Mount Mayon, a corpse and a killing

"There's another boat leaving this morning but we have to ride with a dead body." Our resourceful executive producer, Janus Victoria, has a way of making the surreal sound normal, like a corpse was just another passenger.

Our I-Witness documentary team was early for the daily morning ferry in Legazpi City, but it was already full of fiesta goers en route to our small-island destination in Albay Gulf. We fidgeted in the small crowd of stranded passengers.

We had appointments in Batan Island two hours away and the next boat was coming at noon. So Janus made a couple of calls and learned that a faster, private banca was already in another port 30 minutes from Legazpi just waiting for its cargo, the body of a young man who purportedly died of bangungot in Manila and was being transported to his island village in Albay Gulf, near the one we wanted to reach.

But first we had to flag down a nearly full PUV jeep to take us to the port in another Albay town, Sto. Domingo. We squeezed our 15 pieces of equipment and luggage in the narrow aisle while our veteran cameramen hung on to the back of the jeep, giggling like teenagers at the throwback thrill.

Along the way, the country's most famous peak played peek-a-boo through coconut trees and wooden shacks. Each hungry glimpse of Mount Mayon is proof of the seductive power of perfection, and it’s not just that cone. Its location is also perfect, so that it stands alone in an otherwise flat panorama as the natural centerpiece of the region, and arguably of the archipelago.

Arriving in Sto. Domingo, we found Mount Mayon's majesty modulated by a dose of gleeful garishness. Two cheesy, brightly colored resorts competed for our attention in the volcano's foreground, a wacky contrast to the solemn Cagsawa church ruins seen juxtaposed with Mayon in many postcards.

A tall blue slide leading to an unseen pool appeared to cradle Mayon's peak.

One of the resorts had a row of superheroes painted on its wall, interrupted only by a comics version of Carrot Man quarreling with Bugs Bunny over stolen carrots and boasting of his budding showbiz career.

Above and behind the colorful cartoon portraits was the partially blocked sight of the iconic pinnacle, making one wonder why no one thought of rendering Mayon's fascinating creation story on the wall.

We realized that while the cone is perfect from any direction, whatever is found in its foreground gives the mountain a big part of its identity. So it's a different Mayon depending on the place and scenery below.

In Sto. Domingo, the regal Mayon is dressed in jester's clothing.

It doesn't usually reveal its impossibly symmetrical cone, with clouds often shrouding its pointy nipple.

Nature's modesty suits the legend of "Daragang Magayon," or beautiful young woman in the local language (not dialect!).

It's also the name of a folkloric Bicolana character who died in a tragic love triangle. According to one telling of the legend, her grave bloomed into the gorgeous peak that dominates the Bicol landscape. The mountain was named after the slain lass, later shortened to Mayon. Maybe this epic tale was invented simply because Mayon's graceful shape has been likened to a maiden's breast.

Beauty masks a femme fatale, as Mount Mayon is a jealously active volcano that has buried towns in its violent past.

For the diverted travelers unexpectedly treated to its charms, danger was in sight but out of mind.

Instead, as we neared our destination, we were thinking more about our coming rendezvous with a dead body.

Would it come in a big coffin and with an entourage of relatives, and would we all fit in the boat? How come Filipinos seem to die of bangungot in disproportionate numbers, or is this just a convenient reason for dying instead of an embarrassing truth? What was this young corpse like alive and what was he doing in Manila?

Alas, we ended up not getting any answers.

After nearly half an hour of waiting, the boat's owner, a jolly fish trader named Maribel, took pity on our team roasting in the sun with our camera gear and gave orders to her boatmen to leave without the corpse.

Her boat would take us to Batan Island and return to the mainland later for the deceased.

Maribel did this trip daily but usually for her fish trade. Today she seemed tickled pink by her luck, and not only because of the conversation and extra income that come with a boatload of intrepid out-of-towners.

Her boat would again be a sea-borne hearse, which she believed heralds good fortune. "'Di ba sa lupa suwerte kung may manganak sa iyong sasakyan? Sa akin, kapag nagdala ng patay," she said, her entrepreneur's eyes twinkling at the prospect. (Translation: “Isn’t it good luck on land for a woman to give birth in your vehicle? To me, it’s transporting the dead.”)

Her boat, in the meantime, was cruising rapidly across the Albay Gulf with passengers who were very much alive and swooning over our own precious luck. Behind us receding into the horizon was a gloriously naked version of Daragang Magayon, a cloudless marvel posing for a band of Instagramers while facing a sun-speckled sea.

We were soon deposited on the shore of Batan Island to commence the next part our journey, as Maribel's boat returned to fetch the dead.

She would tell us later that she was right about the effect of ferrying a corpse. She had bought a load of yellow-fin tuna cheap on the island and then sold it in a mainland market just as prices shot up. She made a killing. —KG, GMA News