Yay! Piso finally became the Billabong Cloud 9 champion!

Edito Alcala or “Piso” won the recently concluded Billabong Cloud 9 Invitational. Piso won over 48 international surfers including the defending champion Wade Goodall of Australlia.
Piso is the second Filipino to win the international event in Siargao. Rodolfo “Osot” Alcala won the title in 1990s.

Billabong Cloud 9 Invitational is joined by professional surfers from all over the globe. According to reports, pro surfers including Jason Shibata (Hawaii), David Reardon-Smith (USA), Tipi Jabrik (Indonesia), Marlon Gerber (Indonesia), Granger Larsen (Hawaii) and Laurie Towner (Australia) rode the waves of Siargao.

This is a good news and I can’t help reminiscing my Siargao experience so here it goes. We went there last February 2008 for The BEAT Special.

Who is Piso? Piso has long been a local hero. I remember the Mayor of their town telling me that Piso will be a future champion. That was last February and obviously she didn’t make a mistake. I was fortunate enough to interview Piso during our visit in the island for our show The BEAT (formerly Sapulso). I’m trying to find my script for that story to give you guys more details but I think it’s on my other computer; I’m still in Pan Pacific. Piso during that time is still starting out his surfboard repair shop which he told me is his bread and butter. The guy breathes the waves and he practically knew surfing by heart. He offered to give me a few surfing lessons but because of the busy schedule (very busy schedule) I had say no. See our pictures from the grave after the jump.

Edito 'Piso' Alacala - the Billabong Cloud 9 Champion during our shoot. Yes that's him, real surfer huh?!

L-R: Yours truly, mayor's husband, Piso's surf board, the mayor, G-spot cameraman, and ace barbers' left hand :p

Pan de Surf - Pandesal that is shaped like a surfing board. Piso's fave breakfast.

Siargao as how the local describes it is the surfing capital of the Philippines. I don’t know if they already passed a bill in the congress or at least in locally but heck (yeah you need to do that if you want to claim a title, I learned this when I was writing for Manila East Watch) the place indeed looks like a surfing haven.

Another trivia perhaps is Siargao and Surigao are two different places. Surigao is the major island that is divided into two provinces (as in Surigao del Sur and Surgiao del Norte). Siargao on the other hand, the surfing capital of the Philippines is a two hour boat ride from Surigao City. It is composed of 11 small municipalities which thrive on coconut and obviously tourism.

Back to the news: Goodall took home US$4500 as the second placer while Piso won US$7,500. And that’s more than enough to complete his small surfing board shop.

This Philippine News entitled Filipino Champs Int’l Surf Competition – Reminiscing Siargao Experience and is labeled with the following Tags: australlia, cloud 9, competition, david reardon, international surfers, jason shibata, marlon gerber, news, pro surfers, professional surfers, siargao, surfboard repair, surfing board, surfing lessons, surigao city, surigao del sur, surigao island, wade goodall and was published on Oct 20, 2008 in Events, Philippine News, Self Story