Warrior Pilgrimage

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on February 22, 2010

HAVE YOU NOTICED Cebu City's map or have tried walking upon its city streets or, better still, have ridden around the suburbs of this Queen City of the South? Chances are you would see street names where you would least expected it or getting curious as to how city planners of the past label such streets in a roughshod manner? Sometimes, if not, most of the time, you'll get confused.

Take for example V. Gullas ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on February 8, 2010

WE WERE IN A celebratory mood as we drove from Toledo City down to Pinamungajan town on the west coast of Cebu in the morning of October 14, 2009. Eddie Alberca drove the white Suzuki Every220 and Noel Ronquillo sat beside him. Meanwhile, I have all the spaces in the back seat. Willy Sulib, drove from behind us on board his motorcycle.

It is a fine Thursday morning even when the clouds were wispy gray and ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on February 1, 2010

I GOT SICK today. It is Saturday, January 23, 2010. I have been vacillating in my bed if I will go to work today or not. Wife Vilma is already up and went to the market minutes ago to buy something for breakfast. Youngest son, Cherokee, is feeding his pigeons while grandsons Jarod and little Gabriel are busy perfecting their Navy SEAL skills.


A knock on the door send the duo scurrying towards there ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on January 22, 2011

I STARED AT THE far expanse of the metropolis and all its neighboring islands as I stood on the ridge of the Babag Mountain Range. It's just another regular Sunday for me hiking alone on the trails. It is September 6, 2009 and this is my twenty-fifth session here. Oh, I just arrived yesterday from Iloilo, crossing two bodies of water – the Guimaras and Tañon straits – and a whole day of travelling by bus over the great Panay ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on January 15, 2010

I AM A COLLECTOR of knives and other bladed weapons. No, I don't display my collections. I used these to test its limit and even carry these most of the time for my protection. One of those that I collect is a MANTRACK survival knife. An old friend gave this to me in 2004 during the time of the last years of my self-styled “warrior pilgrimage”.


The whole material is made of cold steel and anodized ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on January 8, 2010

I HAVE BEEN LOOKING forward for a long time to travel the whole island of Cebu in a long and continuous journey. When I was a young man and plenty of time then, that was more than twenty-five years ago, I used to go out to the far reaches of the province to the north and into the south, yet I was not able to complete that dream trip.


Then on June 28 and 29, 2009, my life-long dream of going on a circumferential ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on January 1, 2010

IT HAD BEEN A year already when I first climbed Mount Babag by way of Ernie's Trail, a steep and challenging route named after my climbing buddy – Ernie Salomon. That was on August 17, 2008. Since then I have climbed her twenty-three times alone or with a group. I aim to complete a full year cycle by climbing her again on August 23, 2009. This would be my twenty-fourth incursion there.

I brought two hawk feathers ...