A live WW2 mortar, a narrow isthmus to the conical hill and strange Guisian stories

The trip being unplanned, we didn't bring any food nor drinks with us to Bagtasan, a special spot in Brgy. Guisian, Mogpog.  But there was a sari-sari store located south of a rocky isthmus where we all headed to upon disembarking from the boat driven by our friendly guide. The narrow Bagtasan isthmus separates two bodies of water, Sayao Bay to the east and a smaller, more quiet bay to the west they call Tabia.

There are coconut, talisay and other trees growing there keeping the houses pleasantly cool. Some ten families live there. By the time we arrived, the men have returned from their early morning fishing and have parked their boats ashore on the smaller bay.

Bagtasan is part of sitio Manlumod in Guisian which, just like the main coastal village on the east side, is located in a narrow strip of land between mountain and water. The two villages are separated by a steep mountain that makes it somewhat difficult for villagers from both sides to interact with each other more frequently. An elementary school, however, is located atop that mountain where children from the two villages meet and study.

While having a snack of biscuits and soft drinks, we engaged in lively chatter with the friendly local folks: No, one woman claims, this Bagtasan never goes under water.  Yes, there have been occasions when young people from sitio Manlumod studying in Mogpog invited their schoolmates to camp out here for a day or two. Climbing the summit of Susong Dalaga Hill is always a part of their activities aside from swimming, and that happens only during the Lenten season. Otherwise, only local residents come here from time to time to swim or to just have fun, she said.

Yes, many people have experienced strange things here – fireballs, apparitions of ghostly creatures pointing to a supposed buried gusi here or there with treasures, like this very spot where we are sitting now, but no gold was ever found in spite of attempts by many to dig their way to riches. But, fireballs, I’ve seen it myself, the lady tending the store said, but that was many years ago...

And many years ago, in the early 1950s, I had an uncle, she said, who found a live mortar shell under the water. For some reason he wanted to take the explosive powder out; got a hand saw, went to the beach and started working on the unexploded bomb with the object submerged so it would not heat up, he thought. He was wrong, the mortar bomb exploded - together with him, and all parts of him were blown up into countless tiny pieces and we mourned his loss!

And there’s another bomb right there under the water now (she went on, pointing to the water), but at low tide you could see it and even touch it, the children used to take turns lifting it but they always gently put it back. But now, my father has given strict orders to the small kids not to touch it anymore, it’s still there.

I was thinking, an unexploded WW2 mortar shell has been sleeping in the shallow waters here and getting exposed to all the elements during low tide for some seventy years! I was conjuring images of very strong waves causing it to be tossed violently into the rocks and boom! 

A boy, the storekeeper's nephew, happened to be swimming in that nearby area she pointed at.

She called the attention of the boy, show the bomb, she said quite confidently. The boy couldn’t seem to find it right away. With curiosity growing I wanted to take a picture of the mortar bomb the moment he finds it but he was some fifteen meters away. Larry, our guide, was quick to drag a boat and he said, come! By this time, I saw that the boy had the thing in his hands. In an instant he was carrying the object, it was corroded, part of the outer layer actually had peeled off. Then he held on to the boat with his right hand, his left hand steadily holding the bomb so I could take a good look (above photo).

After a couple of hurried shots with my cellphone camera I said, put it back boy, very, very carefully, and the boy did. I said they should still report it to the local authorities for proper disposal as it might cause harm.

The unexpected live mortar shell seemed to confirm that, indeed, something dramatic transpired right there during WW2. Then I asked them if anyone had ever heard of a Japanese ship that might have sunk in the area somewhere north or northwest.

Yes, they said. But they referred to the bombing in 1944 of Japanese ships in the harbor of Balanacan, a neighboring barangay. Not that one, I said, I am talking about a Japanese ship that was torpedoed and sunk more than one year before that, in 1943?

Maybe that’s the one that sank in a location about four miles away from Susong Dalaga Hill that fishermen refer to as Kantong Bahura, one elderly lady suggests. It's just about 15 to 20 fathoms deep and big fishing vessels are careful in that particular location because their nets could get entangled in that sunken vessel, as had been the case in the past with some commercial fishing vessels.  There's also in a spot nearby where the depth suddenly plunges to 40 fathoms deep but where it's safe to cast nets, she adds. (She said she had worked with fishing vessels in her younger days and therefore knew what she was talking about).

Shallow cave on the western side of Susong Dalaga (Maiden's Breast) conical hill - or is it really a pyramid? I have not uncovered its tightly guarded secrets.

More information came forth from that lively conversation, like the northern side of Susong Dalaga Hill being cantilado (from acantilado, cliff), having a depth of from 15-20 fathoms. Two other fishing vessels have reportedly sunk in that area in recent years because of major typhoons.

