Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

Lenlen and I both have dark brown skin and long unruly hair, and we both like to tame our manes into ponytails. We are also of the same age: 24.

Unlike me, though, she can chase a calf twice her size, throw her arms around its warm neck, and wrestle it to the ground. She can throw a lasso on anything that moves. She can ride a horse bareback, relying only on her thighs to keep her from falling off the galloping beast.

Lenlen is a cowgirl and a native of Bukidnon. The eldest of five children, she grew up on the Northern Mindanao plateau bounded by mountains draped in

emerald blankets. When it is not rodeo season, she helps her mother plant corn in their one-hectare piece of land and tends to her father’s cows.

I met Lenlen when I went, together with director Rory Quintos and associate producer Carmi Raymundo, to Bukidnon for our research immersion for our film that would later be called Love Me Again (Land Down Under). I was the scriptwriter, giddy about writing my first commissioned script. Starring Piolo Pascual and Angel Locsin, it would be the first film of Star Cinema to have its first premiere night in the United States a month before it would be screened in local theaters.

The project had been sparked by a story shared with us by scriptwriter, rancher and spiritual guide Maya Manulat. She told us that several young men who worked as cowboys in Bukidnon were going to Australia to work at a cattle station (Australian term for "ranch") in the dry vastness of the Northern Territory.

Before Maya told us about the Pinoy cowboys, we—the ignorant Manileños that we were—had never heard of real professional cowboys in the Philippines. We thought cowboys only continued to exist in American Western films, and, lately, in Brokeback Mountain. Until I heard that story from Maya, I had thought Bukidnon was just one big pineapple plantation, thanks to the TV commercials of popular pineapple juice brands.

What a gorgeous sight, we thought: strong dark-faced men riding horses, mounting bulls, wrangling cattle, staring beef in the face. But wait, there are cowgirls, too—sturdy, nimble young women who can handle beasts just as well as their male counterparts.

The ranching world that Maya had described filled us with fantasies of a sweeping romance following the journey of a love that begins in the lush green pastures of the Bukidnon highlands and struggles to survive in the harsh landscape of the Australian Outback.

A rancher fighting to keep his land and preserve his family’s glorious past falls in love with a cowgirl who decides to leave Bukidnon to give her family a better future. It is about the land they cannot own, the love they cannot have. A project was quickly set into motion, and before we knew it, we were on our way to Bukidnon.

When we went to the Impasugong Municipal Ranch to meet the Rodeo Kings of Bukidnon, it was a steep and bumpy 30-minute uphill drive before the van we were riding decided to give up on the rough terrain.

While our driver tried to coax the vehicle back into life, we decided to walk the rest of the way up. Fortunately, we were rewarded with a magnificent view of the surrounding mountains and hills, which from our vantage point seemed completely uninhabited.

After a 10-minute walk, we found on the other side of the hill, a bamboo paddock with a wooden shed, a gazebo overlooking the pasture, and an outhouse for the cowboys. Watching as the cattle were herded into the paddock, I could not help but notice how skinny the cows were, with their grey-white skins clinging to their bones.

Surprisingly, the air did not smell of manure like it does when you are in the proximity of a poultry or hog farm. Instead, the breeze carried the scent of eucalyptus leaves from the tall trees surrounding the ranch.

We settled first at the gazebo, where our cowboy hosts, all dressed in checkered shirts tucked into maong pants with big-buckled belts and wide-rimmed cowboy hats, served us freshly boiled cobs of sweet corn which offered some comforting steamy warmth in the midst of the chilly weather.

In between bites of corn, I had a chance to chat with Tupe, the head cowboy. I was surprised to know that he had already earned a BS degree in Education before fate led him to becoming a cowboy.

It happened during one Kaamulan Festival. "Kaamulan" is a native Bukidnon word, which literally means "gathering." The highlight of the colorful Kaamulan, which takes place every summer, is the rodeo, where cowboys from all over Visayas and Mindanao gather in Malaybalay City to compete in the various tournaments such as bull riding, lassoing, and calf wrestling.