I am one of those funny benighted guys, who early on chose to see more of the outside world than my own. For this, I have been trying to make up. Over the past Holy Week, we saw a bit of the lovely province of Bukidnon, specifically, of its capital city, Malaybalay. I had suggested Bukidnon, because when I was in grade school, we would sing a song that had in it a line about the beautiful mountains of Bukidnon.
Bukidnon is deep in fecund Northern Mindanao. From the airport in Cagayan de Oro, a car drove us up to the Benedictine Monastery of the Transfiguration, in Barangay San Juan Jose, Malaybalay. We joined a spiritual retreat up to Easter Sunday. The Monastery, cradled in a crib of green beautiful mountains and undulating hills, is bewitching: quiet, gorgeous and uplifting. I came for the mountains as well, and I had them and listened to them.
Bukidnon is one Mindanao's most lushly endowed provinces, in mineral resources, and fertile soil that yields pineapples, rice, corn, bananas, vegetables, coffee and many other bountiful crops. The Benedictine monks plant rice and corn and coffee, which help support their mission and their good works. Bukidnon is one of the greenest places I have ever been to.
A pity that Bukidnon is a largely unknown place, even amongst us Filipinos. It does not even have a significant airport of its own. Being more widely known should put it on the radar screens of potential domestic and potential investors, say, in hotels or bed-and-breakfasts and tourist facilities.
The monks spoke to us of little Easters in our lives, how and why we must find and keep them.
My family and I got quite a few of them, up in the glorious mountains of Bukidnon.
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