Disclosure: The author’s spouse owns and operates a travel agency, which may be construed (but the author hopes it is not) as to having an effect on the context of this post.

There’s a fantastic story that came in yesterday afternoon about a Puerto Princesa fisherman being saved by a pod of spinner dolphins and pilot whales. As the story goes, the fisherman had been floating in the open water for nearly 24 hours, bleeding from crustacean bites, when a pod of dolphins took it upon themselves to nudge the man and his makeshift lifeboat towards the shore.

“Dumating yung mga dolphins. Ang dami nila. Tapos may lumapit na dalawang balyena. Dun sila sa tigkabilang tabi ko lumalangoy,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer. (There were dolphins, lots of them. Then a pair of whales started swimming on both sides)

“Palit palitan sila tinutulak ako gamit ang kanilang palikpik,” (They would push me alternately using their fins). Meanwhile, he said the rest of the pod stayed close to him to around just a meter away apparently trying to make sure no harm would come to him from any other animal. [Inquirer.Net]

What makes fisherman Ronnie Dabal’s ordeal more special is that he and Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn attributed the fisherman’s “rescue” as a sign of gratitude from the dolphins. As it turns out, Dabal is a deputized dolphin warden, and part-times as a dolphin spotter and habitat protector in Puerto Princesa Bay.

Dolphin spotters — a common second job for Puerto Princesa fishermen — head out early in the morning to look for large pods of dolphins, whose location they then relay to boatmen bringing tourists in for dolphin watching tours (using, what else: SMS text messages). Ronnie Dabal had been part of a program conducted by the Palawan NGO Network and ABS-CBN Bantay Kalikasan Foundation, with the help of the City of Puerto Princesa administration, wherein local folk, especially fisherfolk, are trained to find, identify, and protect dolphins, whale sharks, and other marine life as well as their habitats. Ultimately, locals earn revenues from eco-tourism activities, making for a win-win situation wherein the environment is protected and the locals earn a windfall from tourism, augmenting their traditional fishing or farming livelihood.

The locals, in turn, have a lot to thank for with such programs. A little over a year ago, my wife, her friends and I visited Puerto Princesa, where we were brought on an island hopping tour of Honda Bay by a guide named (I kid you not) Gloria. Gloria gave us a complete and detailed rundown of the tour: the origins of the word “Honda” (from the Spanish “hondo”, meaning “deep”, and not the Japanese car maker), the vigorous clean and green efforts of the city (our chain-smoking friend was getting mouthfuls from Gloria, boatmen, and other locals alike each and every time he would out of sheer habit throw aside a cigarette butt), and the various resort islands in the bay. It didn’t stop there; by the time we were in the water, not only was she pulling five snorkelers (my wife and her barkada) all at the same time, she would identify each kind of fish, crustacean, and coral that was there, sometimes by species name. Later that afternoon, I casually asked her if she were from a fishing family, with her excellent swimming skills and strong sea legs. I was surprised when she answered back: “hindi, magsasaka ako”.

It is difficult to believe that merely a decade and a half before, some locals and fishermen not unlike Ronnie Dabal were considered as part of the problem when it comes to environmental protection. In 1997, whale sharks, colloquially known as butanding, were discovered in Donsol, Sorsogon, and where subsequently hunted for their soft white flesh, which can be sold to Taiwanese dealers at around $15 a kilo — the most expensive whale meat in the world. As late as 1999, an estimate put 70,000 fishermen, or about 12% of the fishermen in the Philippines, are involved in illegal dynamite fishing.

Over the past decade, the tide is being turned with the help of various NGOs, as well as their respective LGUs, training programs were set up all around the country, and eco-tourism has become an increasingly bigger part in the lives and livelihoods of locals. Fishermen, aside from being dolphin spotters, are also being trained to be snorkeling guides and lifeguards — quite easy for them since it is customary for them to skin dive during fishing trips. Womenfolk are being taught crafts to be able to sell as souvenirs; everyone is being taught basic English to be able to communicate with foreign tourists. Donsol fishermen, for their part, have become whale spotters themselves, earning large sums during the whale shark watching season.

While I have no solid numbers at this point, my own trips around the country over the past year looks promising — the stories of Filipinos who are increasingly turning to eco-tourism to augment their incomes — or sometimes, who turned such activities into full-time jobs, are the same whether one goes to Palawan, or Bohol, or Davao, or Camiguin. Our guide in Bohol was a former OFW; our divemaster in Davao comes from a family of farmers; our Camiguin guide was a former Stork sales agent. Over that same year I learned to appreciate marine life to a greater extent, far from being an ordinary beach bum frolicking at the edge of the water and enjoying white sand.

The first time I snorkeled, and saw first hand just how beautiful Philippine marine ecosystems are, was in December 2007 — by November 2008 I tried, for the first time, scuba diving, finally being able to touch those corals:

No need for any fancy doctorate degree from an overseas university to appreciate that beauty, definitely. No need for audio even. It’s amazing just how teeming the marine ecosystem is at merely five to ten feet from the surface. My wife took this footage with a regular digital camera in a waterproof case, but needed to just snorkel above me and the dive master to capture the richness of the reef below.

