Manila, 26 May—We were in Eastern Visayas for a brief work trip earlier this week, and our main destination was Borongan City in Eastern Samar. To get there, we took a plane to Tacloban City in Leyte, and rode a van for four hours. The trip took us past the San Juanico Bridge, then to some notable sights along the way: the Caluwayan Beach Resort in Marabut, the Balangiga Bells Shrine in Balangiga, and the Canhugas Nature Park in Hernani—a mix of the beautiful and the historic, but I guess these places are also most familiar because they were among the areas in Supertyphoon Yolanda/Haiyan’s path in 2013.
In Borongan, we got in touch with the local media, and when we asked about their town’s delicacy, I had expected to hear familiar ones, similar to pasalubongs from my childhood: Binagol and moron and pastillas, which were staples from aunts and uncles coming to Manila from Tacloban. Instead, the local journos pointed us to one new thing: Salukara.
Sakalura? Salakura? I’m ashamed to admit I couldn’t even get it right the first time around, but the people in Brgy Songco knew what we were looking for, when we set out to find some for pasalubong. However, we were disappointed: The delicacy is so good, they run out very early in the morning.
Fortunately, we were able to talk to Mana Bella, perhaps hands-down the most popular Salukara maker in that part of town. We asked our journo friends for recs, and they all said it was her. We ate at a nearby café, asked waiters and other customers separately, and they also dropped her name: Bella from across the Post Office, they said.
We had a hard time finding her store, because it wasn’t a store—it looked just like my grandmother’s house in Jaro, garden and all. When we got there, we were greeted by Mana Bella herself, who broke the news to us: We were too late. We should have gotten in touch early, which was what the customer right behind us wanted to do. Unfortunately, the next day’s orders had already been bought. It was that in demand.
It goes well with everything, Mana Bella said. You could have it for breakfast or for merienda, eat it with coffee or with lechon, serve it for birthday parties or family reunions. It seemed that a table would be lucky to have it.
So what was it, exactly? Mana Bella served us her remaining salukara piece, which we used for the photo shoot (we were there to gather local flavor features). It was like a crepe, filled with red rice, tuba, and many things else—it’s a top-secret recipe, perfected for over 25 years. Her husband’s mother was a salukara maker, and their family inherited the trade. Salukara-making helped send her children to school, adding to their family’s income while allowing her to stay at home to take care of them.
Her kids are now grown and already have kids of their own; one of them ran around the house as we did the interview. Together, they make salukara as a family, from midnight to early morning. We asked, what makes their salukara so good and famous? In jest, she said, piraw—which I took to be the sleepiness she feels after pouring so much of herself into her work. You know the good tired you get after doing something you really love? That.
Mana Bella said she makes only 200 salukara pieces every day. Even if we didn’t get to buy as many as we could, I still felt hella lucky.
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The work trip itinerary was kind of tight—we flew into Tacloban very early on Day 1, only to fly out again on an evening flight by Day 2. We were ferried from Tacloban airport to Borongan and back again by our van driver, a young man originally from Davao who came to Tacloban after marrying his wife.
They were already in Tacloban when Yolanda hit; he was proud to call himself a survivor. Over dinner before flying out, we swapped stories about Yolanda, 6 years on; he talked about friends who lost families to the storm, how angry they were when the government estimated the death toll at 8,000, and how they lined the streets with thousands of candles come November. And oh, the ghost stories: Buildings with the trapped and the earth-bound, and jeepneys filling with wet passengers.
That driver thought his passengers were just from the beach, he said. But they all disappeared just past the airport, near the Coca Cola plant. He left his jeep there and ran.
I’d heard that story before, I can’t remember from whom, but hearing it again unprompted still gives me the shivers.
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This weekend we went to Batangas for the annual beach trip I took with my college girlfriends, and wow the kids are getting so big so fast huhu.
We went to Acuaverde for a daytour, and we would definitely recommend this as a pet-friendly resort :) We met a lot of doggos with their hoomans, and some of them were even brave enough to get into the water, like 2-year-old bull mastiff Ford, a whopping giant at 70 kilos.
It’s been a bit rainy lately, and it does seem like we’re bidding summer goodbye soon, but I’m glad we were able to see the sea at least once this season!
May your week ahead be bright.
xo,
K