Amalia B. Cabusao

Long before the island exploded across social media for its mystical “Fairy Walk” and death-defying cliff dives, Siquijor was where travelers from neighboring provinces went for some serious downtime. Roughly the size of Samal, the island has always kept its coves and lagoons just a scenic motorcycle ride away.

But among its many coastal treasures, one inland destination demands a quiet pause: the San Isidro Labrador Parish Church and Convent in Lazi. Stepping onto its grounds always brings a profound sense of peace—like walking directly into the layered, sometimes heavy remnants of our colonial past.

​Established as an independent parish on August 8, 1857, under the Augustinian Recollect missionaries, Lazi’s spiritual foundations run deeper than its stone walls. Our guide, Denis, shared an intriguing piece of institutional memory: the parish was actually administered by secular, diocesan priests before the Recollects took over. However, it was under the direction of a Recollect friar, Fr. Toribio Sánchez, that the grand structures we see today began to take shape.

​What stands now is a monument to the sweat and skill of late 19th-century Filipino artisans. Completed in 1884, with its companion bell tower rising a year later, the church is a breathtaking example of neoclassical architecture. It feels deeply rooted in the island because it is literally made of it—built from massive coral stones hauled and quarried from Siquijor’s surrounding reefs, and reinforced with the enduring strength of native molave hardwood that once abounded in the area.

​Inside the church, the preservation of its original elements is remarkable. The original wood flooring still creaks softly underfoot, leading the eyes toward the twin pulpits and the weathered dignity of the original retablo (altar centerpiece). Across the street sits its sprawling convent—one of the largest in Asia—which remains functional to this day, its second floor still safekeeping centuries-old Church artifacts.

​History has rightfully taken notice of this heritage. The complex was declared a National Historical Landmark in 1984, followed by its designation as a National Cultural Treasure by the National Museum of the Philippines in 2001. Since 2006, it has rested on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List as part of the “Baroque Churches of the Philippines (Extension)” collective, alongside the equally storied parishes of Boljoon, Guiuan, Loboc, and Tumauini.

​Standing in the nave, watching the afternoon light filter through the old windows, you realize that Lazi is not only an architectural marvel but, like most old structures, bridges the past to help us better understand our identity. That matters.

June arrives every year dressed in color—rainbow flags catching the breeze, laughter spilling into the streets, and voices rising not just in celebration, but in defiance. For those unfamiliar with or unmoved by Pride, the spectacle can seem excessive, even puzzling. Why the noise? Why the flags? Why, after all this time, the marches?

We march because the right to exist—fully, openly, and without apology—is not yet guaranteed everywhere. And where it is, it was fought for.

To understand the weight of that fight, one needs only to look at how these global ripples touch our local shores. Last Thursday, the Davao Historical Society’s Throwback Thursday forum at the Abreeza Mall turned its lens toward our recent past, unpacking the evolution of gender in pop culture to coincide with Pride Month. The goal was to trace how today’s creative landscape is slowly shattering old stereotypes, moving away from the rigid, often harmful media tropes of the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to carve out spaces for authentic representation.

But history isn’t just found in old television clips; it lives in the memories of those who survived it.

Panelists Olson Rivera and Bobby Castillo, high school batchmates from the Ateneo de Davao, recalled a time when they were known as part of the “Huling Barako”—the final all-male batch before the campus went co-ed. Growing up in the 1970s and early ’80s, the local queer community was far from vibrant; social stigma was thick, heavy, and silent.

For Bobby, a deeply accepting family provided a rare shield, giving him the safety to be loud, proud, and free. Olson’s path required a different kind of armor: she had to study relentlessly and excel academically just to secure positive attention and support from her parents. Decades later, Rowen Gonzales, a Gen Z student from the University of the Philippines Mindanao, reminded the room that while the new generation stands firmly on the shoulders of these pioneers, they face entirely new anxieties in a hyper-connected digital age.

Some of those persistent challenges are structural, deeply tied to basic human rights. Jesse Madriaga, the forum’s moderator and the communication management focal for the Department of Health, noted that health remains a primary battleground.

