Island Series – Cagayan de Oro Higala Tee

Nobody in Cagayan de Oro waits to be introduced.

You get called higala by the second sentence. By the trike driver. By the guide strapping you into a raft on the Cagayan de Oro River. By the guy at the next table who has decided you are eating with him now. The city calls itself the City of Golden Friendship and treats it as an instruction rather than a slogan.

It is serious enough about the word that the fiesta is named after it. Higalaay. Friendship turned into a month, closing on the feast of San Agustin with a procession down the river the city grew along. But higala does not belong to August. It is what you say on a Tuesday.

Oro means gold. The sun on the back of this shirt holds the river inside it, waves running where the light should be, one flat horizon under it. Then the word. Higala. On the chest, the mark and the coordinates, 8.4542° N and 124.6319° E.

For every Kagay-anon who moved away and still says higala without thinking. For anyone that city adopted in a single weekend. For the ones who go back every year and the ones who go back once.

Gold in the name. Friendship in the practice.

Designed in Cebu. For those who make friends before they make plans.