LOVELY LIANGA BY ARIEL ALLERA

Lovely Lianga

By ARIEL ALLOSADA ALLERA

"Would you have the time off to travel?" asked a friend. "I'd like you to go to a town called Lianga inSurigao Del Sur and write about your experience."

She came through the phone like a godsend tasked to save this writer from a potentially boring weekend. So, without making bones about the thought of another seemingly exciting trip, I nodded as if she were in front of me, "Dear, I have all the time in the world for travel!"

On a balmy Friday evening I boarded ship at the Port of Cebu together with a team. In less than ten hours we were already waking up to the early-morning sun of Surigao City, where a van had awaited, to carry us five excited souls through some of Surigao's seductive sights such as the Lake Mainit and the glitter and glitz of Butuan City to the awe and splendor of Lianga town.

The first to greet our hungry bunch was a tableful of Dr. Amado Layno family's Lianga classics, mostly seafoods ranging from shrimps to crabs to lobsters. But the family's visibly genuine hospitality and their abode's cozy ambiance made us guests more pampered than spoiled. The neighborhood, pastoral and bucolic, bespoke of the entire town's abundance of quiet and the richness of life, a map of a perfect hideaway from a deathly strenuous city fetes.

Lianga became a municipality October 17, 1919. It was named after two lovers, Liangan and Go, who tied their knot after the death of the girlfriend's father, a Manobo chieftain who ruled a peaceful settlement along the presently called Lianga River. Go was the lone survivor captured by the Manobo warriors in a bloody battle in Pananag-an Beach. He met Liangan and, soon after they exchanged their marital vows, they established their own settlement which they then called "Leanga."

Rich in biodiversity, Lianga boasts of its bundles of flora and throngs of fauna. It has a land area totalling to 25,000 hectares—20,000 of which is the timberland, the remainder comprising the settlement proper, agricultural areas and coconut plantations. We made our way to the Mahogany Forest in Sitio Neptune, Barangay Diatagon. Although I had been to a similar forest in Bilar, Bohol, it was here in Lianga where I started to fall in love with the woods. A companion shook me off from a minute of numb quietness, "Are you all right?" She didn't have the slightest idea that I had quietly built up a "mutual understanding" with Mother Nature under the dense umbrella of Mahogany trees. When I was presented, later, with a mug made wholly from a piece of ironwood called Magcono, I brought gratitude back to Cebu for my early-morning best friend. "Here's for the coffeeholic," Dr. Layno announced in jest.

Relatively the best-kept secret of Eastern Mindanao, Lianga is proudly facing the Pacific Ocean. And as proudly, we sailed on a pumpboat, hopping from one island to another within the crescent-like peninsula of Lianga Bay. Out of my wits, I was en route to what I now call the most unforgettable part of my Lianga experience. This over-confident, boisterously excited passenger slid through the slithery-as-an-onyx wing of the boat, that was already running somewhat a far cry away, beaching me, and causing me to flounder on the thankfully unruffled, clear waters. I swam like crazy, yielding like a baby to our host's gorgeous nephew, Jay-R Layno, who was kind enough to have plunged real quick with the purest (and the only) intention to save this self-confessed assuming sissy in the sea. It was impossible not to be when, with a flicker of something in his enthralling eyes, he breathed, "Come on. Hold me."

The sight of the beach on Busbon Island made everybody too impatient to get there. I couldn't help comparing the immaculate white sands to a face powder, the shade for a Korean model's skin. Alone and elated, I strolled along the shore and saw a man building a castle. I tried out my own beside his majestic formation but, too desperate to even mold its base, I resigned to the smooth grains of the sand hoping to steal a forty winks away from my less tired companions, under the mercifully not so sultry heat of the sun.

Not only does it teem with many islets of handsome shapes, such as the Turtle Island, the bay is also home to a seaweeds plantation and a 2,200-square meter fishpin owned and managed by the KMFI (Kalisod Ko, Tabangi Ko Micro-Development Training Corporation Foundation Incorporated). Both hold promise for the livelihood of the local folk whose main source of income is catching and selling fish. It goes without saying that Lianga Bay is not only a hub for tourists who want to have a ripping time island-hopping but, more important, a haven for those who want to make a living.

After a long day's tour of this middling town of Lianga, the Kansilad Beach Resort in Barangay Ganayon is perfect place to laze the afternoon away in a hammock, or along the sugar-white sandy beachfront, or around the tranquil repose of the resort.

I did just all. But after the sun had set and everybody said their curt good nights to each other, I willed not to let my last night in Lianga wind up without thanking the Lord for such a wondrously blessed respite from the daily grind of work and all the hustle and bustle of the city of Cebu.