This gem of a province in the Davao Region has only been declared insurgency-free and development-ready in 2022
AT A GLANCE
There’s so much hope in Davao Oriental, truly, as Mindanao has long been called, ‘the land of promise.’
Have you been to Davao?
If I asked you this question, you’d probably say yes, even if all you’ve ever been to is Davao City. Geographically a part of Davao del Sur, Davao City is now independently run as the commercial capital of Southern Mindanao. It is roughly three and a half hours away from Mati, the capital of Davao Oriental, up and down the Surigao-Davao Coastal Road, past Tagum, the capital of Davao del Norte, along the coast of Davao Gulf.
Unless you’ve been to Davao lately, chances are you have never been to Davao Oriental. I didn’t know until I made it there that it was only two years ago that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) declared it insurgency-free. No doubt, it hadn’t been easy, dismantling the guerilla front composed of the New People’s Army (NPA) and its supporters among the people of Davao Oriental, the lifeblood of the communist-terrorist movement, which once kept the province off-limits to investors, entrepreneurs, tourists, students, and migrants. Among the major moves, according to the AFP, was a community support program aimed at regaining the trust of the people, especially in the hinterlands. It’s a landmark turn in Davao Oriental’s history because the insurgency-free declaration also means it is also now development-ready.
Already, it feels so welcoming. When the Philippine Travel Agencies Association of the Philippines (PTAA), led by its vice president for outbound travel Evelyn Bondagjy and PRO Jaison Yang, paid Davao Oriental a visit to heed its call for tourists, a grateful people received them with arms wide open and with bibsized multi-colored bead necklaces handcrafted by the women of Mandaya, a tribe who, having resisted colonizers for centuries, once lived upstream, along the mountain ranges of Davao Oriental, Davao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, and the highlands of eastern Mindanao. There were about 33,000 Mandaya registered as of 1988, 22,000 of them in Davao Oriental alone, which is home to four other major indigenous groups—the Mansaka, Manubo, Tagacaulo, and Kalagan.
Upon arrival, disembarking from a bus that took us from Davao International Airport in Davao City, we were taken to a roadside café called Kagan, the entry point to Davao Oriental Welcome Park in Barangay Pintatagan in the town of Banaybanay, designed as a stopover for those embarking on long road trips across the region.
Kagan Café offers halal food and traditional Kagan or Kalagan specialties, including native snacks like jaral, a spring roll stuffed with coconut candy, and jampo, the Kalagan version of fried bananas. The snacks went well with the Kagan specialty coffee made of local Arabica slow-roasted, as the Kagan ancestors used to do, on firewood over a very low fire, and then combined with corn to produce a perfect, healthy blend.
At the welcome dinner hosted by Mati Mayor Michelle Nakpil Rabat at the Adelina Hotel and Suites, we were treated to a cultural show and a boodle fight, which was the work of former NPAs, who have been given every opportunity to reintegrate themselves into society. There’s so much hope in Davao Oriental, truly, as Mindanao has long been called, “the land of promise.”
At the moment, Davao Oriental is a nature trip. Among its wonders is the Aliwagwag Protected Landscape, a nature reserve and a force of nature should you visit in the right season when the headwaters of the Cateel River rampage down the slopes of the 1,660-meterhigh Mount Agtuuganon in the Diuata Mountain Range, over boulders of heights ranging from 1.8 to 33.5 meters, which make the multi-tiered waterfalls seem like a staircase from fairy heaven. Folklore has it that Aliwagwag Falls is a gift of the gods to the Mandaya of Cateel, a second-class municipality in Davao Oriental, but it really is a gift, as Aliwagwag serves as a major drainage catchment in Mindanao as well as a water source for surrounding rice fields and communities not only in Davao Oriental but elsewhere in the region.
Make time to visit the Mount Hamiguitan range, a 6,834-hectare national park and wildlife sanctuary, inscribed in 2014 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the town of San Isidro. The 1,620-meter-high mountain, along with the surrounding forest and woodland, is a treasured biodiversity spot, housing wildlife populations that are also rare, threatened, endangered, including the Philippine eagle, the Philippine warty pig, the Philippine cockatoo, and the bleedingheart pigeon, as well as several species of Nepenthes, the carnivorous pitcher plant. In all, this protected area of terrestrial and aquatic habitats is home to 1,380 species of flora and fauna, 341 of which are endemic to the region.
Those who love old churches cannot skip the San Salvador del Mundo Church in Caraga. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) declared it a national historical site in 2012. This Roman Catholic parish church in one of the oldest settlements in Mindanao, after all, dates back to 1861, although it was only rebuilt into its current wood-and-stone structure in 1877, six years after the Jesuits took over the Augustinian Recollects in spreading Christianity on this side of Mindanao. The church is also a repository of such old things as the antique San Isidro Labrador statue, the 222-yearold church bell, and the giant seashells that have been repurposed into holy water fonts since two centuries ago. You might be disappointed, however, that the church doesn’t look like a church from a different time, limewashed or whitewashed as it was during restoration in 2020 on the recommendation, according to the parish priest, by the NHCP. But maybe give it time. Washes on old buildings are often so translucent they allow the texture of the underlying surface—the limestone, corals, and wood in the case of San Salvador del Mundo Church—to show through after a while.
Nearby, also in Caraga, is Pusan Point on the easternmost tip of the Philippines, the first in the country to receive sunlight as the sun rises on the eastern horizon. On the edge of the open ocean, the Pacific, this 12-meter-high rock promontory boasts of two concrete lighthouses, a gigantic sundial, a 4.9-meter-tall Jubilee cross on the cliff dropping dramatically into the Pacific, and a museum showcasing Mandaya culture.
Also on the Pacific Coast, on breathtaking Pujada Bay within the 21,200-hectare Pujada Bay Protected Landscape and Seascape, lies the “Sleeping Dinosaur.” Seen from atop a cliff, where we were served local coffee with which to take in the view, the dinosaur-shaped island on the tranquil bay looked every inch a metaphor for Davao Oriental and the rest of Mindanao, Davao Occidental included, which have yet to emerge from the dark of neglect, insurgency, corruption, and underdevelopment.
Come to think of it, maybe the “Sleeping Dinosaur” is a metaphor for the rest of the Philippines. Sleep, sleep the sleep of babes, and rouse when it’s time, when we’re ready.
