Site Visit in one of the most Wonderful Islands in the Philippines

By: Jamaica Layos

Last April 13, 2015, the LDI (Let?s Do It) Philippines representative (Angelo Mendoza) together with the Project NOWTBUKS team had a site visit in Gilutongan Island.

Well, Gilutongan Island is one of the most wonderful islands in the Philippines where everyone can easily appreciate the beauty of nature. According to Mr. Fernan Salibongcogon (LDI Convener of the Youth), Gilutongan Island is part of the Municipality of Cordova, Cebu with almost 300 families. The basic occupation of the people there are in fishing, sea weeds farm, and tourisms.

The reason why we had a site visit in Gilutongan Island was to know their main problem that needs to be addressed and we have found out that their three main problems were Solid Waste Management Problems, Water Shortage, and Gardening. As a concerned youth of the Philippines, Project NOWTBUKS team in partnership with the LDI is planning to have a Project NOWTBUKS workshop with Gilutongan kids in the near future.

Anyhow, Manong Toti, who was very accommodating and a pure Gilutongan person, serve as our tour guide. We discovered amazing stories from him about Gilutongan Island. Well, one of it was the story of his father who could talk to the fishes. This story was written in Guinness World Book of Record way back 2001. At first, we expect that he was just kidding but when we saw the Guinness World Book of Record we were all amazed. According to Manong Toti, there?s a lot of universities that would prefer to go to their place to study marine biology to further study different organisms in the sea.

As what I have mentioned earlier, tourism is one of the basic special tea in their island. When we go there, there?s a lot of foreign people who enjoy swimming and roaming around the island. I think they were Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people.

If you are planning to have a summer vacation here in the Philippines, Gilutongan Island is one of the most beautiful places where people who are longing for much needed rest can have a full satisfaction service because of its natural wonders! J