General Admission

In Siquijor, the most hated college course is law

 

By Al S. Mendoza

I just arrived in Manila from Siquijor Island.

I bet not many of you have been to Siquijor.

Likewise, I bet not many of you know where Siquijor is.

So, how about a bit of geography lesson?

Siquijor is in Central Visayas—next to Dumaguete City.

It used to be part of Dumaguete—Dumaguete being the capital of Negros Oriental.

In 1983, Siquijor became a sub-province, with Zaldy Villa as incumbent governor serving his second term.

Nice fella, this Guv Villa.

Barely 4-feet-11, Guv Villa has provided electricity to the entire Siquijor Island 24/7 from only 8 hours a day the last 27 years.

Siquijor has six towns, with Siquijor as capital and Larena the second biggest town.

It is at Larena port where ships sail to Cebu and Bohol, and to Dapitan and Dipolog in Mindanao.

From Manila, you can reach Siquijor via Dumaguete by boats big or small.

PAL and Cebu Pac jets fly from Manila to Dumaguete twice each daily.

The “fast cat” from Dumaguete to Siquijor takes only 45 minutes at a fare of nearly P250 one way.

But the “Ro-Ro” (roll-on, roll-off) ship needs 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to Siquijor from Dumaguete at only P130 one way.

As in all “Ro-Ro” rides, vehicles can be loaded—at P1,200 per van.  Cheap.

You can tour the entire Siquijor Island on a 4-seater tricycle in 8 hours for only P1,200.

While Dumaguete is famous for its Silliman University, Siquijor is known for, well, witchcraft.

Dumaguete’s Silliman University was founded by Protestants in 1901—making it older than the University of the Philippines-Diliman (1908).

Silliman, the Visayan seat of literature, is close to my heart as it was there where I represented my college in a campus journalism seminar.

But why the witchcraft tag on Siquijor again?

Ghosts and half-bodied females flying at night on broomstick is just a work of imagination.

But the myth goes on so that Siquijor continues to maintain stores selling stuff to be used in supposedly driving away bad spirits when on the island.

Many first-timers buy herbal dried leaves, boiled water that are placed in different kinds of bottles peddled as amulets.

Tourism now thrives in Siquijor and, in fact, many seaside resorts there are owned by foreigners married to local beauties, with their cuisines very exquisitely European—from Italian to Swiss to English.

Fresh sea foods abound and they come in atrociously cheap.

The crime rate is almost zero so that you could hardly see a policeman in Siquijor Island (population: 102,000; Siquijor only 19,000).

So peace-loving is Siquijor that the least college degree that students there want to take up is law.

And what brought me to Siquijor?

To educate the people there on what the MTRCB (Movie and Television Rating and Classification Board) is all about.

I am also an MTRCB board member, in case you have forgotten—with the charming Rachel Arenas as my boss.

But that’s another story.

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