By thephilippines on Skatehive
One — Murder Most FoulFAR ABOVE MANILA in the northwest corner of Luzon is a dry, impoverished region called the Ilocos, a dusty yellow land with crumbling red brick churches. It bears more resemblance to Sicily or Sardinia than to visions of Pacific paradise. The small provinces called Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur are shielded from the rest of Luzon by a ridge of blue mountains inhabited by isolated hill tribes. Here life has never been easy. Survival was an act of desperation. The brown, weatherbeaten faces of the Ilocanos show grim self-reliance. According to tradition, they were forced out of Borneo long ago and settled here because these inhospitable valleys were only lightly inhabited. Nobody else wanted them. Adapting to the harsh landscape, the Ilocanos became more resourceful, more cunning, more clannish, and more vengeful than any other ethnic group in the archipelago.The first European to arrive was a young Spanish nobleman, the conquistador Juan de Salcedo. In 1571, at the a