Calaguas Islands

I was sitting on a plastic chair outside a sari-sari store in Calaguas, watching a tourist couple take selfies against the sunset. The woman kept repositioning herself, trying to get the golden hour just right. Behind her, a local fisherman ...

Mang Roberto squinted at the horizon, then back at the plastic bottles littering the tide line. It was 6 a.m., Calaguas Island local time, and he’d already walked the beach twice with a torn rice sack, collecting what the last ...

I sat on a weathered bamboo bench outside Ate Luisa’s sari-sari store in Barangay Tinago, watching her granddaughter scroll through Instagram photos of Calaguas Island’s famous white sand beaches. The girl, maybe sixteen, paused on one image: a pristine shoreline ...

Maria handed me a woven bracelet and smiled the kind of smile you give someone when you’ve done this a thousand times before. “For you, sir. Support locals.” Her English was careful, practiced. I looked at the bracelet. It was ...

I stepped off the boat onto Calaguas Island expecting adventure. What I got was a reality check on my expectations for food as I ate the first of many Calaguas Island meals. No beachfront bistros with Edison bulbs. No chalkboard ...

The table looked like something from a travel magazine. Grilled tuna gleamed under the afternoon sun. Steaming rice-filled ceramic bowls. Fresh coconut halves sat ready for drinking. Sliced mango and pineapple made neat rows across plastic platters. This is what ...

I watched Maria stare at the menu for a full three minutes. Her friend Jen had already ordered grilled bangus. The cook was waiting. Maria’s hand hovered over the laminated list as if she were disarming a landmine. “Do you ...