Good and Green

Episode 52: Why Mindful Tourism Creates the Most Beautiful Impact with Jeannie Javelosa

• Pacita Juan • Episode 52

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Sustainable tourism becomes more meaningful when it is rooted in community, culture, and care for the environment. In this episode of Good and Green, Chit Juan talks with Jeannie Javelosa about how Banahaw Circle Nature Retreat grew from a personal connection to Mount Banahaw into a thriving community-based tourism initiative in Dolores, Quezon. Jeannie shares how the retreat supports local farmers, guides, artisans, cooks, and micro-entrepreneurs while helping preserve the mountain’s cultural and spiritual heritage. From transforming old homes into upcycled spaces to developing local products and training community members in tourism and hospitality, this conversation highlights how small, thoughtful tourism initiatives can create meaningful impact while protecting nature and local identity. 


GUEST BIO:

Jeannie Javelosa is a thought leader in culture, sustainability, and gender, as well as an award-winning artist, writer, entrepreneur, and social impact advocate. She co-founded ECHOstore Sustainable Lifestyle, which promotes green community products, Great Women, which supports indigenous textiles and women-led enterprises, and Banahaw Circle Nature Retreat, a Mabuhay-level homestay and wellness destination in Dolores, Quezon. A finalist for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award and recipient of multiple ASEAN and women entrepreneurship awards, Jeannie continues to champion sustainable communities, cultural heritage, and inclusive enterprise development through her work across business, tourism, and the creative industries. 


WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

  • How Jeannie’s lifelong connection to Mount Banahaw led to Banahaw Circle Nature Retreat.
  • Turning old homes and local resources into a sustainable community tourism destination.
  • Supporting local farmers, cooks, artisans, and micro-businesses through tourism.
  • Preserving Banahaw’s spiritual, cultural, and environmental heritage through storytelling.
  • Why community tourism can create meaningful and sustainable local livelihoods.


QUOTES:

  • Anybody connected with meditation, energy healing, UFOs, psychics, all those weird, strange phenomena have always come to Banahaw. —Jeannie Javelosa
  • I think this, for me, was always the call of the mountain. —Jeannie Javelosa
  • We positioned Banahaw Circle as something more than just houses where you can stay. Because it's small, it's like your doorway to the whole mountain. —Jeannie Javelosa
  • What our role is here is to storytell what the mountain is about so people respect it more and understand it more. —Jeannie Javelosa
  • No matter how small you are, you make an impact when you begin to work with many, many smaller ones. —Jeannie Javelosa
  • There are so many beautiful spaces in the country. They don't need to be so curated. —Jeannie Javelosa


LINKS or RESOURCES MENTIONED:

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Chit Juan

Welcome to the Good and Green Podcast. I'm your host, Chit Huan. In this show, we share stories of farmers, food advocates, social entrepreneurs, and community leaders working to build a more sustainable future. Let's discover how to live lives that are truly good and green. Shinija Velosa is a thought leader for culture, sustainability, and gender. She's an awarded artist with 20 one-woman exhibits, a writer-awarded book author, and speaker. As an entrepreneur, she co-founded several businesses such as the Eon Group and social impact enterprises like the Echo Store and Great Women, which is focused on handwoven indigenous textiles. She also recently founded Banahoo Circle Nature Retreat, Mabuhai level homestay, hosting wellness activities, tours, and retreats in Santa Lucia Dolores Kesson. Jeanie was an Asia-Pacific finalist winner to the 2012 Cartier Women's Initiative Award in Paris. She also won several awards as Gonegosho Outstanding Women's Entrepreneur and ASEAN Women's Entrepreneur Awardee. For Great Women, she won the 2020 UN WEPS Philippine Champion Awards for two categories and second runner-up in the Asia-Pacific Regional Awards. She is a founding trustee of the Philippine Women's Economic Network or Phil Wend and sits in several NGO boards. She has a fine arts degree, Magna Cum Laude, and a Masters of Fine Arts from University of Pennsylvania, USA. Let's welcome Jeannie Javelosa. So good morning, everyone. Good morning, Chit. Good day, Jeannie. Because wherever our audience are listening from, I really wanted to ask you, now that I see that you're into sustainable community tourism, what brought you to Banahao?

