The Best-Kept Secret of Nug-as, Alcoy

By: Cherokee Mood: crappy Date: 01/16/2010 03:32:33 Music: None

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on April 1, 2008

I WENT DEEP into southern Cebu last December 29-30, 2007 together with my friends from CeMS (Cebu Mountaineering Society) to observe our traditional year-end climb and trek which we held, this time, at Nug-as, Alcoy.

Nug-as happened to cradle within her confines the last stand of old-growth rainforests in the island province of Cebu, of whose forested mountains, we thought, have been completely obliterated into baldy hills by greedy capitalists of the past.

And within its enclave is the haunt of the endemic bird -- the black shama or siloy -- whose habitat are losing ground elsewhere in the province due to unabated human intrusion and activity. The presence of the black shama in Nug-as have driven many ornithologists and nature conservation groups to conduct scientific observations and to collect data there, as well as to keep track of the bird’s population.

The black shama also added color to the cultural side of the municipality of Alcoy. They have adopted the lowly bird as their emblem wherein a town-wide mardi gras activity is held every August of each year to celebrate the town’s ecological biodiversity, of nature’s kindness and a bountiful harvest for their farms, and is aptly called as the Siloy Festival. (They even snared the first place prize of the Sinulog Grand Mardi Gras held in Cebu City on January 20, 2008!)