When I saw the aerial photo below shared by some plurkers (follow me on Plurk if you like), I thought that I was looking at a Mediterranean island in Greece instead of a tropical resort island off the coast of Marinduque. This resort is the new Bellarocca Island Resort and Spa which started operations just last year in February. Since the resort’s official website said that they are “situated off the south west coast of the Marinduque province”, I checked Google Maps to see if there was any hi-res satellite imagery of the island and there was! The island is actually called Elefante Island and it’s located just off the southern tip of Marinduque island.

Photo from the Bellarocca official website

Checking in Google Earth, I discovered that the satellite photo was taken on November 2, 2005 and so the imagery predates the opening of the resort by more than three years. Thus, you can’t see in Google Maps satellite view the immaculate white architecture of the resort, the piers, and even the 9-hole golf course. But the small spit of white-sand beach is unmistakable and so I’m sure that I have the right island.

Anyway, this resort is really expensive. The cheapest room they have is US$420 per night—that’s almost 20,000 pesos! And that doesn’t include transportation costs. But if you have money to burn, then Bellarocca (“beautiful rock”) seems to be the it vacation getaway this year as evidenced by the really glowing and positive reviews on the Web.

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Today’s featured site is the El Nido Airport (IATA: ENI, ICAO: RPEN), also known as Lio Airport. This gravel-surfaced airport is located in El Nido, Palawan. Palawan is the biggest province in the Philippines by land area and its elongated shape and numerous islands scattered across Sulu Sea means that the most efficient way to go to and from its towns is by air. Palawan thus has the most number of airports of any province in the country.

Many of these airports in Palawan are privately owned and are not operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (formerly the Air Transportation Office). This is true for El Nido Airport, which is owned and operated by Island Transvoyager, Inc. (ITI), an airline company that operates direct flights between Manila and El Nido using a tiny fleet of Dornier 228-212 planes. They have their own hangar at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and have daily flights to El Nido.

Photo by jgaerlan (CC)

ITI is the sister company of Ten Knots Development Corporation, the owner and operator of the famous El Nido Resorts, one of which, the Lagen Island Resort, I have featured before. Ten Knots and ITI are (I think) the biggest employers in El Nido and their aim is to commercialize the tourism industry in El Nido while protecting and conserving nature as well (Ten Knots supported the establishment of the El Nido marine protection area).

If you want to take a vacation at El Nido Resorts, then ITI is your best bet because ITI and Ten Knots have an efficient transport system in place for their resorts’ guests. But if you’re not interested in their resorts and you don’t want to fly ITI, then SEAIR also has seasonal thrice-weekly flights to El Nido with a stopover at Busuanga. Of course, you can just fly to the other Palawan airports and take land transportation, or you can go by boat but those are really slow options.

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So, which among Melisa, Johan, Jason, Paul Jake, or Tibo are you rooting to become the Big Winner in ABS-CBN’s Pinoy Big Brother: Double Up? (The show’s producers are certainly milking the Melason affair for all its worth, no?) Since the Big Night to determine the Big Winner is just around the corner, I think it would be cool to feature the famed house here in Vista Pinas. But since the satellite imagery is old, what you can see is the old house, before it became the double house.

Photo by Karla Redor.

When the first season of Pinoy Big Brother aired, I thought that the house was in some faraway place due to the secrecy of bringing the first housemates from the ABS-CBN compound to the house. It turned out that the house is just across Eugenio Lopez Jr. Drive from the broadcasting company’s headquarters. Talk about anti-climactic. The house has now been the venue of three regular seasons of PBB, two teen editions and two celebrity editions, as well as two seasons of Pinoy Dream Academy.

Anyway, if you look at the satellite imagery, you can barely see the logo of the PBB show emblazoned (upside-down) on the roof of the house making the location unmistakable. You can also see the large gym just to the west of the house where some of the more physical activities in Pinoy Big Brother are held. I wonder if the neighbors are inconvenienced by their Kuya neighbor. Hehe. You should also check out this floor plan of the double house lovingly created by a fan of the show for Wikipedia.

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Siquijor hasn’t been featured yet here in Vista Pinas, so let’s rectify the situation by visiting the Capilay Spring Park, one of the famous tourist attractions on this mystical island province. This spring park is located in downtown San Juan, on the southwest coast of the island.

