Summer season starts at mangrove-rich resort

Summer season has started at the five-hectare pine-studded and mangrove-rich resort in Quezon Province in southern Luzon, but its owner who has never feared the fighters of the communist New People's Army (NPA) who have been roaming in his area, said he would be more afraid if President Gloria Arroyo does not win in the May 10 elections.

"My finance analyst said I should stop everything until elections. (In the meantime), we are putting up a children's playground in one part of the resort," said Rafael Aranda, 64, a Filipino doctor who had worked in the US Rahway New Jersey Gen Hospital as an internist from 1960 to 1985.

It took him four years to get environment certificate clearance (ECC) from the environment department so that he could develop the Aranda Resort in Balute island, 100 kilometres northeast of Manila.

Balute means "coat of arms or shield". True, boatmen bring their boats to the island at the start of the storm.

"Hopefully, my wife Lilia (a former nurse) and I can build a small hotel with 50 or maybe 100 bedrooms, a restaurant, a recreational facility with tennis and basketball courts," he said, adding that they are thinking of creating a Tahiti-inspired resort.

While working hard as a doctor abroad, Aranda could not forget the "touch of the native" at the vacation villas that he saw in Hawaii and in Papaete, Tahiti.

The place has an intrinsic natural beauty, with or without development. It has a lagoon in the centre of the island.

His own resort is covered with pine trees, coconut trees and mangoves. At the western side of the island is the Sierra Madre, a long mountain range in central and northern Luzon. All over the island is the Lamon Bay which also sweeps to the east towards the gigantic Pacific Ocean.

"When you face the lagoon, you could see the rays of sunrise eating the water. When you face the Sierra Madre, it is always ablaze with colours at sunset, just before everything sleeps on this island. It is as if God has shaped His grace on this place," Aranda said.

During the couple's several trips to Quezon, where they hardly saw a light of development, they found Balute Island like a pearl in some dark place.

"There was serenity and beauty in this place. That's how we still feel about it," said Aranda, adding, "We really liked it the first time because of its natural beauty. He has also 28 open picnic cottages.

Further from the beach are four sleeping quarters and a duplex building for families.

The Aranda couple have become a good example of overseas Filipinos who, after becoming Fil-Americans, who have decided to invest and develop and not just retire in the Philippines in their golden age.