SENIOR BYAHERO
One of the things I love most about travel is the chance to meet people and listen to their stories of struggles and triumphs.
We were on our last day of our Masbate Island adventure and were about to hop on a midnight ferry to Burias Island. For five straight days of our exploration of the main island of Masbate, we had nothing but the freshest seafoods in this part of Bicol Region. I was ready to just make a quick drive through at Masbate City’s newly opened fast-food restaurant and make a quick grab of a burger and fries, but our friends from the Masbate Tourism Office had a different idea.
They drove us to the next town of Mobo, where we entered a narrow street leading to a fishing village. It was already dark when we got there but I was able to figure that we were running along the road next to a river on one side and fish ponds on the other. At the end of the road was a restaurant with a lighted neon sign saying “Dampa sa Fabrika,” something you didn’t expect at this far end of the municipality of Mobo.
DAMPA SA FABRIKA
But Mobo has its way of surprising visitors. When the Spanish explorers and missionaries reached the place, they saw the settlement where the river and mountain stream called Maboo already engaging into bartering and trade. According to history: “It was a settlement where the hill and inland stream contribute a lot to its bounty. The stream teeming with fish and barnacles serves as a fishing ground and access for floating logs. Logs coming from unimaginable bulk were towed down the river wild on the shallower eddies by the cutting area. Farther downstream, the logs passed through the ‘tabukan.’ The wide yet wild Maboo River as used for docking bater for mooring dug our boats to safety.”
The place where the logs were processed to become lumber became called Fabrica. The Sagawsawan River in Barangay Fabrica offered a safe place for big ships to anchor because of its depth. During Spanish time, many galleons were built and repaired in Fabrica. When the Galleon trade was over, Fabrica started producing “traviesas” or wooden planks to supply the construction of railroad tracks all over the country.
But it had to end. Logging was no longer allowed in Masbate and there was no more new railroad track construction to supply to that Fabrica had to close. The skillful shipbuilders and woodworkers went back to fishing but retained the name Fabrica to remind them of their glorious past.
FRESH CRABS
The sea between Masbate Island and Tablas Island is rich in seafoods, and the fishermen of Mobo always get good catch which they can export to nearby provinces. Then Covid happened in 2020, the fishermen had nowhere to sell their harvests.
It was in December 2021 when the fishermen of Fabrica made a difficult decision to form a cooperative called Fabrica Eco-Tourism Fishermen Cooperative or FETIFICO to put-up a dampa-style restaurant offering freshly-cooked seafoods at affordable prices.
According to Romeo Gabriel, its president, they started with nothing except the power to survive during the pandemic. The mayor of Mobo, Raymund Salvacion, gave them ₱70,000 so that they can put up a small restaurant and buy cooking and serving utensils. They borrowed tables and chairs from the LGUs, and the barangay officials of Fabrica extended some loans to them to serve as their working capital.
“We started bayanihan-style,” according to Gabriel. “We can only afford to pay the cook, the rest of us worked for free,” he added.
FRESH SCALLOPS
Soon, the word of affordable but fresh dampa-style restaurant started to spread in Mobo and in nearby municipalities. Those who were allowed to travel started braving the narrow streets leading to the lighted neon sign to shop for fresh fish and seafood at the market run by the fishermen’s wives and have them cooked at Dampa sa Fabrika.
Nowadays, the cooperative with 80 members, all fisherfolks, who risked everything during the pandemic is a success story. “We now have our own equipment worth ₱300,000, our own generator, and we can now pay our staff their monthly salary totaling ₱120,000” Gabriel proudly mentioned.
As we started partaking the dinner prepared by the cooperative, we started to understand the reason for their success. The seafoods were the freshest we have tasted, and they were all cooked with love by people who had to overcome difficult challenges.
C. S. Lewis said: “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an ordinary destiny.”
(The author is a senior who recently retired from work as an engineer in an auto manufacturing company. He used to be a regular contributor to MB's Cruising Magazine. His taste for adventure has not kept him from travelling, usually via not-so-usual routes.)