Filipino from Sibuyan Island expertly skins a 'bayawak' (monitor island) for lunch

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• published: 18 Apr 2011
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This video was taken on April 13, 2011. We visited the house of some mountain dwellers in Sibuyan Island, part of Romblon Province of the Philippines. They caught two monitor lizards sunning themselves in the morning. One is green with yellowish spots. The one in this video is darker and bigger. The man expertly skins the 'bayawak' because they eat this meat once a week. They cook it 'adobo' style (with vinegar and soy sauce) or with coconut milk and chili. It was very delicious. I would liken the taste to a combination of pork and chicken. It is not very tender, though. They prefer it over the taste of snake. Bayawak meat is not available in the market, but many mountain dwellers love to eat it. People craving for the meat ask the locals to procure it for them. The bayawak in this video costs P60 (USD 14). I went to Sibuyan ISland as a tourist, and visited many awesome waterfalls. FROM WIKIPEDIA: Sibuyan is a crescent-shaped island of Romblon Province, Philippines. It has an area of 445 km². The island has two prominent peaks, Mount Guiting-Guiting with a height of 2,058 m and Mount Nailog with a height of 789 m. It has been dubbed by some local and international natural scientists as "the Galapagos of Asia". The people speak the Sibuyanon dialect of Romblomanon, a Visayan language. Sibuyan has lived in isolation from the rest of the world since its birth. Never in its geological history has it ever been connected with any part of the Philippine archipelago. Seismic forces pushed up a 2,000-meter peak from the earth's crust, forming a series of smaller peaks and slopes. The peak is Mt. Guiting-guiting (literally means "the saw-toothed mountain", in reference to its jagged ridge). Because of the steep slopes, much of its original forest remains untouched, and the rest is the island as we find it today. On June 21, 2008, a ferry named MV Princess of the Stars shipwrecked off the coast of San Fernando resulting in the deaths of of hundreds of people.