Balabac

Its a stuff a national geographic movie would be made of. Last May, I was part of a group that went to the final, last frontier of the Philippines. Sounds redundant? Well, Palawan is often called the Last Frontier of the Philippines. But if you look closely at the map of the province, there's a group of tiny islands at the southernmost tip known as Balabac. Physically, its really the final, the edge of the last frontier. And if you have the chance to visit the place, it really speaks true of the label. Virtually zero tourism, islands ringed by white sands, and really, really beautiful nature.

And why compare it to the prestigious national geographic stuff? Well, in one and a half days, we released mouse deers back into the wild, saw lots of birds, encountered a sea turtle, had some dolphins swim by our boat, and read this: saw a gang of manta rays feeding near our boat!

One of the mouse deers we released. Locally known as Pilandok, it is found only in the island of Balabac. It is fast losing its forest home due to increasing agricultural lands and hunting. Every Filipino must at least know about the animal and maybe try to help save the few remaining pilandoks from total and permanent extinction.

The marine turtle that we kept following for maybe 20 minutes. The water was so clear and the sandy bottom so white, the whole experience of watching the turtle glide underwater was made really special.

A big group of manta rays was on a feeding frenzy when we passed near them. My God! we were shouting and shrieking at the magnificent sight! Try to imagine, before this event, only scuba divers had the chance to see huge mantas in the open seas. Now, our lucky group was seeing them great animals gliding, flapping, and doing "barrel rolls" right in front of us non-divers! It was a really blessed day for us. Can't find the manta? Look very closely at the white figure with several black lines. That's the belly (and gills) of the giant manta doing a summersault while feeding on the rick planktons in the area.

You might wonder how I got to be so very lucky to visit this real frontier. I have to give credit to Conservation International - Philippines for making me their ecotourism consultant. Give me a few months and I should be able to make a clear picture for CI on how tourism can develop in Balabac. I love my job!