A Day Tour @ Kutang Bato

It was with uncertain excitement when a cousin dragged us to Cotabato City, cutting our leisure trip of Davao.  I was told Cotabato City is 4 hours drive from Davao City. We left shortly after early dawn and arrived at the earliest morning. It was not so 4 hours. Cousin drove so fast I swear we made it in less than 3 hours.




And guess what welcomed our initial sight of the city? Living to the image of  Cotabato ==> an armored car (a tank) !!!. .joining the traffic as if it was just an ordinary vehicle!. .or was it really just another transportation to the eyes of the locals who are used of seeing camouflage cars on a daily basis? Must be. .

Strangely enough, the moment I stepped a foot to this city, I immediately felt like I wasn't in my comfort zone. It felt like I was in a foreign land. Not in my own country. It didn't help that the locals are actually tagalog speaking.  Definitely this is a Muslim city. I was not sure if it was the armored car or the local covered women or the fierce image that Cotabato has allover the country, but my self preservation told me to camouflage. I wanted to go around the town unnoticeable as possible. I had this weird imagination that if I would be seen differently, I would be punished, haha.

Anyway, I asked my dear cousin to first of all bring me to a store where I could buy a scarf  like the ones being worn by the local Muslim women around their heads.

I had fun choosing over pretty stylish head coverings.  I settled in buying ordinary scarves that I could use in my trips.

So on our next stop ( a beautiful mosque in the city), with my head already covered just like the locals, I felt I achieved my camouflaging well. Then we went to the airport, just to see , and I saw how heavily guarded it was with armed security people around, I chose not to use my camera in the airport premises.

It was nearing lunch so cousin brought us to his house here. Currently a resident cos he married a local of this city. Remember my post about the Ampatuan's mansions in Davao City? Same thing here. This another cousin resides too, near the mansion of Ampatuan here in Cotabato City. Above photo was the state of the said mansion during my visit. Again, similar to Davao's mansion, it looked abandon and unfinished.




Then we went to Notre Dame University which is the oldest college in the city. The campus was huge and looked like pretty close to a UP campus I've seen somewhere in the country but not as big as the Diliman. My cousin-in-law proudly toured us around the campus. It wasn't a tourist attraction but cousin-in-law wanted to show us where she had graduated. Ahhh. . .okey.

More driving around.  There was no familiar Philippine jeepney here like the ones in the roads of Manila and other cities of our country. Instead, colored modified vans ( lite ace? ) could be seen in the roads of the city as the regular mode of public transportation.




We got off the car to check the new city hall of Cotabato City.

It looked beautifully Arabic with white high pillars.

Next we stopped at the other fortress of power in this side of the political Ph. The ARMM. ( not really in that order. I forgot which came first among all those stops we made).




This too conveyed a unique architecture of the south. Only it 's not as pinky and grand like the ARMM in Maguindanao.

We passed by a bridge, a huge one, and I saw locals spending their afternoon at the sides. Standing and sitting looking out to the sea , might be taking a fresh? ocean breeze? You know how in Manila people enjoy passing their afternoons at the baywalk? The scene looked like that.




Then to cap our day tour of the historical city of Cotabato, cousin nudged me to take a photo of this hill with houses sitting on it. Why??? Cos it's the Kutang Bato. Exactly where the very name of this city was derived. Underneath it, he added, are the kutang bato caves can be found. 

So there. I'm ending this veryveryvery long (photo loaded) post of Cotabato City. And am so thankful cousin made it  possible for me to experience a day in the City of  Cotabato .

Prov. Capitol Of Sultan Kudarat

If there's Ampatuan Town, is it politically correct to say that Sultan Kudarat is the town of  Mangudadatus? Ahh politics_ how blurry this subject is to me and how glad I am not to be part of any. I love my simple life.








What is this? White house?

It's the Provincial Capitol of Sultan Kudarat. It really amazed me how big the local government buildings there in Mindanao. The vast land area they occupied. Just show how rich the province is and that land and population has never crossed yet here as issues.

Forgive me, but yours truly hailed from a small town in Quezon Province (Luzon), grew up with a municipal hall seated in a land area not bigger than the waiting shade infont of this capitol. Thriving in the city of Manila, I still haven't seen government structures as big as the ones there. Manila City hall? . . nahh, this one looked bigger to me, maybe because of the spaces surrounding the buildings.




