By Fung Yu, Contributor
INQUIRER.net

(Author’s Note: This article uses Apple’s QuickTime technology in providing an immersive experience by means of virtual reality panoramas. QuickTime is required to view the 360-degree VRs. Average VR size is 1.7MB each.)

LOCATED at the southern tip of Iloilo City is the island province of Guimaras.

Known for its sweetest mangoes the world over; the pristine island also boasts of numerous fine sand beach resorts, tranquil churches and monasteries, friendly people, and tragically, the site affected by one of the worst oil spills in the country.

My trip to Guimaras started on a fine summer day from Iloilo City. We took a 20-minute banca ride from one of the several ports in the city. The fare, a mere P12 per person for a one-way trip, the cheapest by far in all my travels!

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By Augusto Villalon
Inquirer

I REALLY didn’t know much about Guimaras except that it was an island off Iloilo distinguished by its sweet mangoes, a Trappist monastery and, of course, the massive oil slick that still looms down part of its coastline.

My recent survey assignment in Iloilo specified checking on surviving urban heritage, but it also called for identifying cultural landscapes in rural areas. After a few days of taking me around to show why he was so proud of his city and province, my colleague and guide, Eugene Jamerlan of the Iloilo Cultural Heritage Council, picked me up in my hotel one morning with the idea of visiting Guimaras that day because he knew we would find the right landscapes there.

A few minutes later, we sailed away from the flat coastal landscape of Iloilo and docked in the main port of Guimaras, a compact town built along the lower slopes of the very green, rolling Guimaras landscape.

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