After further sharing, it was time to go back and we were glad our patient guide did not seem to mind at all our tarrying, apparently finding himself the subjects new, even interesting.

A fisherman’s wife approached us to ask if we might want to buy some of her husband’s catch. We paid Php 250.00 for an octopus that weighed 1 ½ kilos and half a kilo of fish (above). That’s too much for us, our host said. No, we’ll eat all of it, I joked. Truth is, I had a feeling we were not about ready yet to go back home to Boac...

Google map of Bagtasan isthmus and Susong Dalaga conical hill

Team Guisian plays against Team Velasco

During weekends and holidays and whenever he's free, Marinduque Congressman Lord Allan Velasco takes time out with Team Velasco to engage barangay players in seaside, riverside and interior districts in friendly basketball matches. This one's a more recent fun game with Team Guisian composed of fishermen and farmers living in Marinduque' northern coast. 

This quiet coastal village of Guisian is hardly known even to many Marinduque residents but visitors are slowly discovering its beautiful attractions that include shore cliffs, caves and secluded beaches. More than a decade ago this hamlet was the site of firefights between rebels and government soldiers, but three years ago, the province of Marinduque was declared by the Philippine Government as the first province in the entire country that's been freed of subversive elements. 

Velasco shaking hands with barangay officials and visitors.

During the last couple of years, villagers have started to organize their own sports
and various cultural events that attract spectators from far barangays.

Video of the friendly match between Team Velasco and team Guisian:

Is Susong Dalaga a built pyramid?

Climbing Susong Dalaga

November 30, Friday, was a holiday in the Philippines to honor national heroes led by Andres Bonifacio of Tondo, Manila, the father of the Katipunan secret society that started the Philippine revolution against Spain. That secret society was based on Freemasonic precepts, ancient knowledge and included rigorous initiations and blood compacts.

Also last Friday, a national thanksgiving mass for San Pedro Calungsod of Cebu, the second Filipino saint canonized by the Vatican. Only last month, the Cebu church hierarchy was rocked by scandal when a clergyman there was featured in a NatGeo cover as having a large collection of religious figurines made of ivory from recently slaughtered African elephants. The episode led to other revelations about that man who had been suspended from ministerial duties by the Vatican for sex abuse charges while a priest in California.

Many young people follow the lives of saints and heroes and are, at times, also intrigued by secret societies, their good or dark side and their impact on people's lives. But for the moment some are just into explorations of the world immediately surrounding them.

Kenneth, Jhon Rey, Von and Azreil

That small, informal outdoors group of college boys I have blogged about several times for their explorations may not be into saints and heroes but, like others too, are quietly into discoveries of lesser known places in their beloved island-province.

It’s Susong Dalaga Hill this time and Bagtasan Isthmus they decided to explore. Susong Dalaga is that hill visible wherever you may be in the shores of Sayao Bay, one that looks like a circular based pyramid with an apex right in the middle. Interestingly, you have to pass through a stony isthmus to get there.

What's intriguing is that, as recently as now, an American mystic, David Wilcock, has made claims that the famous Chocolate Hills of Bohol are actually pyramids or ancient monuments. According to Wilcock there are ancient structures around the world aligned on the same grid, one of them being the 1,776 pyramids in Bohol. Others are the earthen mounds built by the Mound Builders in the U.S. and the lost pyramids of Italy.

View of Susong Dalaga from the far-end of Bagtasan

What then, if based on this info, Susong Dalaga happens to be a built-pyramid? And if it is such a pyramid, who did it and why? Wilcock’s new physics theory explains that such structures are built by ‘altering’ matter. A frequency and vibration technology was used to alter the stone blocks molecular structure, so they would become softer and lighter to move, he theorized. The effects of pyramids are connected to gravity, which is pushing down from the sky. “Gravity is a river of energy flowing into the Earth… and that energy can be harnessed by building a funnel-like shape causing gravity’s fluid energy to swirl and create a vortex current”, explained Wilcock. More of David Wilcock here.

But then again, who did it? Aliens?

Boat ride after exploring the cone-shaped structure

View of Bagtasan Isthmus from Susong Dalaga. More interestingly, it is within the periphery of Datum Station Balanacan, the datum origin of all geological surveys in the Philippines. 

Atop Susong Dalaga. Watch the video below.

                 Video of the boys' romance with Susong Dalaga Pyramid

Video on Guisian and its attractions

Susong Dalaga Hill in Guisian

Photos of our trip to Guisian and some of its attractions like the shore cliffs, Bagtasan and Susong Dalaga Hill in this video.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Road leading to northern Marinduque.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Guisian. Defining the character of a scenic barangay.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

Paye in Mogpog. Reflecting a people's self-image.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

Just one of Sayao's vast range of landscapes.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

More Guisian bombs and war recollections

Leaving Bagtasan. 