Take notice of the structure right beside the main. It's a coliseum. I figured, every government buildings here were always twin-ed with a huge gymnasium. The gift of space.




Meet Sultan Kudarat. Oh please don't ask me to go back to my school history. Google it_ a lot you would find in the net about this historical figure.

Notice that the color of gold monopolizes the capitol_ not pink! No single trace of  Datu Ampatuan?

The lobby was as golden as the facade. Gold continued to spark up to the interior.




Nice meeting you here Sultan Kudarat.

Rio Grande de Mindanao, Maguindanao

On the way out from Cotabato, we passed by a bridge and the body of water beneath it caught my fancy and took a photo of it while we were mobile.  It was almost like an ocean which I thought it was. Not after cousin mentioned that it was Rio Grande de Mindanao, that I realized it was a river after all. And yes _sounded familiar. Then it hit me_ it was the one I had to help my daughter Kyla memorized in her Sibika subject, as the second largest river in the Philippines and the longest one in Mindanao. If only cousin had informed me a minute earlier before losing the sight of the famous river totally, I might have had snapped more photos of it. sigh*

Snap Facts : Water sports and boat racing are ideal activities here, and are usually held to coincide with the Shariff Kabunsuan Festival and the Feast of Hariraya Puasa. Celebrated every December 19, the Shariff Kabunsuan Festival is a colorful commemoration of Kabunsuan’s arrival via Rio Grande de Mindanao more than 500 years ago to introduce Islam to the natives.- click source here

Ampatuan Town

It's not like when I'm on a trip looking for a bliss-y place I always end up in a paradise. Sometimes, my itchy feet would tripped over a controversial location .

Some place like where the Maguindanao Massacre happened. Hey, no way! I didn't go in there. I was still feeling kindah strange about this place. The air still blew eerie up to this entrance even thu' it was almost a year had passed. Above photo was where the cars were gun-pointedly rerouted from the main highway towards this rugged alley and apparently passengers were brutally killed later on.

Snap Facts : The Maguindanao massacre, also known as the Ampatuan massacre (after the town where the mass graves were found), occurred on the morning of November 23, 2009, in the town of Ampatuan in Maguindanao province, on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. While the victims were on their way to file a certificate of candidacy for Esmael Mangudadatu, vice mayor of Buluan town, they were kidnapped and brutally killed. Mangudadatu was challenging Datu Unsay mayor Andal Ampatuan, Jr., son of the incumbent Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan, Sr., in the forthcoming Maguindanao gubernatorial election, part of the national elections in 2010. The 57 people killed included Mangudadatu's wife, his two sisters, journalists, lawyers, aides, and motorists who were witnesses or were mistakenly identified as part of the convoy. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called the Maguindanao massacre the single deadliest event for journalists in history. At least 34 journalists are known to have died in the massacre. click source




After few minutes we reached  the Ampatuan Town. So aptly named after the powerful clan, almost all establishments in the town have their name on them. I was not so sure about why the town looked so empty to me. I could count on my fingers the number of people I saw in the town. Might be cos it was Ramadan during my visit but a relative from Cotabato said that after the massacre incident, the town turned out  looking  like a ghost town. The rest of the Ampatuans were said to have had left the province by this time.

Even the local businesses seemed to have had ceased the operations. For instance this gas station,.. wait something had caught my eye______

A backhoe !?? No, it's not, but definitely a construction vehicle. Funny, how the word backhoe became so word of mouth in our country cos of this incident. Even my girls now knew what a backhoe is! Only now it also defines synonymous with the Ampatuan massacre.

Business un-usual.

I saw only less than 5 kinds of structures in the town : people's nipa huts, commercial establishments, Ampatuan mansions and the seats of power ( of the Ampatuans) :

Oh well..?

Seemingly they are lovers of sweet colored lavish mansions. These three mansions are owned by the Ampatuan in this side of the province. See their Davao City's mansions here.




The excessive lifestyle is very pronounced by the vast difference of the structures between the huts of their constituents and those mansions of the ones who once ruled.




It's not fair to judge, especially I who is almost clueless about the clan of Ampatuans, but I just want to share you something :

"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship".- Orwell,George