Remembering A Vanished Coastline: Echoes of Malitam’s Shoreline

Echoes of the Shoreline

I remember the salt in the air, the scent carried on the breeze long before we reached the shore. The waves whispered against the coastline, half-drowned by the rustling of palm leaves. Wooden boats lined the water’s edge like resting animals, waiting for the tide. Inay used to take us to Malitam—a coastal barangay where fisherfolk lived and worked in rhythm with the sea. It wasn’t farmland. There were roosters, yes, but no rustling crops—just the hush of early morning waves and the promise of the day’s catch.

Uncle Serafin, whom we called Tito Apen, would paddle a small boat toward us, his silhouette sharp against the glow of morning light. He was tall and lanky—not muscular, but wiry, with the quiet strength of someone who knew the sea well. Skilled in pamumukot and pamamanti, his movements were sure and practiced. We stood barefoot in the cool mud, the low tide tugging at our feet as we called his name, our voices carrying across the water to him—and to my grandfather, who waited on the far side, crouched beneath a blooming Dapdap tree, still and patient, as if listening for the sound of our approach.

Malitam by the Sea

Malitam was our retreat—the bukid we escaped to as kids, though it wasn’t farmland in the usual sense. Once we reached the pampang, Mamay, our grandfather, would greet us with a wide, gleeful smile. But our excitement was always drawn farther—toward the small hill just beyond him. As soon as it came into view, we’d take off running, barefoot and wild, calling out the names of everyone we knew: Nanay! Mamay! Tito Esto! Ninang! Our voices echoed up the slope as we raced, laughing, up and down that hill, ignoring Inay’s warnings to slow down lest we trip and scrape our knees.

The hill wasn’t just a place to play—it was part of a community that welcomed and watched us, even as they ogled us for being taga-bayan. I still remember the old folks’ faces, the way they'd cursed or joked depending on their mood. Their houses stood in a neat line, one after another, leading toward the beach. A narrow, man-made path ran between them, always alive with quiet movement. Humble folks—mostly fishermen—sat outside, mending their nets under the sun. My aunt, a palm weaver, would be there too, skillfully sewing strips of nipa into roofing sheets. The scent of salt mixed with the earthy smell of dried leaves and damp wood. That street, though simple, felt like the heart of the place—connecting home to sea, labor to life.

Inay walked through that place with the ease of someone woven into its fabric—everyone knew her, called her by her nickname, and offered kind words about her graceful gait as she savored a brief pause from the weight of single parenthood.

And yet, that place feels so distant now—like a dream slowly slipping out of reach. What happened to Malitam? What reshaped that living coastline into something I can now visit only in memory?

Carrying Inay’s Stories

When Inay reminisced about Malitam, she often spoke of its wide, open fields—how young men once gathered there to play baseball, how the land stretched farther than it does now. Back then, the space felt expansive, reaching out toward Libjo before floods and time began to gnaw at its edges. By the time we were frequent visitors, much of that land had already been claimed by rising water. A canal—now more swamp than stream—separated it from Libjo, turning what was once a seamless stretch into something broken, fragmented.

Still, we had our own stories written in that soil. Fruit trees grew wild and generous: coconut, atis, duhat, siniguelas, camachile. Each one played a part in our childhood as if they were characters in a play. We ducked and darted to avoid coconuts falling from above, lamps in hand, as we ran from one home to another in the dark. We posed for a family photo against the trunk of a fallen duhat tree—its roots upturned, yet still miraculously bearing fruit. We climbed the siniguelas and startled birds into flight. And we peeled camachile pods with great care, competing to see who could free the fruit without tearing its delicate second skin.

Where the Palm Trees Once Stood

My grandfather made a living weaving palm roofs—simple, strong, and essential in a time when homes were built from nipa, bamboo, and care. I can still picture it: another uncle, Tito Ernesto or Tito Esto, shirt soaked from the sun, hauling bundled palm leaves on his shoulder. He’d dump them in the silong, where my aunt Manuela or Ninang Lilang worked on the relentless routine with her steady hands. She’d take each leaf, fold and bind it into neat rows, sliding the stalks into long bamboo slats, sewing them with stripped buli strands. The sewn palms would eventually roof someone’s home. This wasn’t just labor—it was a family rhythm, a way of life shaped by the landscape.

But now, all the palm trees are gone. Gone with them is the livelihood they offered. Gone are the roofs that breathed in the heat and let the rain tap gently above. In their place stand concrete, aluminum, and loss. The people adapted, yes—but something warm, handmade, and deeply connected to the land has been cut off.

Back When It Was Aplaya

Long before we called it simply Malitam, the place was known as Libjo Aplaya. We knew it not as dry land for planting, but as a coastal bukid—alive with life from the sea. Fisherfolk lived there, built their homes on stilts, and lived with the rhythms of tide and wind. Trees framed the shore. Seashells scattered along the sand, and mangroves wrapped their roots around the edges of our world.

That was our Malitam. That was our Aplaya.

People often blame nature—floods, typhoons, rising tides. And yes, they came. The water rose higher each year, the winds grew stronger. But those weren’t the only forces at work.

The Shell Refinery, in Barangay Ambulong, at the other end of the vast shores, pumped smoke into the air. Eventually, residents were paid by the oil firm to vacate their homes and resettle in a sitio nearer the city streets. In time, that new settlement came to be known as Malitam Dos.

During the Marcos years, when political power often went unchecked, sand quarrying began—cutting deep into the coastline. Bit by bit, the beach was carved away. The mangroves disappeared. The palm trees vanished. Not from storms, but from human hands and policies that saw the land as resource, not home.

The Badjaos came—displaced from their own coastal homes by storms and neglect. They built stilt houses above the remaining water, carving out a space for themselves in the margins where no one else would let them stay. Their arrival marked a turning point. The water beneath the stilts, once moving and alive, began to stagnate. What was once open sea slowly transformed into narrow, murky canals. And with each year, the shoreline we loved drifted farther from memory.

To Remember Is to Resist

The Malitam I knew is now barely recognizable. The mismanagement by the populace, not nature alone, erased the place where we once walked. The name remains, and on maps, it’s still called Malitam—but the shoreline has vanished. Years of quarrying have stripped away the sandy beach and scattered shells, and the tides have slowly erased what was once familiar. Boats now drift farther out in search of fish that no longer swim near the coast. Concrete paths have replaced the soft sand where we once lifted our slippers to feel the ground beneath our feet—trusting even its sinking edges for their gentle, pristine touch. Now, wooden stilts stand where dry land once began, and the water below is murky, thick with waste and human excrement. What once shimmered in the sun now lies still and brown. The seashells are gone. The life that once clung to the shore has disappeared.

I carry a soft spot for Malitam—this coastal community that vanished quietly, without headlines or monuments. Maybe through memory, through dialogue, through writing, I can help it live on. Because the sea may rise, and the trees may fall—but if I remember, if I write, something of that childhood shore endures.