Batanes: A brief glimpse of grace

In the short drive from the airport to the inn, the beauty of Batanes is already obvious.

It is hard to imagine that a Filipino province made up of rocky islands partway to Taiwan could be lush and gorgeous, but that’s what Batanes is. Our car rolls through the roads — well-made and well-maintained — bobbing with the hills, taking us through a picturesque scene of grassy hills and plains. Everywhere, as far as the eye can see: green and growing.

Batanes is the north beyond the north for us, with three of its largest islands inhabited and making up its populace. Itbayat is the northernmost of the three, and can sometimes be difficult to reach if the weather is not permissive. Sabtang is the southern border island, a little ways atop the handful of isles belonging to the province of Cagayan. And Batan lies on top of it, holding the capital of Basco.

We manage to roam the municipalities of Basco and Ivana. We won’t reach either Itbayat or Sabtang, but there is evidently a lot in Batan. It is a curious mix of pastoral, seaside, and mountain beauty, of a quality many think one has to travel abroad for. Suddenly the entire school of poetry obsessed with nature makes sense.

We make our base at the Fundacion Pacita, named for the locally born and internationally renowned artist Pacita Abad. The Fundacion was once her studio space, and is now a lovely nature lodge, a bed and breakfast of sorts that perfectly suits Batanes. We eat a lot, and well— partaking of fresh, real food is always eye-opening whether one is a foodie or not, particularly if the environment in which you eat is as beautiful as Batanes. (The pork adobo is particularly mouth-watering: pork native to Batanes cooked in its own fat for well over two hours, with neither soy sauce nor vinegar. The coconut crab is so delectable there is a very real temptation to clean out the shell with rice).

We walk down to the beach, which is no simple feat for city legs — there is a helpful path of stairs, the count of which is upward of 300. But the climb up and down is worth the view, because beyond the grassy hills the eyes can catch the greatness of the ocean. The roaring waters are what shape the uniqueness of the quintessential Batanes beach, after all. Rounded stones in different sizes, some as large as dinosaur eggs, fill the shores in hues that range from white-grey to blue to even mauves and lavenders.

We go to town, stopping by local Churches, of the old Spanish kind, well-attended by the community. We take the roads that wind close to the side of the cliffs, taking in different views and almost resisting the urge to stop every five minutes to take photos. We visit an honesty café, a ship shelter that looks like something out of the Amalfi coast, and the oldest house in Batanes, an Ivatan stone house whose elderly inhabitant passed only recently. We walk the communal pasture, cheekily called the Marlboro Hill, navigating through a wide expanse of grazing lands that could put one in mind of Tolkien’s Shire.

But mostly we breathe in the air, and sleep well in the natural quiet, and eat well in good company. Our three days is an eternity, and all too short. It is breathtaking to simply be there, surrounded by the wide open hills and plains, sparsely dotted with the houses of its people, a healthy number of cows contentedly grazing here and there.

And it is amazing to listen to the stories, of both the Ivatan people and the place Batanes has had in the larger framework of Philippine history.

A large part of the beauty of Batanes is due to its people, the Ivatans. Their stone houses are one of the must-sees, at the very least for the ingenuity of the architecture. Our host explains that building a house for the Ivatans has been a tradition inclusive of everyone in the community — they come together, each bringing materials, and work non-stop until the house is made. Apart from being fed by the family whom the house is for, they are not paid for the build.

There is, we learn, an ingrained sense of sustainable stewardship over the land that is inherent to Ivatan culture, which had only been compromised with the coming of colonisation. By tradition, for example, catches from the sea are limited to what one can carry over the shoulder — it is bad form to load a vehicle with catch, an idea that is probably difficult for some outside the tribe to understand.  

The history of Batanes is such that it can sometimes be taken as a microcosm of the history at work in the Philippines as a whole in that it has survived Spanish and American colonization, and even Japanese occupation, in a way typical of the Filipino story. We had to adjust, so we make of the influences what we can and stay resilient, though the long shadow of imperialist designs has done its damage. But for the Ivatan people, there are particularities to their culture that makes its preservation about keeping to an entire way of life, one that is not entirely safe from even Filipinos themselves. 

Already there are signs of change in Batanes. The population, an easy-to-breathe-in number of around 16, 000, is blessed with beautiful country but not with great modern wealth. And while it is easy to romanticise this simple kind of living, it is not always easy to actually live it. The small size of the population is in part due to a great number of people taking jobs outside of Batanes, either on the Philippine mainland or abroad. The developing economy of the Philippines is certainly not progressing without affected even the furthest reaches of its provinces. So the need to build up is palpable, and is being addressed. Tourism in particular is seeing focus, with places like a restaurant overlooking the ship shelter and a branch of the National Museum on the site of an abandoned US Navy station in the works.

But as always, building up is a double-edged sword, and so there are other less congenial prospects circling. The beauty of the place is no great secret, and there are laws in place to protect the integrity of the land for the Ivatan people. The sale of land in Batanes is carefully moderated, so that it stays in the hands of someone from the Ivatan tribe. Yet somehow these laws are circumnavigated, and at least one commercial venture from Manila is on the way.

The creation of jobs must be tempting. But the people of Batanes have proved very aware of what they have. When a foreign firm offered to rent one of their islands to use as an exclusive casino for Taiwanese customers — creating not only jobs but also a sizeable revenue for the province — around 80 percent of the populace voted against the idea. So just as there are signs of change, there are also signs of an intention to proceed carefully. And we can certainly hope it will be so.

It is true that the reality of places like Batanes (not unfamiliar to many provinces here in the Philippines) is that it will have to change to thrive. It’s very easy to wish Batanes would stay the way it is forever, simply so that a place that beautiful can remain ours. But as always there is the balancing act that has to be done, so that the place can be preserved but its people are well cared for.

As we go around, the words “It’s like we’re not in the Philippines!” is said more than once. And it’s not an untrue statement. Batanes is beautiful beyond words, and what we can imagine is possible in our country. But maybe it is a testament to the state of our lands when we assume something so beautiful is too incredible for us. Batanes is unique in its beauty, but I think it is also an indication of what we once had as a country. And maybe it should be a call to rethink the way we move forward.