“The conversation about health is inextricably linked to the journeys shared by the LGBT community,” Madriaga observed. As HIV education, testing, and treatment become more accessible, the community has a greater opportunity to practice holistic care. This means looking beyond medicine to nurture safe spaces, provide robust mental health support, and aggressively address gender-based violence.

“We live with joy and love with pride,” Madriaga said, “knowing that the choices to better our health are as diverse as the identities and lifestyles we celebrate.”

This local tapestry of struggle and progress mirrors a much longer global timeline. Pride began not as a party, but as a protest. On June 28, 1969, patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York City—led largely by transgender women of color and gay men—fought back against a brutal police raid. That single uprising sparked a global movement. The first Pride marches the following year were acts of raw survival, a collective shout into the void: we are here, we are human, we are not going away.

More than five decades later, the landscape has fundamentally shifted. Dozens of countries have legalized same-sex unions. Public figures live openly across a spectrum of identities. In the Philippines, localized anti-discrimination ordinances protect LGBTQ+ individuals in several major cities, and queer representation in literature and media has grown exponentially. Young people today grow up with a nuanced vocabulary—queer, non-binary, pansexual, gender fluid—that simply did not exist in mainstream discourse a generation ago.

Pride, then, is less about checking a box of victories and more about a statement of presence: the struggle continues, and those who have survived deserve to be witnessed.

To understand why this resonance runs so deep, we must look at what is actually at stake in the human experience of identity. Social theorists have long argued that identity is not something we are born with, fully formed. It is something we actively construct through interaction, language, and social recognition.

Psychologist Erik Erikson’s foundational work established that a coherent sense of self is a psychological necessity. We form who we are in response to the social world around us; when that world rejects a core part of our being, the damage is existential. The cultural theorist Stuart Hall described identity as a continuous process—never fixed, never complete, but perpetually produced through lived experience.

More recently, philosopher Judith Butler’s work on performativity deepened this understanding. Butler argues that gender is not an inner essence, but a series of repeated social performances shaped by rigid cultural norms that reward conformity and punish deviation. When LGBTQ+ individuals refuse to perform the gender or sexuality assigned to them, they are not confused—they are being honest. Their visibility disrupts the comforting illusion that there is only one acceptable way to be human.

This truth was aptly captured by Bobby Castillo during the forum, who recalled a common, conditional acceptance from his youth: “You can be gay. But be a good gay.” Today, that survival mechanism is evolving into something simpler and far more profound: you can be whatever you want to be—just be a good human being.

This is precisely why representation matters. When a young person sees someone like themselves on a screen, in a book, or in a classroom—and that person is not portrayed as a villain, a punchline, or a tragedy—something shifts in their sense of possibility. Identity construction requires mirrors. Pride holds those mirrors up.

To celebrate Pride is not to declare final victory. It is to hold space for those who are still afraid to speak their truth. Until that space is safe for everyone, the colors matter. The noise matters. The march matters.

We used to brag about our streets. For years, Davao City wore its cleanliness like a badge of honor, a badge to a disciplined populace. But walk outside today, and that pride evaporates into a thick haze.

Lately, the entire city has been deeply disturbed—not just by the sickening stench of rotting stacks of garbage, but by the very real, ticking health timebomb these eyesores present to residents. Piles of plastic bags, organic waste, and discarded packaging sit melting under the unforgiving tropical sun by day, only to be washed into our drainage systems by intermittent rains at night.

In the blink of an eye, a city famously known for its pristine streets is wrestling with its most basic civic duty: deciding where to put its trash.

Our waste management services didn’t just slide downhill; they collapsed. Literally.

On May 20, 2026, following days of torrential rain, an unstable mountain of garbage at the New Carmen Sanitary Landfill gave way. The resulting trash slide was catastrophic. It claimed the life of one resident, left several others injured, and exposed an underbelly of long-ignored violations—from dangerously steep slopes to inadequate leachate treatment. Within 48 hours, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) suspended landfill operations to facilitate retrieval efforts and ensure slope stabilization.

Suddenly, the invisible became impossible to ignore.

The New Carmen facility, a seven-hectare site that opened back in 2009, has been gasping for air for years. While the city has planned a Php 500-million expansion for an adjacent nine-hectare facility, that future fix does nothing for the present crisis. Councilor Tek Ocampo, chairperson of the City Council Committee for the Environment, stated the obvious last week: the city has to collect garbage, given the staggering volume we generate daily.

