Culture

While the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was having another significant milestone in the conduct of the plebiscite on the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), the peace-loving ‘tri-people’ communities in Tantangan, South Cotabato continues to nurture peace by working together. The people have chosen to find a solution to a decades-long problem of lack of potable water and respect each other’s differences.

Her childhood memory of the small hut where she and her four siblings lived together with her parents was still vivid in the mind of Jean Salazar-de la Torre, the eldest daughter of cacao farmers Ricardo and Erlinda Salazar.

The inviting sweet aroma of ‘sikwate’ or chocolate drink looks deliciously irresistible as it is slowly poured through a ‘batirol’ (a traditional wooden tool to make a chocolate drink), still steaming hot and mouth-watering greeted the visiting PEF team to the cacao processing and development center of Chocolate de San Isidro (CSI). Without doubt, Sikwate speaks for itself, even if one has little background how this local product has been touted to have built the town of San Isidro.