My hometown, now a second class municipality with aspirations of cityhood, has morphed into a real big time town with three hotels, a resort and an influx of tourists composed of balikbayans and foreigners out to see Lake Buhi, the twin falls of Itbog, Baybay, and other waterfalls and lakelets as well as the world-famous sinarapan, which used to be the smallest fish in the world until the title was taken by a rare goby specie recently found in Australia.

Caption: AWARDEE. BUHI TOWN: Home of the world’s smallest edible fish.

        With a population of 86,000 and growing, Buhi now has the second biggest number of registered voters in the province, 36,000+ next only to Libmanan, although it has long overtaken Libmanan in rice production what with its thrice annual harvest due to first class irrigation. Water from Lake Buhi also irrigates nearby towns of Iriga City, Baao, Bula, Pili, but the irony is that NIA, which built the dam, collects the irrigation revenue with the municipality getting nothing. If the income from the irrigation water goes to Buhi, the town would long have qualified as a first class municipality. Buhinons express hope that the provincial government through the leadership of Gov. El Ray Villafuerte, who got a whopping 7,000-vote majority over his last opponent in Buhi, will support the long-ago passed resolution of the municipal council asking the NIA to turn over the irrigation revenue to Buhi. After all, they have more than recouped their investment since 1981.

        Buhi’s progress may be attributed to several factors: more than 3,000 Buhinons are working abroad, mostly professionals and high-salaried. The Buhi Elementary School class 1972 homecoming alone drew engineers, doctors, nurses, and IT technicians from all over the world, such places as England, the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Ireland, and Italy. The houses in the town are now urban-looking, where before the skyline was dominated by cogon and nipa rooftops, now mansions adorn the town. The remittances from abroad have grown through the years that Western Union now has a branch in Buhi through RMR pawnshop, the company owned by a Buhinon success story, Rey M. Ranada, who comes from a small barrio, De la Fe, a dirt poor child of peasant farmers who supported himself through high school as a houseboy in Iriga City, worked on construction sites in Manila and supported himself through college, earning an accounting degree from Jose Rizal University, rose to become a vice president for acquired assets of the biggest private development bank in the country, started a pawnshop, construction company and a 10-hectare piggery in Nueva Ecija: he has 1,000 female pigs all of whose piglets are contracted for by the foods division of San Miguel Brewery. His is the only house in Buhi with a jacuzzi. (He was featured in the Bicol Mail issue last year, during the national palaro in Pili - editor).

        Another factor is the 9-year term of Diones N. Belza, who made an unsuccessful run for the fourth district congressional seat against Felix O. Alfelor, Jr. Belza improved the collection of taxes, caused the cementing of the 14-kilometer Iriga-Buhi road, cemented or asphalted the big barangays of Tambo, Buraburan and even partially Antipolo, Salay, etc. He built a modern public market along the reclaimed shore of Lake Buhi, and built a terminal for buses and trucks. He beautified the town with lampposts adding the Naka-Buhi monument and building a mini-park in Lourdes, while improving the privately donated Ricafranca Park.

        Belza, another balikbayan engineer, built the Buhi Satellite Radio and TV company (BUSTROS) in the late 70s, the first cable company in Rinconada. His vice mayor, Rey Lacoste, another engineer, is the newly-elected mayor of the town.

        Belza also had the foresight of posting Buhi on an Internet website. Villa Florencia, a 15-room hotel built by a nurse, Florencia Albuerne-Mercurio, and her husband, Yeng Mercurio, both U.S. citizens, once had a reservation for 120 tourists from Korea, who were in Legazpi to see Mayon Volcano! They learned about Buhi from the internet. Mountain climbers both foreign and local are also trooping to Buhi to climb the defunct Mt. Asog, as well as the mountain ranges that surround Buhi (along Malinao and Tiwi, Albay, which shares a border with Buhi on the Albay side, and Ocampo and Ligaon, on the Camarines Sur side as well as the Pacific ocean on the western side of the mountains.

        The NPC-owned Barit-Buhi hydroelectric plant has been privatized and now owned by another successful Buhinon, former Mayor Ramon I. Constantino, an American citizen who practices law in New York, USA, after passing the bar there (he is an Ateneo de Naga high school alumnus and a law graduate of the Ateneo de Manila). Now renamed People’s Hydroelectric Power Plant, Monching employed an all-Buhinon crew and had the plant managed by another Buhinon, former CASUREO 111 manager Engr. Percival Fabul-Favoreal, a Mapua alumnus who was one of the board topnothers for electrical engineers in the 60s.

        The annual pabayle of the Katzenjammers fraternity of Buhi, which has been traditionally held at the town plaza every 27th of the month, drew attendance from Buhinons and visitors from all over the world. KJS is the longest existing youth organization in the town, and it celebrated its 50th anniversary last May 27.

        My late brothers Rudy and Elmer were once presidents of the KJS, and so was Rudy’s sons Boyet and Nathan. The latter, by the way, was recently elected councilor of Naga City, and he was the guest speaker at the KJS anniversary ball last fiesta. To everyone’s surprise, Nathan revealed that there are actually three Buhinons elected to the City Council of Naga, namely Atty. Nelson Legacion, Maria Elizabeth Lavadia (by affinity, since her husband is from Buhi) and himself. Of course, the catch was that if they have some problems in Naga, there are two others they can approach, aside from himself!

        In attendance at the pabayle was another Buhinon balikbayan who was the first lady mayor of Bubaran, Lanao del Sur, Lydia Eclar Manabilang. She was professor of Mindanao State University when she met and married a dashing Muslim soldier, Mastura Mabilangan, who became mayor of the newly-created town of Bubaran. He went on to serve for two terms, let his spouse run unopposed and she was able to hold on to the post for three terms or nine years. Last May 14, Mayor Manabilang (the husband) got his post back, also unopposed, with his eldest, 25-year old son as vice mayor. The town is half Muslim and half Christian.