I requested to see the northern side of Susong Dalaga Hill from the water so the boatman maneuvered his small boat northward while towing our bigger boat.

Susong Dalaga Hill.

The sea remained calm. One couldn’t see the sea bottom here through deep blue, unlike the blue-green waters off the shore cliffs.

Pawikan!

The boatman suddenly shouted something to us while pointing a finger at the base of the rocky hill. What did he say, I asked my company. Pawikan daw... ayun ngani o, Cora said. (He said sea turtle... and there it is!) I was almost breathless with excitement, imagining a large sea turtle, but wondering why there of all places.

It was huge! Not a live sea turtle, unfortunately, but a stone formation suggesting a pawikan ready to go down to the water – with head, eyes, a flat back and flipper-like legs. We were all appreciating the wonderful likeness as our boat passed by. Then we headed back to Guisian, making a turn eastward where we could see sitio Manlumod from a distance.

With team member Al in foreground. To the left is Mataas na Bundok, site of Datum Station Balanacan, and Susong Dalaga Hill to the right.

Back in Guisian, we were met by a friend asking how our trip was. We first met him during an earlier visit. I assured him that all of us extremely enjoyed the trip. But also remembering an earlier story mentioned to me by another fellow who left for Camarines Norte earlier that morning, I asked the guy if he had ever heard of an empty bomb shell picked up ashore in Lastre (a place in Guisian), after a typhoon years ago.

I live there, I know of one myself, I could show it to you, he replied. How could we be so lucky, I thought. We agreed then to meet later in the day after our late lunch.

View from Lastre.

It was getting dark when we met again as agreed upon. He at once led me to his place in Lastre going straight to the beach, even straight to the water, then he pointed at something there. There it is, he said. I was in disbelief, another bomb in the water? Where, I couldn’t see it, I asked.

Shell under water.

There, he said, firmly pointing at something about two meters away. With knees bent I moved my face closer to the surface of the water. It was large, maybe not exactly empty, but it wasn’t a bomb. It was a clam shell! Not wanting to embarrass the guy, I took a picture though it was really getting dark. That was also interesting, said I, poker-faced.

Empty bomb shell.

He must have misheard me. So I told him about our trip and the unexploded bomb story. He responded by taking me to his relative’s house, just a few houses away, as the old man, Mang Celso, in his late 70s might know something, he said. It turned out that, in fact, he knew about the empty bomb shell I asked about; in fact he was keeping it in that same house, so he said, and disappeared to look for it in the backyard; and returned to us holding the rusty thing.

And another bomb shell.

There are two of these here, the old man said, I used to make use of the other one as anchor for my small banca. He said he might find the other one in another relative’s house just a few steps away so could we please wait. He disappeared for a while, coming back holding another bomb shell that appeared heavy, having been filled with hardened cement. 

The Sayao Bay war theater. 

The old man was eager to share his own story about the war, the things he knew: He knew about a ship called ‘Maru’, he said, it docked near the area in Sayao Bay where a port was constructed years later for a mining operation. That ship, he said, was covered with so, so many trees to hide it from the sight of the Americans. The Americans were in the vicinity of Susong Dalaga, he said, and the Japanese panicked upon seeing the flashing signal lights from their enemy. The Americans waited for the Japanese ship to escape and when it did, the Americans struck the enemy and sank their ship. He had actually seen a torpedo, he said, (made a drawing on the soil with a stick), and remembered that as a young boy he also toyed, together with friends his age, with a Japanese helmet too big for their small heads. They had found it on the beach in Paye while swimming, he said, and played a toss and catch game with it.

The unexpected.

 That was the old man's brief account of what had occurred in this picturesque landscape, the theater for a significant WW2 operation. Evening had finally set in, we bid goodbye and conveyed my appreciation for sharing his story with us. But when I got to Cora's place she had something totally unexpected to tell me this time:                          


Kuya, may katapat daw pala yung pawikan sa kabila, at hindi raw yun natural na porma kundi sadyang ginawa, katulad din nung katapat nun na araw daw na may sinag at inukit sa batong pader, kasing taas din nung pawikan!

San dun yung araw na may sinag?

Minsang bumagyo daw na may kasabay na lindol ay gumuho yung itaas ng cliff at natabunan ng mga gumuhong bato yung araw na inukit, pero nandun pa rin daw…

A live WW2 mortar, a narrow isthmus to the conical hill and some Guisian stories

The trip being unplanned, we didn't bring any food or drinks with us to Bagtasan, a special spot in Brgy. Guisian, Mogpog.  But there was a sari-sari store located south of a rocky isthmus where we all headed to upon disembarking from the boat driven by our friendly guide. The narrow Bagtasan isthmus separates two bodies of water, Sayao Bay to the east and a smaller, more quiet bay to the west they call Tabia.