Oh, and if you’d rant that it’s probably gonna be expensive — that 20 minute dive only costs PHP1,000 per person. It would’ve been PHP1,200 for two dives, but we couldn’t take a second dive since our flight was later that day, and apparently it is quite deadly to go on a flight right after going on scuba. One thousand pesos — the amount you’d spend on just one bag of groceries in SM — for the experience of a lifetime.

Clearly, the Philippine eco-tourism scene’s promising outlook presents several lessons that must be fully appreciated. Foremost of these lessons is that locals will fiercely defend whatever livelihood they have — make the environment their livelihood and they will defend it out of their own volition. Everything else follows — compliance with laws, self-policing amongst ranks, even a total change in attitude with regards to littering.

On the other hand, we have to do our part in helping our eco-tourism industry grow as big as it can, and the best way to do this is to go out there and see it for yourself. If there’s any way that best implements an effective “trickle down” effect (whether or not you believe in it), it is going to the provinces and spending money on the services and goods offered by locals. Instead of bringing your money out to shopping in Hong Kong or going to Disneyland or Ocean Park, check out the real fish in the real ocean. Experience the beauty of the countryside — and vigorously promote it to city dwellers both here and abroad.

Everyone will benefit from that.

I have been viewing My Sari Sari Store regularly for the past three years and to say that his photos inspired me is but an understatement. His style is a major influence in my own attempts at photography over the past 8 months of going around the Philippines — a photo collection I haven’t had the guts (and time) to come out with. My efforts (both successful and otherwise) at photography have been the expression of both frustration and appreciation of individuals like Sidney, a foreigner who perceives the beauty and idiosyncrasy of the Philippines in an a much better fashion than most Filipinos ever can.

While I can’t fully promise it, I’ll be working on my stash of photos in the next few weeks. They won’t be at par with the quality of Sidney’s gallery — but they would be in the same spirit of unraveling the beauty of the Philippines and its culture.

Thanks, Sidney, for showing us more colors of the Philippines than the drab that its people always paints it as. I fervently hope that soon enough you’ll be back to posting your photos of Philippine sights. Maraming maraming salamat sa iyo. Mabuhay ka!

Even Quiapo’s Hidalgo St. is experiencing a boom because of digital photography, and it’s all good, really. There were anectodes that, in the last Hot Air Balloon Festival at Clark, there were more DSLR holders than plain spectators.

Unlike them, I do not own a digital SLR camera (I only use a mid-range, ill-reputed Olympus SP-510UZ) though I have been dabbling in photography for much longer. For the past decade we have had a Canon EOS 300 35mm film SLR, and my experience in using it underscores why digital photography is so popular these days.

It was simply expensive: you had to buy a 130+ peso roll of film for a mere 36 shots, and development and printing of each roll runs up from 250 to 300 pesos for 4R size prints. To add insult to injury, you only get to see your pictures the first time when they are printed, so even if a shot is terrible, or is blurry, since you have no way of knowing you will have to settle for having them printed and wasting money on them.

These limits of film photography are quite burdensome for tight-budgeted people like myself, but what happened was that this quandary influenced my decision making processes in a certain way with lessons that not only apply to photography, but to a lot of other things in life:

Risk-taking – Every shot you took with a film SLR is a risk; a risk of a lousy picture, a risk of a bad exposure, a risk of bad color, a risk of wasting your money when the photograph is printed. But there are simply places, things, and events that you have to have a picture of. So you have to take that shot — even if there’s little light. Or if you have no tripod. Or if you have little film left. You just have to take that risk, or else suffer in a plethora of what-ifs on your mind on how the shot would have come out later on.

Resource management – With 36 shots per roll, and usually just a few spare rolls with you, plus a budget for developing and printing, you have to keep in mind how many shots you still have with you, and accordingly, if loading that spare roll of film (which you have to finish, as you have to develop all 36 frames on the roll whether you used everything up or not) will be worth it for the given situation. You also have to manage your supply of film, making sure that they don’t go to waste (those things have expiry dates!). It also involves saying no when you have to — like saying no to that camwhore’s request to have a picture taken of them even if you’ve already had 10 pictures of the same group of people taken already.

Risk-management – Both previous points come down to this, added with the fact that in film SLRs, you cannot undo nor erase shots already taken. Every shot you take is literally a gamble, and you must learn when to lay down your cards, or when to call a bluff, or when to up the ante. It takes a lot of practice to master this, but when you do almost every other shot will be rewarding enough for you to ignore the wasted ones.

Foresight – Or more accurately, learning to anticipate what would happen next. On ceremonies like weddings, or during events this is a bit easier — the reason why the availability of wedding photographers likewise exploded is because weddings are very predictable, and you could, as their photographer, call out shots even during the ceremony as to how the shots will be composed and how they would look like. In nature, sports events, or in unscheduled “act of God” events, it would be much more difficult. You have to learn to “see the future” and be there ready to take your shot when it happens, with the correct settings on your camera to capture the moment. This one takes a lot of practice too.

Discipline – Finally it all boils down to discipline. The constant decision making during the time that you are holding the camera up will, over time, instill more discipline in the way that you treat each location, each event, each roll of film, and each shot.

I’m not saying that DSLR users can or will not learn the lessons stated above, but it certainly is easier to see them in action when handling a film SLR. It will definitely help digital photographers though, who have to suffer a far different curse — that of possessing way too many pictures than, say, their web photo hosting or external storage solutions can handle. Perhaps taking a leaf from the obsolescent art of film photography would help them solve these problems too.