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[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW | Let ‘kasadya’ be where Caluya was’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Friday, March 31, 2017
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THIS CLUSTER of islets that comprise Caluya – the only isolated municipality of Antique – does not look as sad as it sounds. Instead of “kaluya” (which means “sadness” in English), there is now “kasadya” or happiness thereat.
Through the initiative of Mayor Genevive Lim Reyes, the airport and wharf, when completed, would zoom travel time between Caluya and the towns of Pandan and Culasi; and between Caluya and Boracay Island. It would also trigger trade with the rest of the Philippines.
During a visit to Caluya, I had the opportunity to listen to a grandpa recalling his childhood days. As a pupil he would wake up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m., walk three hours to school on barefoot, walk back home and spend the night doing his homework under candle light.
Today, it’s different. Caluya enjoys electricity. As confided to this writer by Pauline Gerochi, the public information officer of the municipality:
“I know this guy named Larry Calinog, 47. He was still a child when Caluya was just a reclusive group of islands within the Tablas Strait. Its residents settled for streets just wide enough for people to pass, unpaved roads only carabao carrozas could squeeze through, very little electricity or none at all, opportunities for higher education distant, and their livelihood dependent on meager crops, raising livestock and seaweed farming.”
But now, seaweed farming has become a profitable livelihood of the townsfolk. Caluya is now the fifth largest seaweed producer in the country. Needing no fertilizer, it takes only about three to four weeks to harvest.
After the seaweed reaches its adult stage, they harvest and hang it on the side of the road to dry. Compradors buy it at around P300 per kilo and send it to Cebu where it is processed into carrageenan, a gum that is used as stabilizer or thickener in jellies and dairy products, processed meat, toothpaste and pharmaceutical products.
Thanks to its rich deposit of coal at Semirara Island, the Semirara Mining Corporation has made Caluya the richest municipality of Antique, jumping from 4th class to 1st class municipality.
The majestic municipal hall, a stone’s throw away from the beach, mirrors progress. So, too, do the concrete buildings, the creeping road network, electricity and water system.
Most of the eight islands comprising the isolated municipality 36 kilometers off the northeastern mainland have tourism potentials, given the opportunity to develop. Being only three hours away by boat from the famous but now congested Boracay Island, the “spillover” tourists could turn it into another “paradise” where they can go snorkeling, diving, boating or swimming.
Blessed with beaches that have finer sand than Boracay, wonders more astounding than Bohol, minerals more valuable than those of Davao, waters clearer and richer than those of Palawan, and people who have unwavering love and loyalty to the land of their birth, Caluya may project itself into the throes of fame and success in the near future.
The people of Caluya are being treated to projects that cater from womb to tomb, spanning education, infrastructure, health, job opportunities, tourism, and people empowerment. Water and electricity in Caluya are subsidized, and materials needed for their installation like pipes and wires are freely provided.
The children of the poor enjoy subsidized education programs that entitle them to free school supplies, feeding programs, and transportation to and from school. The deserving ones finish college through full scholarship programs.
Incidentally, Mayor Genevive Lim-Reyes has been elected president of the League of Municipalities, Antique chapter. It would be no exaggeration to say that most of the province’s 18 mayors would ask her to run for congresswoman in 2019. (hvego@yahoo.com/PN)
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