There are coconut, talisay and other trees growing there keeping the houses pleasantly cool. Some ten families live there. By the time we arrived, the men have returned from their early morning fishing and have parked their boats ashore on the smaller bay.

Bagtasan is part of sitio Manlumod in Guisian which, just like the main coastal village on the east side, is located in a narrow strip of land between mountain and water. The two villages are separated by a steep mountain that makes it somewhat difficult for villagers from both sides to interact with each other more frequently. An elementary school, however, is located atop that mountain where children from the two villages meet and study.

While having a snack of biscuits and soft drinks, we engaged in lively chatter with the friendly local folks: No, one woman claims, this Bagtasan never goes under water.  Yes, there have been occasions when young people from sitio Manlumod studying in Mogpog invited their schoolmates to camp out here for a day or two. Climbing the summit of Susong Dalaga Hill is always a part of their activities aside from swimming, and that happens only during the Lenten season. Otherwise, only local residents come here from time to time to swim or to just have fun, she said.

Yes, many people have experienced strange things here – fireballs, apparitions of ghostly creatures pointing to a supposed buried gusi here or there with treasures, like this very spot where we are sitting now, but no gold was ever found in spite of attempts by many to dig their way to riches. But, fireballs, I’ve seen it myself, the lady tending the store said, but that was many years ago...

And many years ago, in the early 1950s, I had an uncle, she said, who found a live mortar shell under the water. For some reason he wanted to take the explosive powder out; got a hand saw, went to the beach and started working on the unexploded bomb with the object submerged so it would not heat up, he thought. He was wrong, the mortar bomb exploded - together with him, and all parts of him were blown up into countless tiny pieces and we mourned his loss!

And there’s another bomb right there under the water now (she went on, pointing to the water), but at low tide you could see it and even touch it, the children used to take turns lifting it but they always gently put it back. But now, my father has given strict orders to the small kids not to touch it anymore, it’s still there.

I was thinking, an unexploded WW2 mortar shell has been sleeping in the shallow waters here and getting exposed to all the elements during low tide for some seventy years! I was conjuring images of very strong waves causing it to be tossed violently into the rocks and boom! 

A boy, the storekeeper's nephew, happened to be swimming in that nearby area she pointed at.

She called the attention of the boy, show the bomb, she said quite confidently. The boy couldn’t seem to find it right away. With curiosity growing I wanted to take a picture of the mortar bomb the moment he finds it but he was some fifteen meters away. Larry, our guide, was quick to drag a boat and he said, come! By this time, I saw that the boy had the thing in his hands. In an instant he was carrying the object, it was corroded, part of the outer layer actually had peeled off. Then he held on to the boat with his right hand, his left hand steadily holding the bomb so I could take a good look (above photo).

After a couple of hurried shots with my cellphone camera I said, put it back boy, very, very carefully, and the boy did.  I said they should still report it to the local authorities for proper disposal as it might cause harm.

The unexpected live mortar shell seemed to confirm that, indeed, something dramatic transpired right there during WW2. Then I asked them if anyone had ever heard of a Japanese ship that might have sunk in the area somewhere north or northwest.

Yes, they said. But they referred to the bombing in 1944 of Japanese ships in the harbor of Balanacan, a neighboring barangay. Not that one, I said, I am talking about a Japanese ship that was torpedoed and sunk more than one year before that, in 1943?

Maybe that’s the one that sank in a location about four miles away from Susong Dalaga Hill that fishermen refer to as Kantong Bahura, one elderly lady suggests. It's just about 15 to 20 fathoms deep and big fishing vessels are careful in that particular location because their nets could get entangled in that sunken vessel, as had been the case in the past with some commercial fishing vessels. It's also in a spot nearby where the depth suddenly plunges to 40 fathoms but where it's safe to cast their nets, she adds. (She said she had worked with fishing vessels in her younger days and therefore knew what she was talking about).

Shallow cave on the western side of Susong Dalaga (Maiden's Breast) conical hill - or is it really a pyramid? I have not uncovered its tightly guarded secrets.

More information came forth from that lively conversation, like the northern side of Susong Dalaga Hill being cantilado (from acantilado, cliff), having a depth of from 15-20 fathoms. Two other fishing vessels have reportedly sunk in that area in recent years because of major typhoons.

After further sharing, it was time to go back and we were glad our patient guide did not seem to mind at all our tarrying, apparently finding himself the subjects new, even interesting.

A fisherman’s wife approached us to ask if we might want to buy some of her husband’s catch. We paid Php 250.00 for an octopus that weighed 1 ½ kilos and half a kilo of fish (above). That’s too much for us, our host said. No, we’ll eat all of it, I said jokingly. Truth is, I had a feeling we were not about ready yet to go back home to Boac...