten about Liloan. We obviously haven't forgotten about our quest to put it on the map along with the other municipalities of Cebu.

As for me, Immortalundead, I have been tasked with so many jobs (thank God) these past few weeks. Right now, I still have Liloan on my mind with all those delicious halo2x and the relaxing breeze from the sea. Personally, I want to go back to Liloan. I'm sure Swerver does. Eyean probably does too. Well, as soon as we straighten out our schedules we'd go back there. Perhaps we might even go to other Cebu municipalities.

The contest may be over, but I still feel flattered with all the support that the people in both of our networks showed us. I still feel flattered each time I read all the comments in this blog about our posts being so informative. The best news I've had from this blog is that a group of students actually found our blog so informative that they included us as part of their references for their cultural mapping project.

This group plans to explore Liloan as soon as they have the time. Swerver, Eyean and I certainly wouldn't let this opportunity pass.

Please hang on, dear loyal readers. It doesn't matter how many you are, but we are very grateful for all your continued support.

~ The Immortal Undead