8:25 a.m. Mist curls around the trees as Mariang Makiling—more commonly known today as Maria Makiling—stirs somewhere in the mountain. From her perch, she hears faint voices rising from the town below: the voices of students reciting poems and rehearsing folk dances as the thrum of drums for a parade reverberate in the air. It is August—Buwan ng Wika.
For centuries, her name has been mentioned in bedtime stories, campfire tales, and in school textbooks written in Tagalog and other local languages. Today, those same tongues still shape her into myth, but also into metaphor. Curious, perhaps even a little restless, Maria decides to walk down. If the people of Los Baños are celebrating the language that has kept her legend alive, then maybe it is time she sees for herself how that language lives in the modern world.
The hem of her white dress brushes against damp leaves as she steps onto the trail. The forest quiets in deference. Beyond the trees, Los Baños waits.
8:30 a.m. Before Maria leaves the mountain, she kneels by the edge of the river. She washes her face and hands in the cold, flowing water. This is her way of binding herself in nature, a ritual she does before facing the human world.
Water, like language, is fluid. It always shifts, yet it connects. Rivers become agencies of change as they carve rocks and mountains even as they link communities; in the same way, language evolves to bridge generations and cultures while it also helps effect those changes. For Maria, washing in the river is symbolic of preparing herself to encounter the “new currents” of speech and expression she will hear once she reaches the town.
9:14 a.m. Maria Makiling leaves the flowing river and descends into town, where soon she finds herself at the UP Los Baños Makiling Botanical Gardens. Around her, the forest no longer grows wild. Trees are marked with plaques, while flowers are clustered according to design. These are species she knows by heart, and once tangled and free on the slopes. But now they’re arranged in order and displayed.
She realizes this is nature curated for humans and transformed from wilderness into, well, gardens. Like plants set into neat rows, the once free-flowing words of the people have been shaped into alphabets, grammar, and formal instruction.
Where she once ruled a forest where nature and language alike were wild and instinctive, she now walks among gardens. These are symbols of how people organize their world, such as Tagalog evolving into Filipino, absorbing order and system from the nation’s experience. What was once wild has not been lost but reshaped—it was cultivated, so to speak.
9:53 a.m. Maria Makiling steps onto the open expanse of Freedom Park, whose wide lawn is currently filled with the muted energy of a weekend morning. In an instant, her shimmering mountain attire dissolves into a more ordinary form: black shirt and jeans, borrowed in spirit from the students she sees scattered across campus. She wants to belong, to move among them unnoticed.
From a distance, she watches groups of students rehearsing on the football field. They’re rehearsing their chants and songs, speaking words that are both familiar and foreign. She tilts her head, curious at these young people, noticing how language itself becomes a performance.
For Maria, this is new: the words aren’t prayers said to her on the mountain, nor folk songs sung by farmers in the forest. These are youthful and modern, shaped for competitions and celebrations. Yet still, she hears the same beating heart of wika: a tool to express and to bind people together.
She watches silently at the edge, a goddess now dressed as a student, blending into the crowd while listening closely, as though learning once again how her people speak today.
10:15 a.m. Strolling further into the campus, Maria Makiling pauses before a statue of a woman holding a jar. She tilts her head, studying the sculpted face, the long hair cascading to one side, the posture that belies her hidden strength. For a moment, her lips curl into a small laugh. “Is this how they think I look?” she says to herself, amused. The stone likeness feels both familiar and strange—a memory of her presence reimagined by generations who may never have seen her, yet continued her story.
But her laughter fades as she realizes her figure is more than just her image. The month-long banners around campus remind her it is Buwan ng Wika, when students are urged to honor their roots through poems, speeches, and plays. Maria Makiling reads the phrases, sensing how language itself becomes a jar carrying fragments of culture across time.
She feels both pride and distance. Pride that her legend survives in the nation’s tongue, but also distance because her real self is not quite the same as the image chiseled in stone or recited in verse. Yet, she realizes, that is the nature of memory: people craft her anew with each telling, and language is the thread that binds her to them still.
10:44 a.m. Maria Makiling sits on a shaded bench, the late morning light and heat softened both by the heavy clouds that teeter on the edge of a downpour. In the distance, the Oblation stands tall, arms stretched wide in its eternal gesture of offering. For a moment, she regards it with a kind of kinship. After all, both she and this statue are symbols bound to the land, embodiments of ideals larger than themselves. Yet where the Oblation represents sacrifice for country, Maria knows her own story has always been tied to the nurturing of the land, to the forests, rivers, and mountains that give life to the people.
