WHATS IN THE NAME
LOLA SAYONG ECO-SURFARM: What’s in the name?
After the Second World War, the family of Rosario Camposano-Escandor, fondly called “Lola Sayong” acquired 3 hectares of coconut land for only P115.00 along the stretch of Gubat Bay in Barangay Buenavista, Gubat, Sorsogon.
Located more than 800 kilometers south of Manila, the quaint town of Gubat in the southernmost tip of Luzon has since offered gems that even the locals would not have known they had all along.
Considered stagnant and unprofitable, the coconut lands have remained a humble abode for the unassuming Escandor family. Even when beach resorts have sprouted along Gubat bay in the adjacent barangay Rizal that made Rizal Beach a household name due to its fine, white sand and the popularity brought by the 1967 Hollywood film, The Longest Hundred Miles, featuring Rizal Beach as the plot location, the Escandor family of Buenavista has only utilized their land and the beach purely for household consumption and maintenance, as well as sharing their produce with their neighbours and relatives.
The beach stretch along Barangay Buenavista faces the turbulent waters of San Bernardino Strait, the ancient maritime route that separates Luzon and Samar in the Visayas region. Its geophysical location makes the waves of Barangay Buenavista swell up to 7 feet during the months of October to May, ideal for surfing beginners.
Considered dangerous and deadly, the locals would avoid bathing in this part of the bay until decades later when a group of youth led by brothers Noli and Nico Mercader dared braving the angry, roaring waves of Barangay Buenavista and proved to everyone that people can be one with nature only if we will try.
The journey of building a no-frills surf camp began in 2014 when the Mercader brothers and their childhood friends realized that they had to seek permanent shelter after years of camping from one beach to another. So the brothers had asked Amancio Escandor, one of Lola Sayong’s sons if they could borrow a portion of land where they could camp during their surf sessions.
Knowing that this venture could help the youth and the community, Amancio and Lola Sayong both agreed without hesitations on the condition that they will follow the basic rules of maintaining orderliness and cleanliness of the land area and respect the family’s privacy and peace especially during the wee hours.
The brothers and their childhood friends have just started learning and appreciating the sport and its indubitable connection to the principles of environment protection and preservation. The youth surfers wanted to echo these advocacies to the rest of Gubatnon community, but they needed a sanctuary – a place where ideas could turn into action, and transform the action into mobilization.
Honouring the old woman’s kindness and generosity, the youth surfers named the camp after the former, thus Lola Sayong Eco-Surf Camp before transitioning to Lola Sayong Eco-SurFarm in 2020, during the peak of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
Establishing the Camp and its Rules
The group of friends built the first 5 huts inside the camp out of their own pockets. Some were outsourced from close friends and relatives.
They also established the core values of the group which primarily based on the principle of protecting and maintaining the sanctity of the sea and the beach being their surfing playground and sanctuary.
As they started accepting guests and other interested individuals seeking to learn surfing, they offered surfing tutorials and limited accommodation for those who come from other towns and provinces.
Visitors of the camp however are bound to follow the rules such as not littering, ban of plastic use, helping the locals during morning clean-ups, and leaving no trash once they leave the camp.
Prior to entering the camp, the surfers would read and orient the guests of these sets of rules, While the rules are enforceable and not negotiable in nature, the camp management also understands that not all guests can agree and understand their advocacies. They also recognize the fact that only those guests, individuals, and groups who share the same advocacies and principles are most likely to stay in the camp.
No School, No Surf
To instill discipline and guidance to the youth surfers, the group implemented “No School, No Surfing” policy. This rule encourages children in the area to prioritize their studies and treat surfing as a reward to end the day.
The older members led by the Mercader brothers would see to it that the children would finish their assignments first before surfing the tides. Every semester, the children are also required to submit their report cards for monitoring. Without these report cards, they will not be allowed to join surfing competitions.
As the camp’s community grew, Lola Sayong’s grandchildren also grew in number. As of 2019, Lola Sayong had approximately 30 non-blood related grandchildren.
Starting as a hobby, the youth surfers have gone a long way from humble surfing novices that established Lola Sayong Eco-Surf Camp before transitioning and becoming Lola Sayong Eco-SurFarm, now a thriving social enterprise maintained and operated by Gubatnon for Adventourism, Inc., one of the most active and multi-awarded youth organization in Sorsogon province.
These collective efforts along with robust support from similar organizations, like-minded individuals, the local community, and the local government, Gubat has carved its name in the country’s tourism map while exemplifying Gubatnon culture and identity to the rest of the world.