How much is that, exactly? Davao churns out 700 to 800 tons of trash per day. That means the city produces roughly 50 kilos of waste daily per resident. It is a crushing, unsustainable weight.

Here is the tragedy of our situation: over 60% of our daily trash consists of organic kitchen and food waste.

Read that again. More than half of what is currently choking our streets is biodegradable. If we simply separated our food scraps and organic matter at the source, we could drastically reduce the immediate volume suffocating our neighborhoods.

The Reality Check: We don’t have a garbage problem as much as we have a segregation problem.

The campaign for proper waste management has been going on for over a decade. The call for household-level segregation has been consistently promoted, yet these efforts haven’t shifted our collective behavior. We continue to throw away household waste mixed carelessly with recyclable or reusable materials.

Years ago, the concept of color-coded trash bins failed because the logistics weren’t there; we didn’t have different trucks to collect different wastes. Because the system felt broken, our collective desire for proper waste management just went down the drain. We returned to what was comfortable: dumping everything into a single black bag and hoping it would disappear from sight like magic.

Yet, a casual drive through our neighborhoods tells a completely different story. The system is failing on the ground because the chain of discipline has broken at the household level.
It is deeply alarming to watch our city change because uncollected garbage is now sitting on street corners like it’s renting space. We don’t have to imagine the swarms of flies or the rodents gallivanting across these piles—we see them. It’s a commercial nightmare, especially where rows of restaurants serve food just meters away from rotting waste. Worse, whenever heavy rains burst those bags open, toxic leachate seeps directly into our drainage, raising the terrifying specter of waterborne illnesses.

This crisis is a loud, foul-smelling wake-up call. We can no longer treat waste management as an invisible utility that operates on a single-site dependency. We cannot just throw things “away,” because “away” has officially run out of room.

Until the new facility opens its gates, our health and sanity rest on a fragile compromise. The government must fast-track safe, modern engineering at the landfill, but we, as households, must finally take segregation seriously. If we refuse to change our behavior at the kitchen sink, we will continue to pay a heavy, hazardous price for the trash we so eagerly try to push out of sight. That’s what matters.

Last Saturday, May 30, 2026, the Davao Writers Guild and our young writing fellows arrived at Del Monte on Samal Island just as dusk was falling, marking the culmination of our closing ceremonies. Our destination, Sunset Hill, is an elegant private home perched gracefully beside the sea, featuring a wide patio perfect for intimate gatherings. Though we missed the actual sunset, it wasn’t hard to imagine how glorious it must have been as it descended over the Samal Strait.

For the DWG members, the preceding community outreach with teachers from 17 schools across Samal was an eye-opener. Most of these educators face the daunting task of teaching literature and creative writing to high schoolers today. They shared the reality of competing with the hyper-stimulating, algorithmic pull of social media and the instant gratification of generative AI. Jhoanna Cruz, former President of DWG, agreed, noting that the attention span of the younger generation has been cut down to a mere two seconds to be hooked by the written word.

Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram reels have conditioned students to consume fragmented, fast-paced content, reducing their patience for sustained reading. Literature teachers struggle to engage students with dense, long-form texts when young brains are used to 15-second visual hooks. This creates a stubborn resistance to deep textual analysis and the slow, deliberate process of critical thinking.

Yet, this uphill battle is precisely why regional storytelling remains vital. For decades, mainstream narratives frequently painted Mindanao solely through the restrictive lens of conflict and neglect. The Guild has been instrumental in dismantling this image, replacing it with a literary landscape that is fiercely complex, multilingual, and profoundly alive.

Through the stories now emerging from our island, the persistent myth of Mindanao as a land of perpetual strife or a region relegated to the margins of development is slowly being dismantled. Even in the digital age, many in other parts of the country still harbor the outdated view of Mindanao as backward and slow-paced. However, the literature rising from this island, vibrant stories of abundance, resilience, and a thriving contemporary culture, is powerful enough to challenge those misconceptions and permanently reshape national perceptions.