As she listens to students passing by—laughing, debating, mixing English and Filipino—Maria thinks about the multiple voices that form the soundscape of this place. Wika, she realizes, is more than just words. It is the bridge between thought and action, the link between heritage and future. It is an aspect of culture that opens hearts and minds, binding people together in their shared search for meaning.
Sitting there, Maria finds herself proud that her legend has endured in statues and stories, but also in the living language of those who continue to carry her memory forward.
11:23 a.m. Maria Makiling rises from the bench and makes her way down from the campus into the heart of Los Baños. The academic stillness soon gives way to streets teeming with liveliness—tricycles weaving through traffic, buses whose conductors announce their stops, and people in general strolling aimlessly. Here, life is closer to the daily heartbeat of the town, where language is not shaped by lectures or research papers but by trade and small talk.
She listens to the soundtrack of the town: vendors switching easily between Filipino and English, elders speaking in a dialect heavy with the accent of Southern Tagalog, young people tossing in slang and borrowed words. Phrases carry pieces of identity. Maria realizes that wika is not confiend in classrooms, books, or even webpages, but also in the streets, in the way she hears a boy call her girlfriend “mahal” or “GF,” or how a stranger code-switches while asking for directions. Language, like life, might be rooted in tradition but is ever adapting.
12:11 p.m. By noon, Maria Makiling finds herself drawn not to a carinderia or a traditional bakery, but to a café with modern touches. On the table before her rests a croissant glazed with a sheen of pink frosting and a cold cup of matcha latte. The meal is far from the mountain fruits and forest bounty she once bestowed upon villagers, yet it carries a peculiar charm. Apparently, people now consume food as much with the eyes (and cameras) as with the tongue.
As she takes a bite, Maria muses on the irony that, while people back then offered her fruits wrapped in banana leaves, now, the youth immortalize lattes with hearts and croissants with glittering sugar through hashtags and filters. She finds it amusing.
Culture, she realizes, has always been a living stream. After all, haven’t details of her legend changed in retellings? Then shouldn’t local flavors adapt to new tastes, too? The café, she thinks, is a reinterpretation of tradition. She wonders, though, if in this swirl of reinvention, the simple purity of kesong puti or the honest sweetness of buko pie will still find its place in this generation and the next.
2:19 p.m. After her lunch, Maria Makiling steps into the bustle of the Los Baños Public Market. She immediately hears the calls of vendors: “Isda! Gulay! Buko pie!” Unlike the curated rows of the Botanical Garden or even the sprawling grounds of the university, the marketplace is chaotic, loud, and unpolished. But she understands that this is also deeply human.
Here, the idea of wika is in its unfiltered, everyday form. The vendors’ cries are rhythmic chants, a kind of repetitive spell summoning buyers. In this way, the marketplace becomes a space where the sacred and mundane converge, where wika is both essential and celebration.
For Maria Makiling, who straddles myth and modernity, the market reflects her own multiplicity. She embodies the mountain and the town, the divine and the everyday; on the other hand, the market embodies the many tongues of a people. In this noisy heart, wika is alive not as an academic topic, but as living and evolving idea.
3:46 p.m. Maria Makiling pauses before the lumang gusali of Los Baños’ old municipal hall. The wooden panels and Spanish-era details stand in contrast to the glass-and-steel structures of today. Though a new, modern one has been constructed somewhere else in the town, the building seems to echo voices from assemblies, proclamations, and community decisions that once occurred in its halls.
She thinks of how wika shaped those proceedings. It was through words that the people of Los Baños governed themselves and resolved disputes. Without language, there could be no council. And without any council, there would probably be no agreements, and hence, no community.
Language has carried the town through centuries of change, from colonial rule to independence, from old town halls to new municipal buildings. Maria stands in front of the hall, imagining the generations who spoke, pleaded, debated, and dreamed within its walls. Language, she thinks, is more enduring than any building or politician.
4:37 p.m. The afternoon sun casts a warm glow as Maria slips back into her flowing costume, the fabric catching the fading light like ripples on the lake’s surface. The ordinary clothes she wore earlier fall away, and once again she embodies the legend—the guardian spirit of the mountain and the lake. Walking toward the shoreline, she feels the shift from mundane to mythical, the plain speech of everyday clothes for the more poetic dialect of myth.
