On the edges of our recent collective horror, over our suffocating rage at the travesty, is the sad fear of losing one of the mysteries of a wonder of nature.
A sadness which the ghostly false surface comfort of an Olympic-size swimming pool — its cold cobalt waters shimmering under the harsh early summer sun — and the tacky merriment of candy-striped cabanas could offer no ounce of solace. The defilement of the Chocolate Hills is simply and plainly wrong.
Mystery indelibly suffuses the unique Chocolate Hills of Bohol. The mystery intrigues us and invites us to wonder aloud: How on earth were these iconic conical geological mounds formed?
How, indeed, did these mostly symmetrical limestone mounds (numbering over 1,200 and varying in heights of 30 to 50 meters) come about with hues bound to the rhythm of the seasons (lush green during the rainy months and chocolate brown in the dry summer)?
Geological science informs us the hills are generally limestone mounds jutting out of a limestone plateau formed from coral reefs gurgled out of the depths of the Bohol Sea millions of years ago during the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene era when Earth’s restless tectonic plates dislocated.
By itself, Bohol Island already fascinates with its unique limestone “karst landscape.”
“Karst landscapes are formed when soluble rocks like limestone are eroded by the natural processes of rainwater, underground streams, and acidic groundwater. Over time, this erosion creates a unique topography of sinkholes, caves, underground rivers, and exposed limestone formations,” says a geological website.
As unique particulars studding Bohol’s karst topography, the Chocolate Hills’ exposed cone-shaped forms are really no more than sculpted handiworks of wind and rain over millennia.
Nonetheless, despite extensive studies, the Chocolate Hills manages to retain its aura of enduring mystery, with scientists not fully understanding the exact processes by which the hills were formed.
Nature hasn’t yet revealed all of the hills’ secrets, nor will nature be forthcoming when the final stages of its work on the hills are completed.
At any rate, such evident crevices in the sharp edges of science allow febrile imaginations and mythology a peek, with the cracks regaling with intriguing fables of giants.
One tale tells of two incensed giants attacking each other with boulders and mud cakes. The consequent mess left by the two clashing colossuses on Bohol’s primeval landscape became the Chocolate Hills, it is told.
Another Visayan creation tale tells of the unrequited love of the giant Arogo for the woman Aloya. Arogo’s fabled copious heartbroken tears shed all over the island are now the hills.
Myths about a giant race and Arogo’s inhuman love aren’t typically Filipino, however. Tales of giants happen to be deep-seated universal myths.
From Biblical sources, for instance, Hebrews called a giant “Nephilim.” And “Nephilims” were said to be a race of giants born out of the unholy unions between fallen angelic beings and willing daughters of men. Lusty fallen angels and their eagerness to romance and bed women supposedly despoiled God’s creations that He had no choice but to send raging floodwaters and wipe Earth’s slate clean.
Anyway, nature’s work and world myths should have warranted deep, unwavering respect for the Chocolate Hills’ intriguing sense of place in the cosmic swing of things.
But, as the recent unsettling controversy over dubious resorts proves, the arching scientific and mythical taboos seem inadequate to extinguish the all-too-human urge to defile and vandalize the hills.
Consequently, not even the subsequent drubbing that dubbed the offending resorts as libels of the aesthetic tastes of most Filipinos nor the previously settled laws and bureaucratic parameters deterred some from saying there were no violations or defilements committed.
An unseemly, uncaring stubbornness that now makes many grieve that the hills will never be the same again, harboring fears that a natural wonder has been irretrievably lost forever.
