Cagbalete tourist trap

CAGBALETE, Mauban, Quezon – The past two weeks had been a whirlwind. Between shooting a new international sports documentary and moving house, this writer was feeling burned out. In a job that necessitates working on holidays and weekends, the physical demands can be formidable, especially when you’re driven by your passion and you’re doing what you love. So when the PBA Commissioner’s Cup no longer needed a Game 5 on Sunday, it was a rare chance to sneak in a free weekend.

Friends had been raving about a new find, Cagbalete island off the coast of Mauban, Quezon province. It was peaceful, pristine and rustic, unlike the usual resort destinations. When you cover sports as much as I do, it’s sometimes hard to squeeze in time to actually do them, and swimming was my first sport. Having grown up on the beaches of Pangasinan and living with city air, I was looking forward to breathing clean salt air. Little did I know our group would be entering a tourist trap.

The trip started pleasantly enough. We missed the bus going directly to Mauban, where you could just hop on a banca to the island. But there were plenty of buses to Lucena, and from the mall, it was a 45-minute shuttle to the pier. When we hopped off the bus, there was a van parked in the lot, waiting for passengers. 

The driver asked how many we were, and we added one seat for all our belongings so as not to crowd the vehicle. He insisted on cramming four of us into a row of seats built for three. As he piled the cooler, box of food and my gym bag on top of the extra seat, I commented that the tower of luggage might collapse on a passenger. He rudely replied: “You’re the ones who are going to sit there anyway.” We were already uncomfortable since he was used to cramming up to 17 people in a van built for 12, but he didn’t care. Welcome to Quezon.

We soon arrived at the pier, hungry and bleary-eyed from five hours’ travel, and the driver dumped us on the pier to bake in the sun. There was chaos all around, as boatmen, barkers, hawkers and mendicant children were all shouting at tourists for attention. This was not going to be fun. 

One of the barkers said he had a boat that could take us straight to our resort. All the others, officially recognized by the local tourism bureau, would just drop everybody off at a central location, from where they would have to walk another 20 minutes to their ultimate destinations, he said. He quoted a price of P2,500 to bring us there and fetch us the following day, Sunday. Being new to the experience, we agreed, since he also said it would only take 45 minutes. Then he turned us over to a boatman we did not know. He was simply a facilitator, a “commissioner”. 

As we boarded, we noticed that there were no life jackets, nor even any seats; just the usual planks that bridged the two sides of the small boat. On our way, he pointed to the island, and we were all excited. But after more than an hour of travel, we were still not there. Apparently, we were supposed to disembark on the far end of the island. When prodded why it was taking so long, he simply replied that it was low tide, an important bit of information he conveniently left out earlier. 

Another crucial bit of information not included in previous conversations that, contrary to earlier pronouncements, we would not be dropped off ashore. The water was too shallow and yes, it was low tide, and the beach was carpeted in seaweed. So we did end up walking about 20 minutes or so to our resort which, as it turned out, only had electricity from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. So there we were, sleepless and tired from six hours’ travel, wading ashore in hot seawater with our luggage, being scorched in the late morning sun.

But the torture didn’t end there. After lunch, another boatman gave us a convincing spiel about a beautiful white sand beach and caves nearby, on another part of the island. He claimed it was “better than Boracay”. Eager to turn the experience around, we hired him. Little did we know it was another trap.

But this expert boatman had beached his craft at low tide, and it took all our collective effort to push it into deeper water so he could start the engine. In return, he offered to not let us pay. And his boat, apparently a regular at our resort, had no markings on it (and was therefore not registered at all), no life jackets, and no seats, again. After another hour or so of travel with our butts and backs aching, we were withering from the heat and sea air. We said skip the cave, we wanted to see the beach.

The sand was exactly the same as the beach at our resort, with the same seaweed infestation. And we still couldn’t be brought close to shore. To make things worse, as we disappointedly headed back to the resort, we saw hundreds of sea urchins beneath the water. It was a frightening thought that because of this corrupt boatman’s greed, one of us could have needed medical attention in the middle of the open sea. 

After an interminable trip back, we once again disembarked far from shore tired and unhappy. The boatman waded toward us as we headed to shore, demanding payment. We had previously decided to simply pay for his fuel as a sign of goodwill, since he had offered to not let us pay. He balked at the token P500 we were giving, insisting on P1,500 and said we should be thankful he wasn’t charging us more. When we were firm about giving him only P800, he asked for our room number at the resort.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m in a strange place and someone who tried to cheat me asks for my room number, I take that as a threat to my personal safety. The boatman didn’t stop there. He asked personnel at our resort for the same information, and complained about us to the other boatmen. If he had had the audacity to knock on my door, I would have done anything to protect myself. And if the resort staff had given my room number (which I discovered they almost did), they would have faced legal action. The following morning, he was freely roaming about the resort.

This writer has since spoken to a few other visitors to Cagbalete who have had similar experiences, and the consensus is the same. The dishonesty in advertising, disregard for tourists’ welfare, and greed of local boatmen has convinced them not to visit again. The avarice of a few has started to ruin the reputation of the good people of Mauban, until the provincial government does something to rectify this abuse, or some tragedy caused by neglect brings national attention to the problem.