The last time I saw Ormoc City was 23 years ago, three years after it was devastated by a flash flood in 1991 that killed thousands of people. I can not forget that tragedy because of the infamous way by which dead victims were insensitively scraped from the ground by heavy equipment and unceremoniously tossed unto waiting trucks. It was a gory sight seen by the whole world. By that time, the city was obviously still struggling to recover and looked sleepy.
Fast forward to last week of April, 2017 when I had an opportunity again to visit the city. That is just about three years after it was swept once more by another catastrophe named Yolanda. This time, my visit was not confined to the city center alone but also to other parts of the now bustling city.
Ormocanons (that’s how locals are called) have exhibited great resilience and true grit after the destruction wrought by Yolanda. Ormoc City is so vibrant at the moment, one won’t suspect that it was pummeled by the world’s strongest typhoon that ever made a landfall just a couple of years earlier.
There are a few prominent families that stuck with the city through thick and thin. In fact they nurtured it and helped shape it into what it is today. One of them is the Larrazabal family. I was fortunate to have been hosted by Mr. Iñego Larrazabal, an unassuming and humble guy, who has great passion for agriculture although he finished a finance degree in La Salle and a masters in entrepreneurship at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati. He also served as my ‘tourist guide’.
Ormoc is actually an old city, earning its cityhood just two years after the end of the second world war. With an area which is almost 9x bigger than the size of La Trinidad, it is a first class city with a night time population of around 250,000. It is the second (next to Tacloban) most important center of commerce, industry, and finance in Leyte province, if not in the entire Leyte-Samar area.
Among others, the city hosts the Philippine Phosphate Fertilizer Plant, the largest fertilizer factory in Asia. It is also home to the largest copper processing facility in the Philippines, the Philippine Associated Smelter and Refining Company.
In a sense, the city is quite ambivalent in relation to environmental concerns. While it has the copper smelter and the fertilizer factory, it is also the site of a great green energy source. Right in its belly is the largest geothermal power plant in Southeast Asia, the EDC Geothermal Power Plant (formerly Tongonan Geothermal Power). There are actually four geo power plants in the city which supply the energy needs of Eastern Visayas and partly Metro Manila. The availability of geothermal energy is due to the presence of two dormant volcanoes in the city, Janagdan and Altopeak. The latter rises to about 1,200m above sea level, the highest peak in Leyte.
The city also has a thriving tourism industry. If San Pablo city in Laguna has seven lakes, Ormoc has three. The guitar- or violin-shaped Danao lake, all of 148 hectares, Janagdan(crater lake) and Casudsuran (5 hectares).
Danao lake is one of the popular tourist destinations in the city. While perched at its viewdeck, Mr. Iñego L. recounted a time when a giant eel of several feet length was caught in the Lake, feeding so many people. The lake is believed to harbor more of such eel. It is a source of livelihood of some fisherfolks, gathering from it carps, mussel-which might be found only in that lake, etc. One can hire a floating restaurant for about 150 pesos/hour, gliding to the center guided by a nylon rope and eat there with all serenity. Or one can go kayaking for as long and as far as allowed, or simply enjoy camping at its surrounding slopes.
To reach Janagdan lake, one must climb by foot for about 1-2 hours led by an experienced guide. The barangay provides permits for the purpose.
A waterfalls near Danao lake is reputed to be another possible tourism winner but it has yet to be fully-developed. In addition, there are three other smaller falls not far from the lake. It was named Tres Aguas by the current city mayor, Actor Richard Gomez, a friend of Iñego. They are also planned for development.
Ormoc city is at present in transformation mode, and this is due in large part according to residents, to the present pro-active administration of Mayor Richard.
There are other interesting sites and attractions in Ormoc city but they were not my primary concerns in my trip there. They are in short, my trip’s side highlights.
I was surprised to see healthy growing strawberry plants in the city but away from the center. Driving further away, climbing some 750 meters up barangay Cabintan, one sees at least 650 hectares planted to sub-tropical vegetables (e.g. cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, La Trinidad beans, carrot, onion, but not potato). It is easy to imagine why the once sleepy barangay had come to life because of those crops. This is shown by new houses built complete with parked trucks, tricycles and other vehicles.
I was there actually to evaluate strawberry production activities which were started about 3 or 4 years ago. The trip was mediated by Dr. Jose Bacusmo, immediate past president of Visayas State University, which is the leading state university in the Visayas region.
Mr. Iñego L. planted strawberry in two elevations, at 20m and 320m above sea level. According to him, the plants were growing well during the cooler parts of the year but somehow degenerated at this time of the year. He sourced out his planting materials mainly from Bicol. Some questions have been playing in my mind before I was able to observe his strawberry field.
For example, what on earth is he doing with strawberry production when his family is into various businesses such as hotels, restaurants, fast foods, hospitals, ice plants, poultry, cattle ranching, sugar cane planting, pineapple production, etc? He has, of course, his own personal businesses from the above list.
I got some answers directly from him as we went around inspecting some of his production areas. Married to the beautiful Poochie Jacinto Larrazabal, Iñego took over their family’s agricultural operations in 2010. He is personally in-charge of pineapple production where he increased the hectarage from 10 hectares on his take-over to 100 hectares at present. He is intending to gradually increase the area to thousands of hectares. Currently, they are planting the Ormoc Queen variety which is commonly planted in the city. According to him, this variety is so popular it outsells the Del Monte or Dole varieties ten-to-one in the local fresh fruit market. He is harvesting 2-3 tons of pineapple daily and sells it directly to buyers who come to his sorting area. An exception is when he sells his produce to Cebu where he send through ship.
Even if Iñego has no formal training in agriculture, he did a lot of experimentation with his pineapple production as well as in other crops like strawberry, guaple and cacao. He has planted more than 1.2 million pineapple plants which is, according to him, very small by industry standards. He calls pineapple production as a capital intensive enterprise needing PhP300,000.00 production cost/ha. A friend of his, spent said that a friend took about 17 years to be able to export and had invested at least PhP120.0M to prepare for the export market.
He said that ten hectares of pineapple will not yield profit. That’s why, he stopped producing this crop in such a ‘small’ area. Problem is, his workers in the affected areas are deprived of their source of income. This is the reason why Iñego is trying to see the possibility of strawberry production as an alternative source of livelihood in the area. He wants to prove too, that strawberry can also thrive in a relatively warmer environment.
He is also training his sights on cacao production, including the production of cacao seedlings as a source of income. He is, in the words of Dr. Bacuso, a man with a very fertile and forever-initiating mind. Actually, he is doing also several experiments on grapes, red lady papaya, calamansi, and guapple.**
