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The Bad Times.The river that gives life during dry season, also takes away life during wet season. When the rain comes, the river starts with a vengeance mainly because of our arrogance and insensitivity to our forests. From the slopes of Mount Aganmala to the hills of Diaton, watershed has disappeared. Watershed acts like a sponge during rainy season, soaking in water so as to prevent soil erosion and cascading floods. Most of our mountains and hills are denuded, and theres nothing to prevent rainfall from rapidly accumulating into flood proportion. Beginning northeast of Gubang , Mt. Linao, Mt. Burburan and Mt. Pao, accumulate huge amount of rainfall from their slopes and dump it directly to the Bislak river. It is joined very early by Mt. Aganmalas western slope where two main tributaries fill up quickly and come together to form the biggest tributary of the Bislak river. It flows into the Gubang canyon and enters upon its fierce struggle with the encompassing rocks. Now it boils and foams, leaps and strikes, thunders and shatters. For kilometers after kilometers it wears and worries and undermines the canyon rocks to its destruction. The water now starts to turn yellowish brown, and at last, its canyon course run comes to an end as it comes against the Gubang chicayne. It slows down a bit, and churns into bubbles, beating it into froth and pushes through, thrusting out upon the foot of Mt. Masadsadac, along the Tamdagan river. The huge volume of water coming from the slope of Mt. Masadsadac and the Cabangaran Peak, adds a tremendous push and the rivers spirit and vivacity is ready to explode into the kalawaan'. |
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In the meantime, upstream in Isic-Isic, as the cloud burst, Mt. Mangrupid and Mt. Carongranga, collect the rainfall for the Makikidor river. Since, theres not enough watershed to absorb the precipitation, the mountain slopes are like the steps of a circus tent leading down into the arena, making the river as a catch-all basin for all water droplets. The water accumulates fast, as if the land at the bottom rises up to meet the cascading water. This tributary salamanders in and out of a hilly landscape cutting down the crust of the earth, gurgling and churning as the water turns into darkish brown. There is more than a veneer about the color. It has a depth that seems luminous and yet is sadly deceptive. You do not see below the surface no matter how long you gaze into it, and yet through a stratum of porphyry, you seem to have gazed at the bottom of the river. Almost simulteanously, the slopes of Mt. Pao, shake its covers and begin to release the water that its foliage has captured to the Tagludan river. Among the mountain slopes that creates the many tributaries of the Bislak river, Mt. Pao has retained mature trees with dense canopies, thus retaining a greater amount of precipitation. It is not surprising then, that it has the lowest water yield of all the forest cover. Unlike the others, the waters that emanates from its slopes starts as whitish green. How strange looking, as if unearhtly, when all the surrounding areas, theres nothing but yellowish brown colored water. Does it suggest, that this is the norm many years ago? Is it saying to us that with enough forest cover a watershed can prevent floods and erosion? |
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The water moves on carrying with it a sense of desolation, and at every step the waters grow darker, darker with
the stain of earth and mud as if decaying. As it passes below Cabangaran, its waters flung up sullenly and soon
joined with the Isic-Isic tributary just above Danao. The combined current is now a ranging torrent looking for an outlet.
It picks up speed as it rounds Danao and explodes just below Tamdagan, hitting head on against the main
tributary from the east. The roar of the water is deafening. The force of the impact is so tremendous that
it creates a a huge alinuno, scouring the bottom earth, rotating and whirling, until it resembles the
Milky Way, a galaxy on its own. A debris of logs, trees, bamboos, all kinds of plants, and some dead animals
are swung around it, rotating like planetoids, hopelessly trap in its maelstrom. The flood swirls in a huge
whirlpool vortex formed by waters that could not escape the enclosure of Mt. Pasuquins eastern slope,
and the western slope of Mt. Masadsadac.
This is the kalawaan. It is 215 ft above sea level during dry season. But, when the rain comes, the volume of water that descends rapidly from over 5000 ft from the east and over 3000 ft from the north would add an additional 12 to 15 ft making it like the earth has risen to a higher level. During heavy typhoons, this area receives over 12.11 inches of rainfall each month, and over 88 inches yearly. The waters accumulate rapidly and a tremendous force is unleash, scouring the earth where less resistant basalt layers give way as the great erosive power of this tremendous torrent develops. As it gathers momentum, the raging river yanks chunks of rock from the face of the mountain, widening its sphere of influence, hence the name, kalawaan. The eroding power is so great that it is now a kilometer in length and almost as wide. It is not through paucity of imagination that the folks who live near it gave the name Kalawaan. It has been called many different names, but the name that clung to it is kalawaan', because this one gives an accurate and truthful description of the basin. |
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This vast whirlpool struggles for an exit. The air is heavy with mist created by its dark waters slushing
against the mountain side. In the immensity of its struggle, it finds a way to rumble down pass Alsem and
Dipilat. As it proceeds down Visaya, it is squeezed by Mt. Pasuquin mountain range in the West, and the
Dipilat mountain range in the East. This narrowing of the river channel speeds up the water flow at over
10 knots as it gathers more volume from both slopes of the mountain ranges.
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