I heard about how the Bojo River in Aloguinsan has been transformed into an eco-cultural tourist destination about seven years back but never had a chance to go. At the “Reconsolidation of CSO / Private Sector Participation in Environment Governance” spearheaded by the Cebu Uniting for Sustainable Water last October, Boboi Costas, the man responsible for mobilizing the transformation of the community-based eco-tourism and presently the Provincial Tourism officer, shared how the partnership between the LGU and the private sectors made the Bojo River land as one of the 100 top sustainable rivers in the world (the only one in the country). Then I decided to bring my class of Redemptorist seminarians to an eco-cultural tour to the Bojo River as a complementary activity on the forum and sessions on Environmental Stewardship in the context of Laudato Si. This we did last Saturday.
I booked our visit a month earlier, and the one in charge was very accommodating and professional, giving us all the details from the fees to the time we should be there so as not to be overtaken by the low flow of the tide. On our way from the city, we took the road via Valencia, Carcar City and Zaragosa, and the trip was very smooth and comfortable for the roads are all wide and cemented, and there are tall trees lining on the roadsides. The tourism officer was getting in touch on where we were and advised us to go first to the Farmhouse which is the Aloguinsan Tourism Office to register.
The Farmhouse was really a farmhouse situated in the middle of an organic farm. We were given a welcome lei made of seeds from the local plants and indigenous flowers. We then proceeded to the Bojo River where we were met by a group of women singing Rosas Pandan and served fresh coconut drinks from the shell.
Rodney, the team leader, gave us a background of the Bojo River, that at the start there were 400 participants and only 48 persevered the training and seminars on environmental conservation, cultural heritage and mapping, disaster preparedness, the cleaning up of the river and the continuous community participation. He also told us that the leaves floating along the river are not trash but will eventually become food for the fishes, and that the bubbles we see on the waters are not pollutants but the air breathed by the fishes.
The river cruise took one hour with an extension of thirty minutes to give way for swimming. We wore life vests and boarded two bancas, three in each with one guide as our paddler. Our guides were actually fishers. It was marvelous to hear our guide tell us the different variety of mangroves, fishes and other marine plants we passed by including local stories like the mountain of the lost monkeys who disappeared because of the hunters. There was a touch of folklore when we passed by a cave covered with vines and moss which was called langub ni Mariang Tang-an, the legendary goddess who used to grace the community with her generosity but left the place after many residents did not return the things they borrowed from her.
The cruise brought us out of the mouth of the river into the Tañon Strait where we could see a large bed of multicolored sea corals. This was where my students started swimming up to the river. While waiting for the swimmers, our paddler guide indulged in stories of how they used to engage in blast fishing but stopped after the seminar, and now they are on guard. He also shared their experience of fishing at night where it is very dark but they could see their way because of the numerous fireflies fleeting across the river. There were more visitors coming as more bancas passed our station and among the paddlers was a woman. The woman has finished cooking our lunch and she is helping the team to paddle more visitors arriving through the river. It seems that the people managing the River cruise do multitasks – singing, cooking, paddling, guiding including snorkeling.
Lunch was held in a bamboo built cafeteria on an elevated place of the river and decorated with anahaw leaves filled with local flowers. Native dishes were like a very delicious humba, adobong Bisaya, sinugba and salad made of local spices. Most interesting was there were no soft drinks, but we were served camote juice. Then we walked through their 300 meter boardwalk at the side of the river. The boardwalk is used for birdwatching. Before we left the river, the group sang a Thank You song for us. Our last leg was going back to the Farmhouse where we were resting for a few minutes in a very cool bamboo made rest house. For snacks, we were served boiled bananas with ginamos, biko, salvaro (their local delicacy), sikwate and lemongrass juice. We ended our tour with a visit of their organic farm where a young man showed us and fed their pigs with plants, the composting of the waste of the community and culturing earthworms for fertilizers.
As I told my class, this was a concrete example of environmental stewardship where there is conservation component, community participation, collective behavior (culture) and commerce, and these are the four Cs of the acid test of eco-tourism as shared by Costas. From being the “biggest toilet” in 2009, it has become one of the top 100 Sustainable Rivers in the World, the only one in the Philippines because the other four contenders did not qualify for the community participation component. One good development is that the program is being replicated in five other municipalities.
As Costas revealed, the pace is different because there is a difference in dynamics in other municipalities. I also wish that other tourist destinations will learn from the Bojo River eco-tourism program.
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