When she arrives, the water is still calm, its glassy surface reflecting Mount Makiling rising in the distance. Maria lingers at the edge, gazing at the mountain that bears her name. For centuries, it has been her watchtower and her refuge. It is her symbol, a visual reminder of her ties to the land and its people. In that moment, it is a mirror of her own enduring presence.
Maria Makiling strolls by the lakeshore, her figure caught between day and night, between myth and the modern world. Finally, she has seen enough of the town and has heard enough of its voices.
5:55 p.m. As twilight deepens, she gathers her dress as though reclaiming her own skin. The mountain calls her back, but she holds on to what she has witnessed: the fading traces of the language of her people, now woven into fragments, symbols, and stories. Language endures such as the mountain’s slopes. It’s never gone, only transformed by the passage of time and the evolving cultures and values of the people who speak them.
Maria Makiling steps back into the gathering dark as her outline dissolves against the forest. Yet in the deepening of the evening, her spirit—along with that of wika—remains through the stories continued to be told by those who remember.
Modeled by Jolyn Reyes
Los Baños, Laguna Travel Basics
Timing
- Los Baños is a year-round destination, but it shines best in the dry months (December to May) when the lake and mountain views are clearest.
- August can be rainy, but also the best time if you want to catch cultural events tied to language and heritage, during Buwan ng Wika. During this time, schools and communities highlight Filipino language, art, and history.
Access
- From Manila, take a bus in Buendia, Pasay, bound for Sta. Cruz. Alight at Los Baños Crossing. One-way fare costs around PHP 175. Travel time is about 2–3 hours depending on traffic.
- If driving, take SLEX and exit at Calamba, then follow the National Highway towards Los Baños.
Transportation
- Getting around Los Baños depends a lot on whether you have your own vehicle or not. If you’re car-free, plan your stops strategically: bundle sights near each other to minimize tricycle costs and walking time.
- With a car: Having your own vehicle makes exploring much easier, especially on weekends. Jeepneys inside UP Los Baños (UPLB) are fewer because there aren’t as many students going to class. If you want to cover the campus and nearby sights without waiting, driving in is the most convenient option.
- Without a car:
- Inside UPLB: Tricycles are not allowed inside and can only take you up to the main gates. From there, it’s either a long uphill walk to places like the Botanical Gardens, or you’ll need to wait for one of the occasional jeeps.
- Outside to town: If you’re heading from campus to the town proper (like the market or lakeshore), tricycles are available but fares can be steep (around PHP 250 one way). It’s doable, but not budget-friendly if you’re hopping between several spots.
Food
- Food around UPLB is mostly student-oriented, meaning you’ll find plenty of cafés and casual eateries with budget-friendly meals. One standout is Wildbreads, a bakery-café just outside the university gates, along a street lined with cheap dining options catering mainly to students, so the vibe is laid-back and accessible. It’s known for fresh breads and pastries, and makes for a great stop if you’re after a light meal or coffee break before heading to the gardens or lake.
- Another popular spot near UPLB is Seoul Kitchen, offering hearty meals in a casual setting. It’s a favorite among students looking for comfort food that still feels a bit homey.
- Meisters Uncorked is a beer-and-burger joint known for its laid-back vibe and craft-inspired drinks. It’s where students and visitors alike come to unwind after a day of trekking or exploring.
Accommodation
- Los Baños may be known for its hot springs resorts, but if you’re here mainly for UPLB and the town proper, you’ll find a few reliable spots that are both convenient and comfortable.
- SEARCA Residence Hotel is a bit of a hidden gem, mainly serving conference delegates, researchers, and visiting scholars. They also take in regular guests when rooms are available. The location is inside the campus itself, so it’s the most convenient option if your focus is really UPLB or a trek up Mount Makiling. Rooms are simple but well-kept, and the rates are very reasonable compared to the hot spring resorts along the highway.
- Splash Mountain Resort Hotel is a long-time favorite in Los Baños, combining a hot spring resort with hotel-style accommodations. It’s close enough to UPLB but with pools to unwind in after a day of exploring.
- Located within Trace College, Trace Suites is a go-to for those who prefer a quieter, business-hotel feel. Rooms are clean and modern, and the location gives easy access to both UPLB and the town center.
The Tourist Gaze 