Probably Magalawa Island, off the coast of Zambales, Luzon. 27 hectares, pretty much all coconut plantation, it was owned by a first cousin of Ferdinand Marcos whom I was doing some things for at the time. 27 families lived there, no electricity, no running water. The overseer and I were good friends. He was a real, hard-case guy. Each family contributed two day's work per month on the plantation in return for being allowed to live there. Any work beyond that they were compensated at a rate equivalent to a dollar a day. Other than that they fished, often with dynamite. I was there once for the feast day of their patron saint, a real party weekend. Some of the men got drinking and a disagreement broke out between two factions, fights, knives... Jorge, the overseer, got his family back to his house which stood a little apart from the barrio and left me there with to watch over them while he went back to to the barrio to settle things down. He gave me his 12 gauge A-5 (FN) and said if I saw a lighter flash anywhere in the bushes around the house just fire a load of buckshot at it...his biggest fear is that someone, in the confusion, would take the opportunity to settle some old grievance by tossing a fish bomb in his house. One evening, patrolling around the island, he shot a coconut thief from the mainland out of one of the trees with his lever action Marlin .22 WMR. Didn't kill the guy, but he walked with a limp after that. Week or so later the local constabulary boss asked if he shot somebody recently...told him, only a fruit bat. Good times...
