INABANGA, Bohol. – Residents of this tranquil town are going through real suffering as they join the Christian world in the observance of Semana Santa recalling the passion of Christ some 2, 000 years ago.
Text and photos by COOPER RESABAL LOON, Bohol. Three years after the October 15 earthquake that hit Bohol hard, some residents of this island province are still haunted by the sudden loss of their loved ones. Many, however, have picked up the pieces of their lives shattered by the powerful tremor, and have since focused
By PROCOPIO RESABAL, JR TAGBILARAN CITY – In a bus terminal in the capital one morning, as a bus going to Ubay town fills up with passengers, PO3 Janew Villame boards the vehicle with his guitar, stands on the aisle behind the driver’s seat, and begins to sing “Round Bohol Rock.” The song, composed and
Text and Video By COOPER RESABAL MARIBOJOC, Bohol – Simeona Guilen, in her sixties, opens the pages of a discolored notebook containing the handwritten lyrics of “Daygon sa Igue-Igue/Pagkatawo” (Praise for the Birth), a fast disappearing folk Christmas musical tradition in the island province featuring dancing “pastores” (shepherds) and the Holy Couple being refused a
By PROCOPIO RESABAL, JR The TV White Space partnership, an innovative collaboration between the Philippine Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that extends internet access to remote and underserved coastal communities in the Philippines won this year’s Public-Private Partnership (P3) Impact
By COOPER RESABAL, VERA Files MARIBOJOC, Bohol – A middle-aged woman sweeps her hands across what appears to be a mosaic painting of stylized young seedlings on the front wall of a bamboo cottage in Toril village in this town. “This was made by volunteer tourist students of the Asian Institute of Tourism (AIT)
Text and Photos by COOPER RESABAL REBUILDING structures damaged by the 7.2 intensity earthquake that struck Bohol October last year not only means restoring the pre-earthquake look of the island province, but also involves harmonizing them with existing structures that reflect its colonial and non-colonial heritage. This was the gist of the training workshop “Design
By COOPER RESABAL MARIBOJOC, Bohol – A community-based tourism program has become a rehabilitation alternative for a village that was severely damaged by the October 15, 2013 earthquake in the tourist island of Bohol in the central Philippines. Barely six months after the 7.2 intensity tremor that damaged many structures, including houses and century-old
By COOPER RESABAL JR. TORIL, Maribojoc – On the eve of their fiesta, residents of this scenic barangay buried on Thursday a mother and a teenage girl who were casualties in a landslide triggered by the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that hit the island province of Bohol early morning on October 15. Ten days after the tremor that
(UPDATED) NO candidates in the upcoming barangay elections will be allowed to take part in relief operations in earthquake-ravaged Bohol, Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr warned on Wednesday. “The Commission on Elections is making sure that the distribution of relief will not be used for political purposes,” he said in a press briefing, adding that the