Manila to Mindanao: Finding the fit for the domestic drummer
Ah, the move. It is by far the question I have been most asked, so I think this is a good place to start back writing as any. The move from the city to the province is usually one that is met with the question of “Why?”—with the very “polite” follow-up of “Is this the midlife crisis?” and rounded off with how I am regretting this decision.
So let’s start at the beginning: Why. I have had this feeling for quite some time before even moving to the province of just not quite fitting into the jigsaw shape Manila was offering for me to occupy, and it was getting uncomfortable. The hustle and bustle of Manila, unlike, say, New York or London, I find much more frenetic, haphazard, and most times frustrating to a point of screams through tears. This is what I experienced anyway, and was feeling at the time before my move.
Let me be clear: I have had a love affair with Manila for decades—the sights, sounds, smells, people, cars, and energy. It is the place I have lived the longest, by far. But there had always been something tugging at my soul, saying that this was not the final level of the game. Manila, love it or hate it, is a transit point for me. A holding area, if you will. Though this is where the majority of my friends and family reside, there is just something that was pulling me out of it.
This, too, was a factor in why it took a long time for me to process what I really wanted and what I wanted to do with that. I would have to leave all those who know me best behind, and move to somewhere they may, once or twice, come to visit, if I’m even that lucky.
This was one of the only reasons why I postponed moving out again and again: because I was not sure I would be able to stay as connected as I would like to be to those I consider important. The FOMO of not being able to just go and meet up was a convenience I had to think about as well.
Once I did, though, I gave myself a deadline for leaving Manila, and that deadline was 2018. The specifics of this were more based on what I wanted for my kid than anything else. I wanted to try out a different way of life, and hopefully he could pick up one of our languages, like Ilocano or Bisaya, neither of which I am fluent in (yet. I am trying).
There was also the undeniable spurring on of adventure to somewhere new, which was undeniably intoxicating as well. I did realize, too, that my sensibilities at this point in my life were not attuned anymore to what was being offered in Manila, at least in my circle of reality.
The times I have traveled out of the metro have also helped shape this belief: that going into the countryside, the beach, the mountains, the probinsya was the best way to live out my years. My travels around the Philippines had already planted the idea that life beyond Manila might be the life I wanted. I wanted to move out of the city, not necessarily the country, even if I was just playing with the idea of doing so. The only question was where? Back to Ilocos Norte?
This was answered by my hubby. He is from Cagayan de Oro, and thus, that is where I ended up. He jokes that it was because I moved for love, and perhaps that was part of it, but he showed me part of the Philippines I never had a chance to really experience and see, until he took me around Misamis Occidental and Misamis Oriental.
There is something in the air and water it seems that somehow just locks into my soul, my gut; a feeling that I belong here. To me it was, and largely still is, almost uncharted territory for me. Knowing how the news is almost always just whatever is catchy for a headline, I was finding out that this region had a lot more to offer than what was being told on blaring radios and TVs, and social media.
The Mindanaoans are as proud as they are kind and giving, and I wish more of their own kababayan would see that and get over the stereotype of the region. As one of the oldest, and in my opinion, one of the most regal of our kababayans, their history is just as steadfast as that of the Igorot and the Ilocano.
In fact, I learned that there were a lot of Ilocanos that have made the same journey that I was deciding to embark on; it made me feel sure that this move was the right one, for me. So off I went, with a couple of dogs, a kid, and my heaps of stuff to a place I had previously been to maybe twice in my life.
There is something about Cagayan de Oro that captured my attention, my gut even, and it is not just the food (though that, I believe, I need to delve into next time), but the people.
I cannot get over how incredibly fun they all are, and without agenda or guile. They just are. And they are always ready to invite you to their farm or mountains somewhere, which in the beginning, I thought would be the best beginning to a horror movie, but I have since learned is because of this simple truth: why hang out in the heat of the city, when you can hang out in the shade of a tree overlooking a ridge somewhere with a view?
Now, one thing about me: over recent decades, I’ve come to realize that I am not as big a beach person as I thought I was, but rather love the coziness and almost magical air that comes when you step into mountains and forests. I joke that I am in my Crone Era, so this is as on-brand as it gets, I guess.
But I have to also say, though, that while the goal was and still is the quieter, slower pace of life, I realized that I had moved to one of the biggest cities in the Philippines. It is an emerging chartered city of Northern Mindanao, and has all the trappings and a majority of the comforts Manila or even Cebu has to offer, without the major traffic and crampedness. (And I am hoping against hope it stays this way!)
The outskirts of Cagayan De Oro are still where a good number live, and though the city itself is sprawling, the major developments seem to have only started after the pandemic. There are more construction sites now than when we moved here in 2019, for sure. And though it still has the problems major cities nationwide have, it also has great open spaces like the downtown Divisoria area, where we have our own smaller version of the Ramblas of Barcelona. Just like in Europe, if you go an hour or two in different directions, you either land on a beach, an island, or in the middle of a mountain that is 20°C in the summertime and has fog rolling in at 1 p.m.
Apart from all this, I wanted to be part of a smaller community for my kid to grow up in. I am not one for an extravagant Kardashian-like lifestyle, though it looks like fun at times. I may have been privy to some degree of that perhaps in my childhood, and though I still want to live in some comfort that my age has afforded me, being in CDO really is the best of both worlds.
I still can get a really decent cup of artisanal coffee, but I can also hide without holing up in an apartment and see the outdoors just by driving for under an hour. Music being a driving force in my life, I am happy to have started watching gigs again, and the few homegrown bands I’ve been able to see in CDO are freaking good. These kids know what’s up, and I am here for it.
There are places that are becoming little nuclei of cool neighborhoods sprouting, much like Poblacion in Makati did years ago. I’ve been able to see a couple of museums with impressive artifacts and history, but much like most of our museums, they need a bit of help and support.
If there needs to be a comparison, it is a smaller, more pastoral metro than the big ones, and I like that. There is still the small-town feel where everyone knows just about everyone else (you will always bump into someone’s cousin, bestie, relative, classmate, etc., much like the general Filipino diaspora), but there are transplants like myself that you find here and there that are still trying to speak Bisaya even if “nakasabot na gamay.” It is far, far, far from the headlines that most of us have seen on the news or social media. It is beautiful and rugged, with community, grit, and perhaps a wariness from not being recognized as a whole region, but the kindness once you’re “in” is undeniable, and I hope it stays that way.
My fear in writing this is that, though I want to shout on the rooftops about how awesome it is to live there, because it is, I am well aware that this area is ripe for gentrification and such, which admittedly has its pros, but I fervently hope it keeps the character that made me fall in love with it in the first place at its core.
It has come to a tipping point, and I am just here to be part of it and witness it and perhaps even chronicle it in these pages, should I be given the honor of continuing to do so. So to quote a favorite author of mine, Michael Ende, “but I guess that is another story and will be told another time.”
