Lipata by the sea

Can one count the hairs on the human head? I am told we have an average of more than 100,000 hairs. More specifically, blondes have 148,000. Black-haired women have 110,000, while brunettes average 100,000  and red-haired ladies claim 86,000. 

Unlike hair, we can’t count the grains of sand on any beach, nor the clouds in the sky. Talking with my friends about this, our conversation goes further, listing all the things we can’t count like the stars, the pebbles, the leaves and the blades of grass… leading to our conclusion on the goodness of God. I’ll tell you a riddle. What, like the canes of St. John, cannot be counted?” Better said in Tagalog: “Ang baston ni San Juan hindi mabilang-bilang.” Give up? It’s the rain drops that we can’t even begin to estimate.

Musing on riddles, the three of us — Luisito Andaya, Roland Bayhon and I — consider ourselves fortunate to have an hour to appreciate nature’s wonders in Surigao, staring at the sea and listening to her when we noticed Jocelyn, the bantay.

There she goes, raking the sand, pulling and pushing… She rakes the sand into designs of crisscrosses and V’s. They could be cloth designs on the white cream sand that we avoid stepping on. Philosophically, she’s actually playing little brown God — raking the billions of sand into her own designs and molding them, downward or upward. God is like that, I think, as He arranges and organizes millions of lives. Jocelyn’s penchant for lines is superficial but God’s designs extend deeper than an ocean and higher than a mountain. Nature, and appreciating it, draws us closer to its Creator.

“Hurry, look at that! It’s a fisherman’s bilan-bilan upon the choppy waves, bopping up and down below white caps, as if swallowed by the sea,” Roland remarks. “He’s over much-too-dark waters. He should be over lighter blues.”

But where does the sea get its hues of blue? To understand that the color of the sea varies, it is necessary to recall the composition of sunlight, broken up into seven prismatic colors — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When the light falls on water of sufficient depth, the red rays of light are absorbed near the surface of the water and disappear. The other colored rays pass to a greater depth, until at last there is complete extinction of light. Reflected light comes from various depths, therefore its color will vary, from a moderate depth of even green to dark blue.

His buddy’s boat is more cautious over medium-blue water nearer the shoreline where it’s safer,” Luisito remarks. He doesn’t dare challenge the Surigao Strait’s 35,000-meter depth. That strait just in front of me leads to the Bohol Sea and the Pacific Ocean where galleons sailed till 1815. I ask Roland what year the sea trade began. It was in 1565, during the Acapulco trade, he answers. Roland knows all the dates, all the historical timelines.

Each of us truly has our own destiny to pursue and live out. Spanish admirals with cargo from China sailed on the strait I’m looking at to what is now Mexico and returned with gold and friars! The fishermen I see feed us, and their families. Roland lives to research; Luisito, to serve for peace and order; and me, to complete this column. All of us are blessed to choose our own bosom buddies like the fishermen. Luisito has Victor Ben Aclan; I have Roland.  When one dips downward the other pulls up. Life is kind, we think, as we sit in awe watching the sky.

“I used to write haikus,” Inspector Andaya muses, “for the Kalasag magazine of the Academy.” By the way, kalasag means shield. The kalagans who were pirates carried shields of hard wood covered with dried skin. The caragan, meaning land of the brave, is another name for kalagans and belongs to Surigao. Everything we discuss coincidentally jibes and gels into what I’m trying to write here.

“I could try composing a haiku now,” Andaya says, “but first, I have to classify the sounds I hear, the swish and swash of the sea.”  But it’s raining and the sounds differ all the time. First it’s storming, then waves are changing direction and their motion sounds differently. Nevertheless, here’s my Surigao haiku. A-ha! Hard try!

Lipata, Surigao where Hideaway is,

Sand squeaks, whitecaps splash,

Dark clouds hover.

Trade wind blows,

Dinagat Island disappears,

The sun sinks.

All the islands appear,

Surigao means “surges”

from the Spanish surgir.

Meaning swift current

at Lipata Point,

Hideaway at present.

* * *

At 5 a.m. in the morning, it’s very, very low tide beside this Hideaway, composed of two tiny comfortable Mexican homes almost on the sea owned by the Almedas. Later in the morning, by 8 a.m., the tide is rising, covering the kelp in the shallow beach. By 6 p.m., the sea builds up its anger so that by 7 p.m., its high, high tide with onrushing waves that splash at us, wetting our books as we sit on the porch.

“We’re going to soak ourselves wet. Quick, five paces back…” Andaya emphasizes as though he were Commandant — and he may become one, one day. 

It’s amihan time, commonly known by seafarers as trade wind or northeast monsoon season, the time that starts during November and persists up to April. My notorious Samal traders organized a commercial center in Butuan, the town just before Surigao City, enriching the Sulu Sultanate, and displacing the Caragan pirates in the Surigao Strait.  How I love the many personalities of the sea.

Ma’am, the ocean is boundless and fierce. Look at our room.  If a tsunami attacked this 5 X 3 bedroom, i-measure natin… one, two, three paces only… we’d be thrown into the sea that’s all too gray now with the incoming darkness. Yes, it was pouring water from frightening clouds that made us move to the main house and decide time’s up for musing, let’s do our jobs, fraternizing with the police recruits.

Surigao Mayor Antonio S. Casurra drops by to say hello while Colonel Antonio Paguirigan remains. I encourage these future public safety officers to persevere in their chosen vocation. I say they should serve our lady president well through their community obligations. Husbands and wives fight and policemen are called in. A theft occurs. “Saan ang pulis?” Drivers fight over traffic — where’s the policeman now? Even if 15 to 20 percent of crimes are reported to the police and the remaining 80 percent are “Bahala na si God” — my gosh! We need peace in villages, in cities, municipalities, and the need for a pure image through trustworthy policemen. The pep talk goes on, with 466 men and women future police officers listening.

The issue here at Surigao is not about the legitimacy of the present dispensation. She’s our President. That’s a fact. The Supreme Court affirmed it. She won by one million plus votes in the hands of the population and the watak-watak of the opposition. National issues mean less to these Surigaonons in Lipata. They just work and work and do their jobs to earn three meals a day and live in a peaceful province in this domain of Governor Robert Lyndon Barbers.

When we arrive at Hideaway for the night we tease Inspector Chris Palmon about piercing the wind with bullets, teaching the future PNCOs shooting skills while Philip Sims of the US Embassy opens the five-day Cyber Incident Response Course at the Philippine Public Safety’s Regional Training School under the directorship of Police Superintendent Benito Olea Ramos. We’re going through modernity versus nature at Surigao.

It’s lovely to be back at Lipata, “Hideaway” by the sea. Money can’t buy the soul’s satisfaction. Even without side tables for a makeup set. No hooks for hangers. We have heaven-sent fresh air, nature’s cold embrace, and we can see the splashing of the rain on the waves, watch the moon’s reflection over the sea lighting it for an artist’s canvas; we witness white boats tooting their arrival as they pass by to dock. The angel’s wings really brought me back to Lipata! Thank you, Guardian Angel! Which reminds me, I have to thank Angel Amante and her father Congressman Edel for being the kindest hosts I have ever met and for giving me my happiest moment for many years now.