I haven’t written for so long, I forget even how to structure my phrases. But today I am writing, because I am grieving for the part of me that could not become at this moment. A hiker. A traveler. An explorer. To note, I am being vague and having a stream of consciousness moment here — so bear with my writing.
Many of my generation’s youth have been consuming media urging us to explore nature, and to see other’s travel, them documenting how reflective and spiritually refreshing it was to be with nature — I am dawned with awe, and later, of jealousy. Not everyone has the privilege of experiencing this. As a Filipina, to explore what the Westerners enjoy in their natural parks, I craved for the same thing in the Philippines. A place to be in peace with the nature around me.
There are a lot of hiking places in the Philippines, even near where I live in but the to experience being with the mountains cannot be done on a whim. There are a lot of dangers and planning to do to sought it out, and having a bunch of people is better than trekking alone. I have reached the peaks of Pico de Loro, Mount Talamitam, and Mount Manabu — just three when I was ages 14 to 17. After those hikes, I always craved for more. It was a spiritual blessing to be with nature.
I am not even craving for a long trail hike, I am yearning for an immediate access to nature. A short hike, where I can be with myself and reflect how hard it is to get out of college, spending my 5th year now and I’m not even done. I want to quench my need for nature in hopes that this burnout leaves my grieving, exhausted body. I want to indulge myself to a near forest, an immediate silence from all the institutional teachings I need to put in my head. I can’t help but cry when I mourn for a part of me that cannot do this immediately — hiking requires money as well, when it should not have been. Nature was free of access, and I know there are Filipinos whose livelihoods are dependent on keeping, managing, and touring those who visit them — but is it not free since the beginning? Is it not included in the taxes that my parents pay? Nature should be accessible to all, we are not productive citizens without these lands which our ancestors or even our parents were able to thrive in but are now growing less and less as our generations progresses. Even the skills of knowing the weather, the time of the day, of being in touch with nature’s signs is no longer a necessity.
Recently, I had the opportunity to hike the Yellow Trail at Burnham Park, in Baguio. It was such a sight to see, and I wished I immersed myself in it than filmed — I was broken between being with nature and documenting how great it was to be there. It was a short trail, but big enough to not meet so much people who are trekking the place as well — again, a pang of jealousy hit me. I wished there was a hike like this as well near my hometown. My Dad noted that it looked like a National Park in the United States — we have never been anywhere outside the Philippines, just a lover of nature walks filmed there that we see in media.
I know the Philippines has a lot more to go and it is being made as of the moment. But while it isn’t, I am grieving for that feeling of wanting to explore, and having to quench it until I have the freedom to do so (that is, when I have the financial capability to do so). Wishing for more friends to do it with, by having immediate access without the need to go far places to immerse oneself in nature. The lands where our ancestors lived and breathe are no longer the same places.
I remember reading recently about the Miyawaki Method (I cannot find the original article I read, so attaching this one for now), just like how it was in Central Park in New York. Those can easily be built in the Philippines, honestly. I wonder how much more relaxed and much better mental health Filipinos would have had if only we have access to these immediate patches of forests scattered, and with the help of our foresters, too. We could build a new sense of exploration, and jobs out of it.
Additionally, it’s disheartening to hear that a lot of buildings that had the potential of being preserved as historical heritage sites are not being well-preserved the same way in the West. I know I am exaggerating and there are still a lot of beauty left in the Philippines, but there is also so little left in the massive scale that are unprotected, commercialized, and gentrified.
My father had always told me that in the future, the Philippines would be a first-world country. I wonder if that includes that we’ll have the same privileges that Westerners do experience in terms of natural parks, trains, and the luxuries of human experience. But when will that be? When will I have the luxury of having a forest 5- to 10-minute walk away from me? Am I even alive before I experience that? Will my father, with that hope, be able to experience this in his lifetime? One can only hope so — I do hope so.