“Poetry is a language by which we can understand the world,” Cruz said during her welcoming remarks at the forum—a sentiment that resonates deeply today. Since antiquity, leaders and thinkers have turned to poetry to illuminate complex truths that an essay simply cannot capture. Even revolutionaries who altered the course of history, such as Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong, were poets who used verse to articulate the raw realities of their struggle and the future they envisioned for their nations.

During our gathering, Errol Merquita, one of our prominent Binisaya writers, read his piece entitled “Unsaon Pagpatay Ug Ok-ok” (How to Kill a Cockroach) in a tongue-in-cheek, darkly comedic style that hit the mark perfectly.

On the surface, the act of exterminating an ok-ok is an everyday chore born of disgust. Yet, rendered through Merquita’s contemporary Mindanawon lens, this domestic nuisance transforms into a powerful political allegory. The cockroach—a resilient scavenger thriving exclusively in darkness and decay—serves as a potent symbol for the systemic corruption, historical distortions that fester beneath the surface of our collective consciousness. Merquita captures the insidious nature of modern institutional violence and marginalization. It forces us to confront an uncomfortable reality: the most devastating forces of erasure in our society rarely announce themselves with a loud bang. They occur quietly in the shadows, out of public view. His work challenges us to illuminate the dark corners of our history before the things that scuttle in the dark consume us entirely.

By the time our evening wound down, the moon had become a heavy yellow orb struggling to maintain its brightness amid the gathering dark clouds. A quiet settled over us as we finally began to make our way toward the vans waiting at the gate.

In the end, we think all that matters is that we keep writing, keep teaching, and keep telling our stories, hoping for a little bit of change. Basin pa diay.

The recently concluded 3rd Mindanao Book Festival, organized by MindaNews and Ateneo de Davao University, showed how prolific our Mindanawon authors have become in telling the story of Mindanao.

Professor Mansoor Limba, one of the most prolific authors in the region, captured the essence of this creative struggle beautifully in a recent social media post. To be an author, he writes, is to engage in a form of “beautiful madness.”

As Professor Limba puts it:

“You write when exhausted. You edit when uncertain. You publish despite knowing that books from the margins rarely enjoy the privileges of those from the center. And yet you continue.”

Expressing his gratitude to the organizers for the invitation to join the Forum on Independent Publishing, he noted that the event transcended a standard panel discussion. Instead, it became a moment of raw, honest storytelling—a rare window to share the intimate, ongoing journey of independent creators.

It is a journey that began amid the deep uncertainties of the pandemic, fueled by a stubborn dream to build a publishing platform dedicated entirely to Mindanawon writers and translators. It is defined by the quiet, daily struggle to sustain literature deeply rooted in memory, faith, history, identity, and resistance.

There is no grand corporate machinery behind operations like Professor Limba’s ElziStyle Bookshop. There is only conviction. Only persistence. Only the unwavering belief that the stories of Mindanao deserve to be printed, read, remembered, and carried far beyond the shores of the island itself.

Dr. Patricio “Jojo” Abinales, a prominent Filipino political historian, author, and professor (ret.) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa presented his insights on this framework during his lecture titled “Mindanao as Historical Center.” Professor Abinales uses the framework of the Nusantara to  reframe how we look at the Philippines, challenging the traditional “Manila-centric” narrative of history.

For generations, mainstream Philippine history has been written with a heavy imperial accent. Our textbooks tell a story that begins and ends in Manila, treating the capital as the sole cradle of power, commerce, and civilization. Through this hyper-centralized lens, Mindanao is routinely pushed to the margins—reduced to a quiet afterthought, a passive periphery, or worse, a perpetually troubled frontier.

But if you zoom out and look at the fluid, borderless canvas of maritime Southeast Asian history, that entire narrative crumbles.

As Prof. Abinales points out, long before Spanish sails ever loomed over Luzon, Mindanao wasn’t a remote edge; it was a booming center. To understand how, he invokes the concept of the Nusantara—the classic Indonesian-Malay term for the vibrant archipelago of maritime Southeast Asia.