Photo from the official Siquijor provincial government website.

Capilay Spring Park is essentially a cold spring that has been converted into a sort-of public pool with a pleasing park surrounding the whole area. The pool is divided into three areas and the water eventually flows out (I think underground) into the sea, which is located nearby. According to some websites, the upper of the three areas is where the spring is located. The second area is the “swimming pool” and the last area is the “laundry” pool.

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Kutang San Diego (Fort San Diego) is a really small fort built by the Franciscans in in the town proper of Gumaca, Quezon in the latter part of the 18th century. This fort, equipped with at least one canon (shown below), is meant to repel sea pirates from Lamon Bay that often plundered coastal towns in the Philippines during that era. But given the size of the fort, I’m pretty sure that marauders can easily overpower this fort with sheer number.

Photo by Shubert Ciencia (CC)

The fort, built out of adobe and with a tiled roof, was named after St. Didacus of Alcalá (Spanish: San Diego de Alcala), a Franciscan and the town’s patron saint. In fact, Gumaca’s resident church is the Cathedral of San Diego de Alcala. To the west of the fort lies the Gumaca Baywalk.

Anyway, you should check out this WaypointsDotPH narrative by Gerry B. Lontok. It shows you exactly how to get there since there are too many places in Gumaca named San Diego and the Fort has been called a park, a fortress, and a watchtower. The narrative also contains several more pictures of this monument recognized by the National Historical Institute.

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Our next stop is the really old Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception more popularly known as the Baclayon Church, located in the Bohol town of the same name. There’s a claim that this church is possibly the second-oldest church in the Philippines having been established in 1595, but the present structure was constructed in 1727. Nevertheless, the Baclayon Church is indeed the oldest church in Bohol.

Photo by Pinay06 (CC)

Jesuits were the first order to establish Christianity on this part of Bohol and the inner structure was constructed under their helm. Later on, the Recollects took over the church’s administration and you can therefore see influences of both missionary orders scattered throughout the building. In addition, the Baclayon houses a museum containing lots of church material. Unfortunately, access to the museum is not for the public and requires the permission of the parish.

If you’ll notice, it’s quite interesting that the Baclayon Church is right at the edge of the available high-resolution satellite imagery Google Maps has for Bohol (you can actually see the default Landsat imagery along the left side of the thumbnail). There’s no more hi-res photos along the coast to the west towards Tagbilaran City.

Anyway, if you want to read up quite a lot more about this church, the Baclayon entry on the Wikipedia article Churches in Bohol is a good place to start.

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Located in the southeastern part of the Visayan Sea, between Bohol and Leyte, is the really fascinating island of Dawahon. This island is actually a barangay of Bato, Leyte and it is the only barangay of the town outside the Leyte mainland. Along with the nearby island of Hingotanan in Bohol, Dawahon is home to a thriving seaweed industry and these two islands together produce about a third of total output of seaweed in the Philippines. Seaweed cultivation is actually quite lucrative that fishing is a far second industry in terms of livelihood for the residents of Dawahon.

Dawahon is home to 2,672 people (2007 census) and estimating from Google Maps, the island seems to have an area of around 5 hectares giving a rough population density of 53,000 people per square kilometer. That’s comparable to the City of Manila! The community on Dawahon is quite large enough that there are actually two sitios: Fatima in the western part and Santo Niño in the east.

If you want to see beautiful pictures of Dawahon and learn more about the island, then the blog of a guy named Farl is the definitive place to go. Check out his Dawahon chronicles: there is a part one and a part two.

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Photo by my friend Nina Fuentes

Jose “Pitok” V. Blanco, his wife Loreta, and all seven children are all accomplished painters versed in the “Folk Realism” style. What’s quite intriguing is that most of them have had no professional art training, especially the children. This celebrated art family is commemorated in the Blanco Family Museum located in Angono, Rizal, billed as the art capital of the Philippines. The museum houses a collection of paintings by the family members together with other memorabilia and is open 9-11 a.m and 1-5 p.m. everyday.

