This page, like most pages in this website, is a work in progress. Its aim is to become a comprehensive source on walking in the Philippines.
My Walks
- 2022 June 9–10: Los Baños to San Pablo walk
- 2023 April 20 and 27: “Nasa Labas ang Ili” (Home is Out There) guided walk
- 2023 December 4–10: Roots x Gravel: A Week-long Walk of Los Baños
- 2024 January 15–21: Tall Tales: Baguio Walk No. 1
My Essays on Walking
- A Mask of Darkness with No Eyes
- A Metaphysical Walk Along the Mountains of Rizal
- A Never-ending Walk
- A Shadow Along Freedom Park
- A Walk Around HEAL
- All Them Dirt Roads
- And I Shall Hear Their Hearts Beating
- Tall Tales: Baguio Walk No. 1
- Beauty is Always Around You
- Doing Afternoon Fieldworks
- Extracting Sweetness and Comfort Out of Everything
- Where Grass Once Turned Crimson
- Ang Heograpiya ng Buhay
- Our Invisible Walden
- Kasapatan, Pagpapaubaya, at ang Paghahangad ng Kapayapaan
- Saan Siya Nanggaling? Saan Siya Patungo?
- Sage and Child
- The Inward Morning
- The Night Sky
- Traversing Liminality Through Walking: An Autoethnography
- Umbrellaworts and Truth Partners
- Walking and the Well
- Walking Lopez, Quezon Part I: The Rules of Trolleys
- Walking Lopez, Quezon Part II: A Fishpond at San Jose
- Why Walk?
My Newsletters on Walking
The Long Walk (weekly) — October 2022 to present (27 issues)
A weekly newsletter that used to share artifacts I find during my walks in geographic space and in the wilderness of the mind. Now I use it to share new essays, poems, short notes, and photographs all inspired by walking.
Tall Tales: Baguio Walk No. 1 — January 15 to 21, 2024 (5 issues)
A pop-up newsletter for my first week-long walk of Baguio City. In this newsletter, I wrote about how I returned to streets and places I used to frequent as a formed minister of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Roots ྾ Gravel — December 4 to 10, 2023 (8 issues)
A pop-up newsletter for my first week-long walk around Los Baños. The original intention of the walk was to explore a free, creative, and subsistent spirituality through walking around my current town of residence. The essays and photographs diverted from this original intention as the walk progressed.
Lilim (weekly) — May 2021 to August 2022 (32 issues)
Lilim is a Filipino word that means shade. It was a weekly newsletter that ran for three seasons during the pandemic. It began as a documentation of my early walks in Los Baños and evolved into a predecessor of The Long Walk.
Literature on Walking in the Philippines
Many of the titles in this section and the next are from the syllabus of Vincenz Serrano’s course “Art as Inquiry: Art of Walking” at the Ateneo de Manila University.
- Cruz, Conchitina. “Pedestrian Studies.” Authoring Autonomy: The Politics of Art for Art’s Sake in Filipino Poetry in English, University of Albany, State University of New York, 2016, pp. 192–204, https://www.proquest.com/openview/a9ed1f639df33d0d2c175f668dcffd37/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750.
- Dayrit, Joy. “The Walk.” The Walk, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992.
- Kusog sa Katawhang Lumad sa Mindanao (KALUMARAN), et al., editors. Sandugo: Kampuhan Sa Diliman 2016 Literary Folio. 2016, https://issuu.com/sandugokampuhan2016/docs/sandugo_20161104.
- Serrano, Vincenz. Eskinita and Other Poems and Form, Historiography, and Nation in Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños. 2011. University of Manchester, https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/54511903/FULL_TEXT.PDF.
- Serrano, Vincenz. The Collapse of What Separates Us. High Chair, 2010.
- Serrano, Vincenz. When a Map Is Folded Cities Come Closer, When Clothes Are Unpacked Cities Fall Apart. High Chair, 2016.
- Suganob, Jesa. “Suburban Loneliness: Disembodiment.” Bon Pour Brûler, 29 Aug. 2023, https://flammablematerials.wordpress.com/2023/08/29/suburban-loneliness-disembodiment/.
- Suganob, Jesa. “Suburban Loneliness: Housing Memories.” Bon Pour Brûler, 19 Aug. 2023, https://flammablematerials.wordpress.com/2023/08/19/dispatches-from-a-house-arrest/.
- Suganob, Jesa. “Suburban Loneliness: On Walking.” Bon Pour Brûler, 12 Aug. 2023, https://flammablematerials.wordpress.com/2023/08/12/suburban-loneliness-on-walking/.
Sources for a History of Walking in the Philippines
- Malasig, Jeline. “Tsunami, Cobra, Infinity, Lava: A Look at the Many Walks of Miss Universe Philippines.” Interaksyon, 14 Dec. 2018, https://interaksyon.philstar.com/trends-spotlights/2018/12/14/140500/catriona-gray-tsunami-infinity-lava-walk-miss-universe-philippines/.
- Santos, Ana P. “The Sumilao Farmers, a Decade after They Marched for Their Rights.” Rappler, 15 Oct. 2017, https://www.rappler.com/moveph/185345-sumilao-farmers-decade-after-march/.
- History of Walking in the Philippines 001
- History of Walking in the Philippines 002
Walking Arts in the Philippines
- Anthro on Foot by Raizel Albano. Check out her audio walking guides of 44 places in the Philippines, which I secretly hope she made free.
Recommended Resources
Resources that have shaped how I think about walking.
- Gros, Frédéric. A Philosophy of Walking. Verso, 2014.
- Solnit, Rebecca. Wanderlust: A History of Walking. Penguin Books, 2001.
- Thoreau, Henry David. The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837–1861. Edited by Damion Searls, Illustrated edition, NYRB Classics, 2009.
My Notes on Walking
- A Philosophy of Walking by Robert Gros
- walking is a metaphor for living
- walking could be a pilgrimage
- walking also involves stopping
- walking is a prompt for thinking
- walking accomplishes multiple goals
- walking connects mind and matter
- rewalking highlights contrast in space
- live as if you are walking
- explore your worldview like a walk
- walking is scouting for what is possible
- walking resists civilization in favor of wilderness
- walking is a privilege
- walking is a kaleidescope
- walking experiments
- walking as writing methodology
- walking resources