Exploring Talim Island, the 'mole' in the waters of Laguna de Bay

In the pecking order of the lake, a manti (mantitilapia, conjugation of panti) is subordinate to mga namumuhunan sa dagat, or those who invest in the sea. Fish pond investors have access to capital and can afford to build large pens and fill them with several hundred thousand fingerlings. They can wait seven months or even longer for the fish to grow. The manti who have no capital live off the fish that escape from the investor’s pond, and what other creatures they can scavenge from the lake.

Fish out of water

Both manti and investor are at the mercy of the lake to make the fish grow. When the lake waters are clear, the fish grow faster. Salt water coming in from Manila Bay through the Napindan Channel helps keep the lake clear. This is why the fishermen tried to stop the government’s plan to use Laguna de Bay as a source of drinking water for Metro Manila. That would mean closing the Napindan gate and losing the salt water.

But the fishermen know more than anyone that big fish always win over little fish. With panti prospects dimming, Zalde has been moonlighting as a construction worker in the mainland.



“Kahit ang sabi niya’y hindi siya mabubuhay sa kati, dahil ang galaw niya’y talagang sa dagat, nagtitiis siya (Even though he says he cannot survive on land, because he is really a man of the sea, he endures it)," says Editha. There is no choice. There are five children to support, the youngest barely a year old.

Sari-sari stress

Editha and her sari-sari store have their own set of troubles. Transportation costs have more than doubled since the swelling of the lake, because of the complicated chain of maneuvers from banca, lampitaw, footbridge, and tricycle that need to be essayed to move goods from mainland to island. Every sack of rice, case of beer, block of ice, and container of gasoline is charged at every leg of the journey, and it doesn’t help that she now has to travel to a much farther gas station to buy fuel because the one near the pritil in Binangonan is sunk.

The higher transportation costs have wiped out any profit she used to earn from her sari- sari store. But she keeps the store going anyway, because the lake will be back to normal by December. Won’t it?

Love it, leave it

Despite their woes, Editha and Zalde have whipped up a special lunch for the nosy guests. Freshly cooked rice, fish just off the grill, scrambled eggs, a pitcher of iced tea cooled by a precious slab of ice, and prized bottles of Cobra Energy Drink, the fishermen’s favorite tipple because it helps them hang on to their pantis when fishing late at night with no sleep.



Throughout lunch, Editha and May fantasize about leaving the island someday, because life is simply too hard. If you have an emergency, you die because there is no hospital. Everything has to be brought in from the mainland because there is no market. On the island, you have to pump every drop of water you need out of a communal poso, while water from the lake in front of you is daintily purified and piped into the houses of Metro Manila.

Laguna de Bay may be surrounded by warehouses, factories, and other shrines to the development of the Greater Metro Manila area, but on the island, there are no jobs, no businesses, no universities, no landlines, no cable TV, no cars. Many barangays like Ginoong Sanay are so stagnant they don’t even have tricycles.

The barangay captain Rufino, however, still prefers living on the island. “Sa bayan, puro bili. Dito, kapag wala kang ulam, puwede kang manghiram sa kapit-bahay mo. Pumunta ka sa lawa, makakahingi ka ng isda. Dahil magkakakilala lahat ng tao (In the city, everything is for sale. Here, if you have no food, you can borrow from your neighbor. You can go to the lake and ask for fish. Because everyone here knows each other)."

Lampitaw 2.0

Can we see the other barangays? Can we see the basket and furniture makers?

May brokers a banca rental to take us around the island. As it enters Barangay Sapang, one of the worst-hit by the flood, shouts break out: “Ulo! Ulo! (Your head! Your head!)" The banca had gone through a submerged waiting shed like a gondola sailing under a bridge, without our noticing. The water was so high, our heads almost hit the roof of the shed.

The shore is no more, so once again, it was lampitaw to dry land—that is, lampitaw 2.0. The gondoliers here do not steer their tubs from a rope attached to the prow. Instead, they draw power from an overhead cable like the MRT (no current buzzing, of course, that would be suicide in water). By pulling on the cable, the momentum of their bodies drives the lampitaw forward. An ingenious system for transporting large pieces of cargo like the bamboo furniture produced in the barangay.

How much would a furniture maker earn from a three-seater sofa he makes by hand, out of bamboo he waited more than a year to harvest, if the sofa must go through such a complex journey to reach a buyer in, say, Divisoria?

“P300." Less operating costs.

The basket maker



The banca cruises next to Barangay Buhangin, where a kaing (large basket) maker named Leonides is sitting serenely on a porch beside his baskets. It takes him two hours to make one kaing, which will then be put on a lampitaw, transferred to a banca, popped into a tricycle, stuffed into a jeepney, then sold wholesale in Divisoria—for the staggering sum of P20. There, it will be varnished and retailed at P40 to P60.

Leonides says he is just an evacuee in this house, because he is waiting for the thigh-high water in his own house to go away. Where does he think the water came from?

“Lumalaki ang lawa (The lake is growing)," he says matter-of-factly, like this is perfectly normal. It will go back to its original size by summer, he adds. In the meantime, his worldly possessions are piled up on tables and cabinets in his flooded house so they will not get wet.

He didn’t bother locking up. “Walang masyadong magnanakaw dito sa amin, kahit iwanan mo (There aren’t really any thieves here, even if you leave your things)." Buhangin has only 2,039 inhabitants. It would be hard for a thief to stay out of sight. Unless he grows wings.

A mole in the sole

It was almost sunset and time to go home. We say goodbye to May, who, in two days, will be enrolled at a university on the mainland, taking up B.S. Psychology. One step closer to her dream of leaving the island for good.

“Palibhasa’y malaki ang nunal sa talampakan, kaya hindi mapakali sa isang lugar (He had a big mole on the heel of his foot, that’s why he could not be content in one place)," George Estregan’s character had said in Nunal sa Tubig about his late father who had the same dream.

To which the wise old man of the village replied, “Ang ating pulo ay nunal sa tubig, na talampakan ng isang mahiwagang nilalang (Our island is a mole in the water, that is the heel of a supernatural being)."

Bernal meets Rizal

Ishmael Bernal’s movie foresaw a bleak future that has unfortunately come true. A century before it, however, someone had seen a very different picture.

“The steamer was just entering the lake and the view was really magnificent," Jose Rizal wrote in the opening chapters of El Filibusterismo. “The beautiful lake stretched out before them like an immense mirror where Heaven might look at itself. To the right, a series of bays made graceful curves in the low shore; to the left, the island of Talim and the Susong Dalaga, the ‘Maiden’s Breasts’, with the soft undulations which have given it its name."

The Susong Dalaga, also known as Mount Tagapo, is Talim Island’s highest point. From there, the skyscrapers of Makati and Ortigas are visible like a mirage, a hallucination of the progress and prosperity that the island can see but never touch, because it is drowning in the filth of the industries that created that specter of national advancement.

This is the myth of development Nunal sa Tubig cryptically warned about. A sacrifice needs to be made: If you curtail industry, you hurt the economy. But if you don’t, you will destroy life itself.



There are no neat answers. All the people on both sides of the lake can do is hope that a miracle of brilliant administration will allow them to wake up one day and see Jose Rizal’s Laguna de Bay magically restored. Then it will be déjà vu all over again, this time, a happy one. - GMANews.TV