The Large Tree that could Make a Lizard Cry

The very large Ficus variegata

The Marcos Museum

Detail of fig fruits

We visited the Marcos Museum in Batac.  Finally I got to see where the body of the late president Ferdinand Marcos was and still is temporarily laid to rest.   Our ocular was brief as we were quickly ushered in and out of the refrigerated mausoleum. No pictures were allowed.

Bayawak

Because it was our first stop and a quick one at that, my foreigner companions became more interested in a large fig tree standing at the middle of the museum complex. It is Ficus variegata or tangisang-bayawak.

I heard of two versions regarding how this tree got its vernacular name.  First one is that the leaf rustle sounds like two fighting bayawak lizards (native monitor lizards from the genus Varanus).  Second is that the bark of its trunk is so smooth that no bayawak could ever climb it. The lizards probably attempted to climb the tree because of the visible fruits.  Some species of Varanus are fruit-eaters like the butaan.   I am not sure which story is more credible. But that is how most of things here in the Philippines are named, by hear-say.