In 2019, the good old Lola Sayong has passed. But her goodness reverberates and will always be immortalized through the youth surfers who received such special act of kindness and pay it forward as long as the sun shines up from the magnanimous view of Gubat Bay.
The Big Leap Forward
With the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic that put even the great nations to their knees, the surfers of Gubat are paid no exemption.
As the government closed the borders and implemented community-wide lockdowns, the operation of the camp has also stopped.
In order to maintain the camp and sustain the employment of around 40 employees including the youth surfer-volunteers, the organization has sought a way to continue the operation around the new normal circumstance.
From surfing, the group made the big leap to farming as they see the former as the only sustainable way of coping with economic gap during the lockdown.
They started to raise farm animals such as goats, chickens, turkeys, rabbits and pigs. They also purchased seeds and learned vegetable farming.
Eventually, they established their own community store and sell their harvests, by which also allowed their store to become a convergence of farm and marine products from other small-scale and individual sellers who also wanted to earn during the pandemic.
This series of activities gave birth to the “community harvest”, the one-stop community shop that bared the collective efforts from the community and revisited the spirit of bayanihan among Gubatnons in times of dire need.
As the lockdown mostly restrained people’s mobility and activities, the group also explored venturing on food and grocery delivery to individuals and homes around the town and adjacent municipalities which they called “the wheeled meals”.
The wheeled meals offer a five-day lunch meal plan featuring healthy meals fresh from the surfarmers’ own farm produce. They also deliver goods and vegetables from their store to households around the town.
Aside from sustaining the employment of the youth, Gubatnons could have a taste of healthy, home-cooked, and fresh lunch meals during the height of the lockdowns.
What to Expect in the Camp?
The camp aims to introduce a way of life, thus its strict adherence to a laid-back, eco-friendly concept of tourism. Since the camp operates as a social enterprise that originates from long-practiced advocacies, Lola Sayong Eco-SurFarm is deeply anchored on its core values and principles and relishes the fruit of their hard labor by maintaining unison and stability of the major components of the camp.
Core Values and Principles
1. SUSTAINABLE AND RESPONSIBLE TOURISM
The organization strongly upholds to the ideals that they are environment advocates first before anything else. Since their venture started with surfing which is highly dependent on the sea as their playground, there is a pressing need to protect the area.
The group likewise acknowledges the ill effects of climate change, and renounces all kinds of man-made activities that would put the playground and the people in peril. (e.g. utilization of single-use plastics and other materials, littering, beach partying, improper solid waste management, etc.)
Those who come from outside the camp area other than the locals are called “guest”. Guests are expected to follow the rules and regulations of the camp, respect the locals and the town’s norms and culture, and see to it that they follow the basic mountaineering principle of “leaving no trace” when they leave the camp.
The aforementioned and other sets of rules shall be read and oriented to them upon registration.
2. COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND SERVICES
Indeed no man is an island, and no group can thrive on its own. In so far as the organization is concerned and is in existence for more than a decade, it has received the generous support from the community.
As the organization embarks on social enterprise, the organization recognizes the indispensible roles of other stakeholders in sustaining Lola Sayong Eco-Surfarm a thriving one. There is no other better recognition than giving back to the community that makes a social enterprise alive in our midst.
The surrounding community of stakeholders including the farmers and the fisherfolks fuel the primary motivation of the organization in forwarding and strengthening the advocacy of social economic activity not based on maximizing profit but mainly revolves around satisfying social needs. (Kim, 2017)
Being part of the local economy, the organization seeks to rely on the local economic value chain in the maintenance and sustenance of all its ventures and see to it that fiscal autonomy and growth resonate throughout Gubatnon community.
3. ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION
The camp highly regards the locals, the beach, the marine ecosystem and its surrounding biodiversity as part of Lola Sayong community.
For years, the community has witnessed the dwindling of marine creatures mainly caused by increased human activity along the beach and in the ocean. Thoughv tourism development has helped economically, its impact on the marine life causes greater loss than gains on the environment. The effects can be seen through the decrease of fish and other marine population such as the sea-turtles or pawikan (Halpern, 2008).
Being one of the founding principles of the organization, the Gubatnons for Adventourism, Inc. fully commits and will work on initiatives by which the focus revolves around marine life protection and preservation, and rejects practices, programs, and projects that will only bring irreversible damages to the environment.