Just across the street from the museum is the Blanco Family Academy (official website). It is that big blue-roofed building shown in the satellite image thumbnail. The Academy is a private educational institution offering pre-school, elementary, and secondary education. While a normal school in most respects, the Blanco Family Academy places heavy emphasis in the fine and performing arts. (But of course!)

If you want to learn more and see more pictures (especially the paintings), see these other blog posts and web pages:

• Waypoint narrative from WaypointsDotPH
• Travel blog post with some socio-political side commentary by Connie Veneracion
• Short prose by Ivan Henares
• Flickr photos by Nina Fuentes

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I like interestingly-shaped landforms (for example, Apo Lakay-lakay) and I stumbled into one: a nice thin peninsula jutting out into Davao Gulf from Davao City. This peninsula is called Punta Dumalag and it’s an interesting place as well and not just a nondescript landform.

Punta Dumalag is located in Barangay Matina Aplaya of this progressive city. I guess the most important site on this peninsula is the Pawikan Sanctuary. In 2003, a local resident reported to authorities about the nesting habits of pawikan (Hawksbill turtles), which are endangered, in the area. Since the Aboitiz family owned the land there (which they bought back in the 1960s originally to put up a coal-fired power plant but which was eventually shelved due to environmental concerns), they decided to set up a turtle sanctuary instead and the Davao City goverment pushed to have the surroundings declared as a marine protected area.

Photo by myada97 (CC)

Aside from the turtle sanctuary, Punta Dumalag is also famous for being the setting of the award-winning and controversial indie film Imburnal. Imburnal, by Sherad Anthony Sanchez, depicts the lives of two street urchins spending their childhood in the dirty sewers of Punta Dumalag. The MTRCB thrice gave the film an X rating, which means it cannot be publicly screened. This didn’t stop the movie from getting the Woosuk Award (the top award) and the NETPAC Award from the Korean Jeonju International Film Festival earlier this year.

Well, there is one other attraction of Punta Dumalag and that is the Seagull Beach Resort on the western side of the peninsula. This resort boasts of white sand beaches, and very likely, turtle viewing tours as well (mating season permitting).

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Ever since I’ve started this blog, I’ve been waiting for Google to obtain high-resolution satellite imagery of Boracay for Google Maps. And that’s because I would then have plenty of new sights to feature here in Vista Pinas, Boracay being the tourist hotspot it is. I’ve actually featured White Beach way, way before since it’s quite visible in the default low-resolution Landsat satellite imagery in Google Maps. Unfortunately, you can’t see much more detail in there.

So if you’re looking for a good online map of Boracay, you can’t rely on Google Maps right now. However, you can with OpenStreetMap! Check it out below, or you can explore it on the main OpenStreetMap website. I believe that OpenStreetMap has the most-detailed, freely-available online map of Boracay anywhere.

I’ve mentioned OpenStreetMap (OSM) a couple of times before (like when I featured People’s Park in the Sky), and it is basically a worldwide crowdsourced mapping project. If you know Google Map Maker, it’s somewhat similar except that the OSM data is free for you to use under share-alike terms. You can build on it, combine it into countless mashups, create Garmin GPS maps with it, and do whatever you want (even sell the data), as long as you attribute the data to OpenStreetMap and tell people that the data is share-alike.

OSM mapping in Boracay has a pretty interesting history. The island’s major roads and many of its POIs (points of interests, like hotels and resorts) have been mapped by Mike Collinson, a British national, back in 2007 when he was in the country. Some other details on the island have been added by Bill Mitchell, an American who retired to Boracay.

Then earlier this year, the guys at Enthropia, who run Boracay.com.ph (which aims to be the premier directory site for Boracay hotels and resorts, bars, and restaurants), decided to sponsor a mapping trip to the island in order to improve their website. The lucky guy was Jim Morgan, a British expat and OpenStreetMapper, whom I’ve met back in March. He flew to the island and basically filled in the details and verified the work started by Mike. He also added some visual aids by approximating the area of each hotel and resort so that the map will not look empty.

To be clear, the Boracay map on OpenStreetMap definitely needs more mapping. There are plenty of walkways, paths, and more detail that could be added and the approximated shapes could use a lot more refinement. In addition, new resorts and hotels need to be added as well. But because this is OpenStreetMap, anyone can do it!

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