I was engrossed taking pictures of the different flowers in Baguio Botanical Garden for my blogs that I failed to notice the insects.

Oftentimes, life's like that. Some of the small but equally important stuffs were ignored, unnoticed or underestimated. There are even people who are taken for granted as if they don't exist at all.

This old Filipino verse tells us that each one is important somehow.

Aaahh...
what a bliss...
watching the sun goes down
splattering a silvery film on the sea
as a whif of breeze cools the beach.
Gently diminishing...
turning swirly clouds to gold,
blackening the horizon...
it swifts my soul in peaceful solitude.

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December 26, 2007. It was a busy day. Pogs' and Jean's wedding in Samal Island beach excited us to the bones. After bading the guests goodbye, our group decided to take a dip in the sea though it started to drizzle. Alas, after the rain, the sun came out the last time and exhibited an etherial exit.

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Calawagan River, found in Paluan, Occidental Mindoro, was awarded several times as the cleanest river in the Philippines and a Hall of Famer (1996-1998) of the DILG National Award for the said category.

A fellow fieldworker and me visited the area unintentionally! Our meeting with the local officials of Paluan went smoothly giving us lots of time to spare before our trip back home. Thank God some of the officials suggested we drop by at their river while waiting for the public utility van. Whew!!! I almost missed another glimpse of nature's exquisite beauty!

The river brought me back to my early years in Mankayan (a town in Benguet) where kids used rivers as swimming pools and explored rivulets catching frogs, tadpoles, eels and fish. It also made me remember of other rivers slowly "executed" and people do not care at all. Why have we let Pasig and Meycauayan Rivers degenerate? When will we notice the suffering of the rivers?

A river has to pass through a lot of obstacles just to reach its goal - to be one with all the other waters in the world. It never aims for high places. It always choses the lowest spot to keep it going on its journey. When a river can not go under or around a blockage, it gathers force to crash the impediment. But this body of water also knows when it is not powerful enough to bring down a barrier, at such, it keeps on rising up and go over the obstruction. The river's determination to reach its destination enables it to overcome all the diversions and obstacles along the way.

But nowadays, many of the rivers are not reaching their goal, they are growing weaker and weaker. There are no more forests to calm their rage when rain falls and to cheer them up when they get dry. The plants and animals that made them healthy and inspired slowly vanished. In replacement are tons and tons of wastes choking them from time to time.

As I watched Calawagan's crystal clear water drift by, I wonder how long will it remain this enthralling. Downstream, I can hear the hammering of powerful machines dredging the river for farm irrigation. That made me shiver.

I am just passing by...
and it is an uphill and narrow road.
But up there...
is a light beckoning me to move on.
Who knows how this journey ends?
I have no hunch...
but I believe...
it will be a rewarding one
as I live everyday well
and take it one day at a time.

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September, 2007. Ate Emma and me were going back to our base from a visit with the aquarium fish collectors and traders in one of the sitios of San Andres when we took this pathway shot, just in time before throng of students appeared. Life indeed is an uphill climb but it's a beautiful one.