Lake View Café in Valencia City
The exploration of the southern part of Bukidnon usually starts at Valencia City, the most urbanized hub in the area, and its most prominent natural attraction is Lake Apo.
The crater lake, which has an area of about 24 hectares, is in the barangay of Guinoyuran, about 11 kilometers from the city proper. One can enjoy a view of the lake at well-appointed Lake View Café, a restaurant which offers a menu of international and local dishes and sweets. It also has a function room for meetings and events and water facilities to enjoy the lake.
We dropped by on a rainy afternoon and enjoyed pastas and an array of kakanin including the province’s binaki, a sweet corn-based snack, steamed in corn husks. There is a similar snack in Cebu, particularly in Bogo, called pintos. Corn was introduced in the Philippines by the Spaniards from Mexico, where it is native, via the influential Galleon Trade. Records show that corn may have been first cultivated in Cebu. It also introduced the Mexican tamales, which has several local versions including the binaki. The binaki was enjoyed with coffee and sikwate, hot chocolate drink.
Taglucop Strawberry Hills in Kitaotao
The most interesting town in southern Bukidnon is Kitaotao, which is already near Davao Region and can surprise visitors with destinations and experiences ranging from the luxurious to the indigenous. My first visit had a touch of sophistication beginning with Taglucop Strawberry Hills in the barangay of Lorega, formerly called Napalico.
Visitors were greeted with platters of berries, cheeses, crackers and fruit jams, along with glasses of strawberry wine to enjoy as the fog thickened and darkness descended. The restaurant gives a commanding view of the property’s strawberry farm. In the Philippines, strawberries are cultivated only in Baguio City, to which Bukidnon is always compared, and now here in Kitaotao.
Taglucop Strawberry Hills offers a glamping site with geodesic dome “tents” perched on hillslopes with a view of the strawberry farm and the Arakan Valley. These “tents” are equipped with their own toilets and bathrooms, beds and sitting areas. Some even have Jacuzzis for really luxe glamping experience.
The farm resort also offers different activities for guests including ATV rides to explore the surroundings.
Kavanah Haven Resort in Kitaotao
More impressive is Kavanah Haven Resort, located near Taglucop Strawberry Hills, and which most likely the most luxurious accommodation option in Bukidnon and even in the Northern Mindanao region.
The 14-hectare montane getaway formally opened on 28 May 2023. The name refers to the state of mind during worship, most likely referring to piety and devotion, in Judaism, giving guests clue on the Seventh-Day Adventist faith of owners.
Kavanah offers several well-appointed villas that approximate the feel of wooden cabins but with modern amenities, scattered around its sloping property and tucked among lush gardens and pine trees. The most prominent feature, perched on the highest part of the property, is B’teavon Restaurant, where one can have a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains.
Matigsalug Manobo
Community in Sinuda
The province of Bukidnon is the traditional home of seven indigenous ethnolinguistic groups— Bukidnon, after which the province is named after; the Manobo; the Talaandig Manobo; the Higaonon Manobo; the Umayamnon Manobo; the Tigwahanon Manobo; and the Matigsalug Manobo. Additionally, other ethnic groups from other parts of Mindanao, the Visayas and Luzon have also settled in the province.
The town of Kitaotao is part of the traditional home range of the Matigsalug Manobo, a subgroup of the large and diverse Manobo ethnic grouping. About 60 percent of the town’s population is Matigsalug Manobo. The group’s name means “dwellers around the river” or “people from river,” similar to the Subanen, Tagalog and Ibanag.
The Matigsalug Manobo community in Purok 1 of the barangay of Sinuda is where tourists can experience indigenous life and culture, in arrangement with the local government.
The community showcases their traditional attire, dances, songs, food and ornament-making. It would start with a ritual called panubad or bagtingon to welcome visitors and ask permission from the spirits.
Among the dances they performed was the courtship dance called kudlong saluray which is named after the musical instruments they play while dancing. The kudlong or kuglung, played by the man, is the wooden boat-shaped lute (which, of course, has many versions and names among different Philippine ethnic groups but we generally know it as kudyapi). On the other hand, the saluray, played by the woman, is a bamboo tube zither. These instruments are also used by other ethnic groups in the Bukidnon-Davao area.
Another dance is the bangkakawan, characterized by beating a large log with large sticks like pounding with pestles, which is also performed by other ethnic groups in the area, such as the Manobo and the Tigwahanon Manobo.
Visitors can also see how some residents make accessories, mostly necklaces and bracelets, out of beads.
Residents also prepared a feast of traditional foods cooked inside bamboo tubes. The bamboo tubes were split to reveal chicken, frogs, small river crabs, root crops and rattan shoots or sprouts. Boiled bananas and root crops were also offered.
Most visitors often rate the Matigsalug Manobo interaction as the one of best experiences in Bukidnon, affirming the potential of Kitaotao and the province Bukidnon.
With its rugged montane landscapes and chill temperatures, Bukidnon can be described as paradisiacal. But it has its share of social problems and history of problematic actions, including continuous existence and support of political dynasties, cases of grabbing of ancestral lands of indigenous communities and being one of the first places that declared drag artist Pura Luka Vega persona non grata on 8 August 2023, contributing to the extensive persecution of a queer person and queer expression. It is hoped that wholistic social development is given importance as tourism progresses.