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Stan

I'm a Travel and Architecture photographer, blogger and writer based in Cebu, the Philippines. A true blue Cebuano, I make stunning images and meaningful stories. My work has been published in various coffee table books as well as local and international publications including Geo (Germany), Sunday Times Magazine (London), done photo assignments for Mabuhay and written posts in Smile. My personal Photography work has been exhibited around Asia and Europe including Paris in France, Germany, The Netherlands, South Korea, China and around the ASEAN regional capitals. I am a peripatetic traveler and have been to all 81 Philippine provinces and abroad. Check out my portfolio site at StanCabigas.

Travel history: Mindanao 2000 – 2004

    Travel history: Mindanao 2000 - 2004

    I’m tracing my travel history from 1974 up to the present. This post is 4th of 5 in the series.

    I just can’t explain it. But it seems I cannot just keep put in Cebu. After three years working in my home province, I felt that I need to move out again. When the mobile switch in the telecoms company that I worked in opened in Davao, I was the first one to be assigned there as I volunteered. Nevermind if I don’t have family there. I thought, if I made it in Manila for five years without the next of kin then there was no difference with Davao.

    In my four years in Mindanao, I spent half and half in Davao and Cagayan de Oro cities

    • Except for places beyond Tigbao in Zamboanga del Sur and Basilan, I have visited each and every province either for work or liesure.
    • I made my first and only visit to Siargao and Bucas Grande
    • no longer collecting butterflies, I switched to collecting beetles and often frequented Lake Sebu in South Cotabato, Davao del Norte, Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon where I had contacts

    Being based in Mindanao did not hinder me in going out to more far and remote places:

    Travel history: Cebu 1997 – 2000

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      I’m tracing my travel history from 1974 up to the present. This post is 3rd of 5 in the series.

      After graduating in college, I went back to Cebu and found work in a telecoms company. The beauty of it? It again afforded me to travel to places that I haven’t gone to or even imagined of going to!

      As I was a field engineer, my area was Central and Eastern Visayas but was later on expanded to cover the whole of Visayas and Mindanao:

      • I have often been to Bohol and the Camotes Islands
      • I was frequenting Ormoc and Tacloban and a brief visit to the south in Leyte
      • Southern Negros was another place that I was visiting time and again

      When my area was expanded to include Mindanao:

      Travel history: College years 1991 – 1996

        Travel history: College

        I’m tracing my travel history from 1974 up to the present. This post is 2nd of 5 in the series.

        I have decided to move out of Cebu for my tertiary education as I felt that I need to explore the world more. Being just in Cebu means being boxed. I have never regretted my decision. College has, in a way, enriched my experiences. I have pushed the boundaries of my travels.

        My butterfly collection fever has brought me to the forested mountains of Atimonan, Quezon where I usually frequent. I have explored the rugged jungles of Bataan and Dinagat just above Surigao.

        Having been a member of the college mountaineering group, I was able to visit different mountains in Quezon, Laguna and Batangas.

        Read More »Travel history: College years 1991 – 1996

        Travel history: 1974 to high school

          Travel history 1974 - highschool

          I’m tracing my travel history from 1974 up to the present. This post starts this series of 5.

          I really don’t have much recollection of the travels outside of Cebu that I had during my childhood up until the end of my high school years except for a hazy recollection of accompanying my parents in Manila when I was still little and a vacation in Camiguin island off north Mindanao during high school. This was with the aspirants in the school’s seminary. Still there seems to be another vague memory of going to Ozamiz, to my father’s relatives.

          Other than these, it was just within Cebu usually with my mother in the occasional trips at Fairmart, and Gaisano or watching movies in Colon. When I was already in high school, of course, there were the usual trips and gimmicks with my classmates.

          Read More »Travel history: 1974 to high school

          Chaotic bus terminal in CDO

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            map_cdo.gif The jeepney from Ketkai pulled to a stop as I signaled the driver to when I reached Agora, more specifically known as the old bus terminal just beside the market in the fast growing city of Cagayan de Oro in the northern-central part of Mindanao.

            Yellow buses of Bachelor Lines located at the left side lined the first few rows. Some are airconditioned, comfy and spankingly new while some are just plain ordinary, waiting for passengers to ferry to the distant northeast that is Butuan and Surigao along the winding coastal roads.

            A few more rows ahead, the red buses of Rural Bus occupied the rest of the slots, waiting for people bound to the southern and central part of this huge island tracing the ridges and spines of the cordilleras.

            Bus terminals. How I delight in entering one. Looking through each and every vehicle’s wooden or plastic karatula (signboards) for my specific destination and choosing what to take depending on the level of comfort or availability of the bus that I have to ride.

            Read More »Chaotic bus terminal in CDO

            Why I always have itchy feet

              The habal-habal sped off down the slope in Damay, Impasug-ong, Bukidnon as I sat just behind the rambunctious driver…