By anchoring Mindanao within the Nusantara world, Abinales reminds us that the south was never isolated. It was a vital, pulsing hub in a massive web of seafaring trade. Centuries before Western colonizers arrived to draw arbitrary national borders, the Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao were already sophisticated maritime states, holding their own in direct diplomatic and economic trade with China, the Malay Peninsula, the Indonesian islands, and far beyond.

This global exposure didn’t disappear with colonial rule; it evolved. By the early 20th century, regions like Davao and Sulu were wired directly into the global economy. This is precisely what historian Dr. Patricia Irene Dacudao uncovers in her book, Abaca Frontier: The Socioeconomic and Cultural Transformation of Davao, 1898–1941. She maps out how Davao’s massive hemp industry tied the local landscape and its diverse communities straight to major global markets in Japan, the United States, and Europe.

When we look through the lens of the Nusantara, we stop viewing the southern Philippines as a disconnected borderland. We see it for what it has always been: a vibrant geopolitical crossroads. Shifting our perspective from a rigid, land-bound national history to a fluid, maritime regional history allows Mindanao to finally reclaim its rightful place as a historical center.

The Mindanao Book Festival, now in its third year, is proof that the ground is shifting. But we need more. We need a steady, relentless wave of new writing to fully unravel, document, and celebrate these hidden layers of our past.

Because rewriting our story from the ground up—and finally seeing ourselves clearly—is all that matters.

On the eve of the 60th World Day of Social Communications May 16, 2020,  the Vatican issued a papal decree establishing a new Interdicasterial Commission on Artificial Intelligence. This new institution within the Catholic Church addresses the rapid rise of algorithmic media, deepfakes, and automated narratives, grounding the global conversation in the defense of human dignity. These are the issues that media face today.

This aligns  with the core message of Pope Leo XIV, who has challenged the global community to focus on “Preserving Human Voices and Faces” in an AI-driven age. The Church’s perspective treats social communication not merely as a network for sharing information, but as a space for authentic human encounter. By insisting that our unique traits—our literal faces and voices—are the sacred reflection of the divine, the Church warns against reducing human identity to biochemical formulas or mathematical data. (World Social Communication Day)

Last Saturday, at the Bishop Benny Tudtud Conference Hall, Ateneo de Davao, media, academe and members of Church organizations and civic society came for the 2^nd Archbishop Thibault Award. Named in honor of Archbishop Clovis Thibault, the first Roman Catholic archbishop of Davao, this award serves as a beacon for media practitioners in the region. It was established to recognize journalists, broadcasters, and media institutions that  the show the power of communication to promote truth, justice, peace, and human development.

In the context of Mindanao’s complex socio-political history, the role of local journalism is uniquely challenging. Reporting requires a deep sensitivity to cultural nuances, historical contexts, and peace-building efforts. The Archbishop Thibault Award addresses this by explicitly honoring work that goes beyond standard reporting to touch the lives of everyday Davaoeños, fostering unity in a diverse society.

The significance of the Archbishop Thibault Award extends far beyond the trophies handed out at a gala. It shapes the very culture of the local press in several distinct ways. By rewarding stories that focus on human dignity and community development, the award incentivizes journalists to look past blood, crime, and political mudslinging, focusing instead on structural issues and constructive solutions. Mindanao has long dealt with the challenges of conflict and misrepresentation. The award highlights narratives of peace, interfaith dialogue, and reconciliation, proving that harmony makes for vital, compelling news. Local journalists often operate with fewer resources than their national counterparts. This recognition validates their grit and reminds them that their dedication to grassroots storytelling has a profound regional impact.

The Archbishop Thibault Award and the principles of social communication share a symbiotic relationship. The award acts as an annual reminder of what journalism should aspire to be. It champions the idea that the ultimate metric of a journalist’s success is not just the scoop, but the positive resonance their story leaves within the community.

This year’s winner is Nova Francas, correspondent of Mindanews who also won in two categories: Laudato Si (Care for our Common Home) and Laborem Exercens. Other media organizations such as SunStar Davao, PTV 4, City Information Office (Mfayaw) and the Atenews, were also winners in other categories.

When a Davaoeño journalist wins this award for documenting a remote indigenous community’s struggle for education, or for highlighting a successful farmers organization, social communication is at work. The journalist has acted as a bridge, bringing a micro-narrative into the macro-consciousness of the city, prompting reflection, empathy, and potential action.

