I spent my childhood thinking of Bohol as populated not by humans by monkeys so small you need a microscope to see them. To my lovely Boholano friends, I didn’t make this article up as I learned these things from my elementary education, which fed me with pictures of your beautiful island as nothing but mysterious hills and primates, and a little bit of Dagohoy in between.

If you, readers, don’t know Francisco Dagohoy, he was the leader of the longest rebellion against the Spaniards in the Philippines that took place in the island of Bohol from 1724 to 1829. It was so successful it took 85 years to fail.

Dagohoy’s story is intimately linked with the Chocolate Hills and the Philippine Tarsier. My grade school books told me Dagohoy built chocolate hills and cloned tarsiers when he was not out chopping off heads of Jesuit priests.  As an inquisitive grade school pupil, I learned Dagohoy got his name from “dagon” (Visayan for amulet) and “hoyohoy” (Visayan for gentle wind).

Dagohoy initially wanted his followers to correctly call him “Talisman of the Gentle Breeze” but realized English wouldn’t arrive in the island until 200 years later. Nevertheless, Dagohoy’s amulets gave him the ability to leap from one chocolate hill to another, which made the tarsiers turn green with envy because they could only hop from one tree branch to the next. Dagohoy also had clear vision inside dark caves and forests, which made the tarsiers even more envious because it took them 45 million years to grow their eyes that big and fix them permanently in their skulls just to develop night vision.

But the tarsiers couldn’t afford ill will against Dagohoy, especially since their patron, with all his love for Bohol, couldn’t rotate his head 180 degrees. Ha-ha, loser! Besides, Dagohoy fed them with crickets, spiders, grasshoppers, and kidneys of Jesuit priests in his zoo-like headquarters in the mountains of Danao town. The tarsiers stayed with Dagohoy until he was bitten by a dog named Rabies, and died. I read this in grade school.

After their hero’s death, hundreds of Dagohoy’s followers preferred death inside a cave in Barangay Magtangtang, Danao than surrender. Their skeletons still remain in the site. Among the skeletons found are those of small creatures with eye sockets bigger than the skulls themselves. These small creatures couldn’t be other than tarsiers. The tarsier population in Bohol started to dwindle after Dagohoy’s death, I read in grade school.

When I was in Bohol on an “Accompany-A-Balikbayan-Sister” travel grant recently, I took advantage of the tour to check my facts. And I was surprised at how accurate they were. The tarsiers do not only have eyes bigger than their heads, they have also failed to recover from Dagohoy’s death and continue to mourn inside cages owned by private individuals in Loboc, Bohol.

I also learned from our tour guide that “despite the protection status of the Philippine Tarsier, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has granted special limited permits for this display of the Philippine Tarsier in Loboc. Here, tourists can see the Philippine Tarsier up close and personal and take pictures. Unfortunately, the Philippine Tarsier here are semi-captive, being kept in cages along the Loboc River. Here, the animals are not in a sanctuary and as such, these shy animals have miserable lives and normally don’t survive for long.”

If you’re not familiar with the Loboc River, it’s a body of water actor Cesar Montano built so he could shoot his award-winning film “Panaghoy sa Suba” in 2004. The movie was so successful it inspired Spaniards to establish the town of Loboc in 1602.

Back to tarsiers, they are caged and dying in the name of tourism. I suggest you visit them while they’re still there, and while I continue to check my facts about Dagohoy and the Chocolate Hills.

Sun.Star Cebu. July 27, 2010.