Dateline: Sorsogon

Sorsogon is now a city. I realized that when I went there last week to evaluate a non-governmental organization. With that appellation comes the expectation of a busy place and people with some sort of sophistication in taste. We expect angst in the crowd and pollution around. And yet, the citification of towns and communities are not exactly promotions in status; they are predictions of more problems of all forms.

Sorsogon is different. It is a city that is close to mountains. Hills and mountains embrace its surroundings. The farm and, if you wish, the forest of trees need not be imagined. They are around, as real as the city that is growing fast. The mountains are also where a significant number of people outside of the pale of government still remain.

Almost all the people I talk with are talking about how the place is changing fast. Modernizing, they call it.

Not far from the city is another town called Donsol. It used to be a sleepy town until the people there and some authorities discovered that their coves and sea were where the whale sharks repaired to during certain seasons. Called “Butanding” locally and reputedly the largest living fish species, the fish has made Donsol a tourist site. The fishermen of Donsol stopped catching the fish and ceased from selling them to buyers who were not really from the place. The whale shark can be found in other seas but Donsol claims the biggest concentration of the creature the species. The Department of Tourism, as some documents show, has declared Donsol as the official sanctuary of the whale shark. For advocates, this move is not only auspicious but also wise. But for those who see what Nature really is, the move once more shows how naïve we are when it comes to other beings.

The entire seas and oceans are the official/natural sanctuary of fishes and other creatures. Declaring it only declares our arrogance. But arrogance has no place it seems with the regular guy in Sorsogon.

Tricycles, like taxis in big rich cities, are an indicator of so many things about the local customs. In Naga, tricycle driver pounce on passengers getting off from buses coming from other towns. Show yourself with a sack of rice and the tricycle driver shows his fangs and demands a delivery fee of 50 to 70 pesos. Try getting on tricycles outside the bus terminals and the charge triples and quadruples.

In Legazpi, the case is even worse: all tricycle drivers ask immediately if the trip is “Espesyal.” Tourism has not been good to the attitude of the tricycle drivers here. Tourists are to be fleeced and not pleased.

In Sorsogon, they charge you 8 pesos even if obviously to the tricycle driver the passenger is lost in the city.