Today we had the pleasure of witnessing what may well be one of the oldest methods of salt-making in Pasuquin, a technique which supposedly dates back to precolonial times. This unique method involves extracting salt by laboriously collecting the beach sand itself. Not everyone gets to see this being done. To witness it, we had to travel by foot — at one point, over a precarious bridge of wooden planks across an old mangrove forest — to the home of Marites Alnas. The process, according to her, is an act of supplication to nature: despite her over 50 years of experience, there are days when salt simply cannot be coaxed from the sands. Nature, she says, decides everything. Thankfully, nature smiled on us today, allowing us to witness Marites firsthand and to see the fruits of her labors for ourselves.