The Kindess of (Filipino) Strangers

With the great diversity of sights  the Philippines has to offer, it is quite expected that foreigners who talk about their experience here end up discussing different things. But while they may not always agree which beach is the most beautiful, or which mountain is more worthy of being climbed, one thing I noticed is that they always say that Filipinos are among the nicest and most hospitable people they've met.

The cynic that I am, I've always thought that it's because they're foreigners, and we're always nicer to foreigners.

I was wrong. The instant I needed the kindness of strangers, my fellow Filipinos came through.




Last week, I decided that I wanted---no, needed to go to the beach. It's been seven months since I last dug my toes into the sand, and for someone who honestly believes that she was a mermaid in her past life, this was an eternity.

So I asked my friends who would be willing to go to the beach with me.

All but one declined.

Normally I'd lay on the guilt on them hard("How can you call yourself my friend when you won't even go to the beach with me?"), but since this was on a one day's notice, I forgave them. haha

My friend and I, without really doing proper research, set off to Marinduque's Maniwaya Island. And after 4 hours on a bus, 3 hours on a ferry, 1 hour on a van, 15 minutes on a tricycle, and 1 hour on a boat, we finally reached the island's powdery white shores.

Then came the search for accommodations. I didn't expect it to be difficult because, really, who knows about this tiny Maniwaya Island? Well, apparently, everyone and their mother. We arrived on a Friday and were planning to stay for two nights, but all the resorts that lined the beach were booked for Saturday-Sunday, so they could only accommodate us for a night.


We were resigned to the  fact that we were going to be sleeping in a tent for two days when we decided to ask just one last resort. Called Villa Atilana, this one was a few hundred meters or so from the shore and had a charming look to it. We asked the owner, Atilana Rodriguez, aka Tita Ligaya, if they could spare a room. She said they didn't have any airconditioned rooms available, but that we could use her tree house which she doesn't normally rent out. We were saved!

We would have been happy with this, but she also gave us a 25% discount since there were only two of us, and when we asked how much it would cost to go island hopping, she said she would just arrange it so we could join a group and not have to pay for an entire boat by ourselves. We didn't even ask her to do this for us, she just did.

There were other people too. Like the boatman who brought us to the island. He kept following us as we searched for a room, telling us which resorts are cheap, which are safe, which had a pool. Then he just quietly left us when we reached the last stretch of the beach, where the bigger resorts were. I'm guessing that he did this to make sure we wouldn't get lost or that we wouldn't, out of desperation, check in to a seedy resort.

And then there was also the vendor who gave us very detailed instructions about a shorter route back to Manila, and the vendor beside her who basically just told us to just follow her lead since she was traveling to the capital too.

So I guess yeah, the foreigners were right.

Home for two days