Dicing with Death: Philippines: Man and Monsoon

In this acclaimed series, we journey on some of the world’s most dangerous routes and explore the lengths people go to in order to change their destinies.

The island of Mindanao to the South of the Philippines has not yet fully joined the modern world. In the province of Bukidnon, the rice harvest still dictates the rhythm of life. With every harvest, the farmers of the small village of Kalabugao, located in the middle of the mountains, entrust their precious goods to the drivers and the brokers in charge of selling them to the market. Overloaded lorries travel 70 kilometers. The journey usually takes around six hours, but during rainy season it can take as much as several days. Muddy ditches, landslides, vehicle breakdowns … the countdown has started for the “rice convoy”. Every hour lost risks the rice rotting. A little further South in the Santiago de Compostela Valley, strange lorries called ‘Saddams’ — a reference to the former Iraqi dictator — begin their daily trips. They travel to the inaccessible gold mines to exhaust every last opportunity still left there. They collect the bags of stone extracted by gold-mining slaves in the past, at the risk of their own lives.

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