Warrior Pilgrimage

Featured in Warrior Pilgrimage on December 19, 2010.

JOHNSON LUYM ARRIVE with his Ford Ranger at eight in the morning in Mango Square and both me and Ernie Salomon immediately get inside together with our backpacks. It's a long way to Tabunan and we have to pick up Wil Davies and Ricky Sevilla. Today is Sunday, July 25, 2010.

We pass by JY Square in going to Banilad and we pick up Ricky first before meeting up with Wil. The truck is wide and it accommodated all of us as Johnson steered the wheel up up away to the Trans-central Highway. We took a right turn by the the time we got past Kilometer 26 and down into a snaky dirt road.

Tabunan, settling in the bosom of Tabunan River Valley, is the jump-off point when crossing into Mount Manunggal and into a part of Balamban town itself. This place once hosted the scourge of the Japanese during World War II and I revere this place very much. A book by Col. Manuel F. Segura - Tabunan: The Untold Story of the Cebu Guerrillas - is written after the exploits of our local resistance fighters in Tabunan.

Ricky led our party crossing and re-crossing the swirling Tabunan River four times until for about a half-kilometer then we climb up a jumble of huge boulders that is a natural watercourse judging by the smooth and slippery surfaces. The weather is mild today with clear skies and I took the rear with a Kodak camera ready.

We climb over a low ridge and under huge overhanging rocks, a trail full of thick foliage, covered in every sense of the word. This is the first time that I pass by this trail going to Manunggal and I have the opportunity to take pictures, take note of the prominent features and...READ MORE (Press CTRL + mouse click)