Rural town

The small island province of Marinduque, from where we began our Bellarocca trip, has six municipalities and no cities. They are typical of rural Philippine towns, whether they are inland or coastal, from their architecture and available services to the layout of their streets and the kind of transportation used. Of course, there are differences from province to province and from town to town, but by and large, these are what you can expect in much of the country.

Towns are always centered around the municipal hall and, if they happen to have been founded during the Spanish colonial era, they would be facing the church across a wide plaza. The municipal hall of Gasan was not laid out in such a manner and the architecture is not typical of the period either, which makes me suspect that this building is relatively new. With no one to ask questions from, however, I cannot say for sure. Note that almost everywhere you go in the Philippines, you are likely to encounter at least one statue of National Hero Jose Rizal.




Around the municipal hall are small commercial buildings. Even the homes near it have commercial establishments on the ground floor. The easiest way to go around the town is the ubiquitous tricycle.




Within the town proper, roads are typically made of asphalt or concrete. As you go farther, they turn into gravel roads until they are nothing more than one lane dirt paths which vehicles have to share with people and farm animals. Animals usually have the right of way.




The wood and concrete houses of town centers give way to houses made of bamboo and nipa, with a smattering of hollow blocks and galvanized iron if the family is relatively well-off. Because this community is strung out on the main coastal road of Marinduque, the houses have access to electrical power. Remote and lone homesteads do not have that luxury. But even in this area, most do not have plumbing and running water—many of the houses that we passed still have outhouses.




The entire island of Marinduque is serviced by one airport, which is located in the municipality of Boac, the provincial capital. It does not have an online system so everything, from checking passenger names to computing total passenger and luggage weight, is done manually. It has a two-story control tower and the runway is made of gravel, which residents are free to cross to get to their homes behind the airport. Believe me, this is quite big as far as island airports go—I've seen much shorter runways and more rustic airport structures.