#CourageON: A river in Cebu remembers

The river has wisdom. If you walk slow enough to listen, then you learn that water always finds a way.

AT A GLANCE

• Chris L. Villarino, an environmental advocate, shares his experience of a river walk in Cebu organized by the Cebu Citizens Initiative, highlighting the importance of respecting nature.
• During the walk, a team leader suffered an injury, which shifted the group's focus from leisure to the reality of nature's challenges, emphasizing the need for humility and community support.
• The experience reinforced the idea that environmental advocacy is not just theoretical but requires real engagement with nature, as they prepare for the upcoming #MoveCebu event aimed at promoting civic action and environmental resilience.

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Hello, I am Chris L. Villarino. I am a tree hugger, having survived Super Typhoon Yolanda by hugging a tree in Tacloban. Since then, I have dedicated my life around advocacy for the environment by engaging individuals, organizations and communities through forest and watershed walk, wellness and regenerative activities in Cebu.

Over the weekend, the Cebu Citizens Initiative organized a river walk together with Rappler’s Cebu-based multimedia reporter John Sitchon, Rappler’s head of civic engagement Jene Pangue, and some friends in preparation for the MovePH roadshow in Cebu. We walked in one of Cebu’s rivers — not the Cebu of malls and traffic, but the old Sugbo, the Sugbo that still whispers.

We followed the water upstream; narrow, overgrown, stones covered in moss, plastic in some corners.  But the river is still alive, still flowing. At some point, the water was knee deep.

They say that Cebu used to have a river like this. But now, the rivers are buried in culverts and flood control projects. Easily, we forgot the rivers. But as they say, the river never forgot us.

The river has wisdom. If you walk slow enough to listen, then you learn that water always finds a way. Even when choked with trash, blocked by concrete, the water still finds its way down to the sea. Just like life.

But during this walk, the river taught us its hardest lesson.

On a slippery stretch, our dear team leader had a bad fall; hard, face-first onto stones and sand. In a second, the laughter turned to blood, shock, and silence. He was hurt badly — needed stitches and emergency care.

We cared for him. Good thing we had an emergency kit (thanks Agence France!). We could not call for help. We were deep in the river ravine having walked more than an hour. At that moment, the leisurely walk became real.

And I realized: this is exactly what we did to our rivers.

We walked fast, distracted, taking a lot of pictures, looking at our phones, at the view. We forgot the river is not a backdrop. It is alive. It has sharp stones. It demands respect, presence, and slowness.

We also learned what community means. No one was left behind. Hands reached out. Someone held his head. Someone cleaned the blood. Someone prayed. Someone acted as buddy and walked the way back with him (thank you to our friend Karsten!). 

The forest that felt so quiet suddenly felt like family.

He is okay now — stitched, resting, healing (driving around the city doing his work). We are grateful it wasn’t worse but the whole experience gave me an important life lesson. 

He fell for all of us, in a way. A reminder that rewilding and re-rivering — whether through watershed walks, building urban pocket forests inspired by Laudate Deum, or carrying out the Handuraw Panaw project — is not just a nice workshop concept. It’s real terrain. It will wound you if you don’t walk with humility, much like surviving nature’s wildest forces as a tree hugger clinging to hope and life during Super Typhoon Yolanda.

Going for a river walk is not just going to a waterfall for Instagram or Facebook. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s going back to our source. 

Thank you Rappler, Jene Pangue, and John Sitchon for walking with us, for being brave, for teaching us courage and walking the talk. Thank you everyone for not leaving when it got hard. 

I look forward to carrying this spirit forward into our upcoming partnership with Rappler’s civic engagement arm MovePH for #MoveCebu: Sugbo alang sa mga Sugboanon event this October 14–16, where fellow advocates, community leaders, and storytellers will gather to move together towards environmental resilience and civic action.