Tarra na sa 2010!

It was literally being dropped in the middle of nowhere with no plan, just a mission to get the story.

The 10-day coverage on Sibuyan Island will go down in my (virtual) journal as the most challenging coverage yet in my five years as a reporter for it pushed me to go beyond myself physically, emotionally, mentally and financially (haha!).

With my laptop, little money and just two shirts, I jumped off an Air Force chopper on the afternoon of June 24 on a seaside landing zone separated by seven kilometers of dirt road from San Fernando town proper.

We had flown in from neighboring Tablas Island, some three hours away by boat but only 20 minutes by chopper.  Good thing the Air Force guys were willing to give us a ride.  

From there, three photographers, an AP reporter and myself saw scooters on the main road.  The folks were kind enough to let us hop behind them and off we went to town, negotiating unpaved roads and puddles.   

I awkwardly clung to the driver, well aware there was a good chance a bad bump would launch me off the bike and onto the rocky path, possibly breaking my bones or injuring my head (scooters are the primary means of transport there, no helmets required).

Finally, with just a daypack, I arrived at the town hall, the nerve center for search, rescue and retrieval operations on the wreck of MV Princess of the Stars.  My colleagues and I quickly got down to work, interviewing officials who played both very open sources and willing hosts to the “parachuters.”

Shortly after, a municipal employee, Tita Nitz, approached me to offer living quarters just a few blocks down the road.  Voila! We had a home, a pretty one at that for P300/head/day.  

The next day was the beginning of what would be routine for the rest of the week: visit the town hall for day's operations plans, take a trike to the shoreline nearest the site, rent a boat, circle the wreck then try to catch Coast Guard guys to get updates.

Apart from the one time a few media people got to ride the Presidential chopper (the pilot let me sit on PGMA's seat no less) from San Fernando town to the coast guard ship BRP Pampanga, reporters and photographers had to go their own way and take a pump boat to the ship then carefully “scale” the ladder up the deck- certainly a challenge for my short arms and legs.

Then there was the challenge of talking to grieving families.  I've gone through similar interviews before, but it's just never easy to approach people who are in mourning.  It was not simply a case of writing about it; it became a mission to do justice to their pain through reportage.

How to file stories was yet another test. Other networks had complete setup for livepoints with satellites and power generators, wires people had their satellite phones.  I only had my phone, laptop, USB, and a shot at using the town hall internet. Those were the only options as there are no landlines on the island.

On the days when mobile phone signal was dead, I was virtually disconnected to the homebase in Manila.  I imagined some of the eds, especially my good old Lolo Ben, were close to freaking out trying to reach me to get updates to no avail.

Thank heavens the island's trusty internet connection came through and, at one time, I even YM-ed to Manila to confirm stories and check the desk's plans for me for the coming days.  It was sort of surreal: no cellphones and landlines but YM worked just fine.

A few days more and the media circle on the island became so close-knit, sharing hallucinations/ illusions/ wishful thinking that we had Jollibee french fries and chickenjoy, Starbucks frapuccino, Yellowcab pizza and even pedicures.

Good thing we had the town's very own SM as a refuge.  Sibuyan Market I mean, where we got daily servings of the town's staple- Menudo.

And of course, thanks to the Sibuyan people whose warmth would be hard to find in the city.

People there were not strangers to their visitors.  Everywhere I walked, I heard someone greet “good morning,” “good afternoon” or “good evening,” and everyone smiled and even chatted me up from time to time just to see how I am doing.  I could only admire the town's resilience at a time of a two-faced tragedy- one at sea and one inland, with Frank's destruction on the island itself.

The Sibuyan Island coverage surprised me at how much pressure I can take and how much my short limbs could stretch.  Most especially, it showed me how the feeling of being welcomed makes it so much easier to survive.