As the media landscape continues to evolve with AI, social media algorithms, and shifting business models, the temptation to abandon deep, community-centric reporting grows. In this climate, anchors like social communication and institutions like the Archbishop Thibault Award are more critical than ever.

They remind us that at its core, journalism is a human endeavor. By keeping the lines of social communication open and celebrating those who do so with integrity, Davao City ensures its press remains what it was always meant to be: a voice for the voiceless and a mirror for the soul of the community.

We would like to congratulate the organizing committee of this prestigious award led by Rev. Fr. Ritsche Gamaya for their heartfelt commitment and effort to making this event possible.

LAST SUNDAY, May 3, under a sky heavy with the threat of rain, Davao City paused to remember a special day in our history. The Davao Historical Society, with representatives from the city government, the Security Sector, the Veterans Federation, and the Sons and Daughters of Veterans, gathered at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Masonic Cemetery, Fr. Selga St., Madapo Hills.

The ceremony marked the 81st Liberation Day of Davao, a date enshrined in a city ordinance to ensure the valor of our predecessors is never eclipsed by time. Among the attendees was the afternoon’s most distinguished guest: World War II Veteran Florante Mallari, a living bridge to our city’s most defiant hour.

To understand why this date remains a pillar of our local identity, we must revisit the grit and sacrifice it represents. Below, we are printing the speech delivered by Luzviminda Ilagan, President of the Davao Historical Society, which provides the vital historical context of our liberation:

“Today, May 3, we celebrate the 81st anniversary of the Liberation of Davao.

In early 1945, while Manila had already been liberated after intense urban combat, fighting was still ongoing in other parts of the country, including Mindanao. On April 17, 1945, the US 8th Army made its first landing on Mindanao, the last of the islands in the Philippines to be retaken.

The Japanese garrison in Mindanao was estimated to be around 30,000 soldiers belonging to two divisions of the Imperial Army. One-half of their strength was concentrated in the Davao area, while the remaining half was spread out in Misamis Oriental and Northern Mindanao. From the narrative of Gen. Nelson Estares of the Davao Historical Society, we learn that while the 10th Corps of the landing forces was hugely challenged by the mountainous, unexplored areas and the rough terrain of Mindanao, the 19th Infantry Regiment was marching and had reached Digos from Kabacan.

They passed through the 34th Infantry Regiment—both organic units of the 24th Infantry Division—which had begun driving northward toward Davao. The 24th Infantry Division was now responsible for capturing Davao, preparing an attack against the main body of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 100th Division, and gaining contact with the guerrilla forces that held a line of outposts 20 miles north of Davao.

They had traveled 115 miles under severe heat, humidity, and constant rain to seize Davao City, the last major city under Japanese control.

Fierce fighting broke out in the Toril and Tugbok areas. Afterward, the Japanese forces withdrew to Mandug and on to the mountain fastness of Calinan.

History tells us that bridges play an important role in crucial battles. They are either blown up to prevent enemies from crossing or used as passageways toward ultimate victory. On May 3, combat elements of the 19th and 21st Infantry Regiments of the US 24th Division, directly supported by the 107th Division of Filipino guerrillas—who were veterans of the Battle of Ising in Carmen—finally crossed the Gov. Generoso Bridge.

That same day, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Southwest Pacific Area Commander, announced that strategic victory had been attained in Mindanao. Davao City, the first to be bombed after Pearl Harbor, was the last to be cleared of Japanese control.

That historic date is the basis of our celebration of the liberation of Davao. Today, we honor the valiant heroism of our Filipino veterans who fought side by side with the liberating forces so that we can enjoy the freedom we now possess.

Thus, the Davao Historical Society drives home the point that we must have a sense of history—to fully understand the past, appreciate the present, and prepare for the future.

And we will not look at the Bankerohan and the Governor Generoso Bridge the same way again.”

Davao’s liberation was not merely a military victory; it was the reclaiming of our home. By honoring the “Unknown Soldiers” and hearing the stories of those like Mr. Mallari, we ensure that the peace we enjoy today is recognized for what it truly is: a hard-won inheritance.