SPEAKER_01

That question is really loaded, Chit, because I was actually living in Paris sometime 40 years ago. And when I was entering the metro, I heard Banahao. It was actually a voice that I heard. And I said, this was very weird because through the noise of the metro and the train, I was holding my ticket trying to get in. And I said, What was that? Right? It was like a ring bell kind of voice in my head. And so anyway, I kept it in my head. And funny is at that time there was no Googles, no computers. So there was no way for me to find out what was that word. But I happened to meet a Filipino woman in the Philippine Embassy in Paris. And you know, in one of those cocktails, I asked her, Do you know Banahao? She goes, Aye, mom, yes, that's a sacred mountain in Queson outside Manila. So I put that in the back of my head. And when I got back to Manila, in some strange, very weird way, as the universe often does, it brings me to the mountain in a very weird way. I actually saw an ad for a martial arts retreat. And so I just signed up because I saw it in Mount Banahao. I came here and the rest is history. I felt that the mountain was home. I felt totally at home. Had a whole grouping of another kind of family here, which was a community-based family based on the local culture and based on spirituality. It was a very weird way of coming to the mountain, but that's the truth. I was actually called to the mountain by the Santombos.

Chit Juan

Okay, so that was 40. Well, you said 40 years ago, so you must have been very young then. But let's fast forward to the COVID lockdown times. I know that as I was sent to Kavite, you found your place in Kezon and particularly in Banahao. Yes. Thus giving birth to our eco farms.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. Okay, so COVID time, when everybody was locked up there in the city, remember that I had come to Banaha already. So I had a history of coming here often. And in some funny way, I had built a house up on the mountain. Very small one, but it was a house. And so I would come here, and literally the mountain became mine in the sense that nobody was around. So we like trekked the whole mountain. We understood what it was. And then in some strange way again, how things go, right? We began to buy land. And it was like forced on us. It's not like we had a plan to buy land, it was like forced on us. Kayulang Bibenta Hanaminito, you're the only people we want to sell these to. And these were the titled lands. The last one just before the protected rainforest area. Now remember that Mount Banahao is one of our country's protected rainforest landscapes alongside its partner mountain, San Cristobal. And it's a yin and yang energy because Mount Banahao is all about the water, and Mount Cristobal is very dry. So they used to say male and female together, no? And this is a storyline of the rainforest, which is beautiful and still protected. So when we got here, it was really understanding the rainforest on a new level. Because when I was very young, I used to trek, mountain hike, I'd go all the way to the Ilalim, go through the puestos. There's a culture here, which is really syncretic Christianity mixed with folk animist practices. Very strange, very uniquely Filipino, and it's something that a lot of our locals know. A lot of foreigners that are in the path of spirituality know and have come here through the years. Anybody connected with meditation, energy healing, UFO, psychics, all those weird, strange phenomena have always come to Banahao. And so there's a cultural side of the practice. Every holy week, a million people trekking here, okay. And so the mountain is very quiet in a way because it calls you. So during COVID, it's like we were the only ones here. And what happened was that because we bought land, I said, what should we do with this? And so the natural thing was make it Echo Farms. Okay. So suddenly what we were doing with Echo Store, right? We were selling products of communities. But because of COVID, we both went and did our own thing. You did your Echo Farms in Cavite, so beautiful herbs that you are doing there, including coffee. Well, here in Echo Farms Banaha, what we did was coffee, you know, and thank you for really teaching us all the nuances of how to be coffee planters, okay, and farmers. But we were so caught up also in so much fruit trees that are available. And so we were watching that, and then it became the goats and the pigs and the chickens. So we have our eggs, and suddenly the whole angle of how do you sustain yourself in a point of crisis like COVID, for example, where you want to make sure you have something to eat, good water around you, clean water, and a community that is friendly to you, right? I think this for me was always the call of the mountain. So that's what happened. So we have Echo Farms here in Mount Banahoo.

Chit Juan

So, how did you get to know the community again? I guess because you were stuck there during COVID.

SPEAKER_01

We were stuck during COVID, and I was stuck with a couple of friends because one of my friends didn't want to get stuck also in the city. And so she fixed up this nature villa, all right? And this has always been here. Nature Villa is the home of Boy Fahardo, the albulario, who started Helot in the country and also was instrumental in putting together the traditional medicine unit of the DOH, Department of Health. So there's a history to the nature home, is what we call it. So he had passed away, and the children didn't know what to do. So we started to fix it up. It's a beautiful space. And when we were doing that, I said, fix up my other house, but it was so rotten and broken, except for the concrete. I said, you know what? I'm going to make that a sustainability upcycled house. So I would go around looking for junk, literally, and rebuild that house, which I now called the art house. So suddenly we had two structures where we could actually have people, like 25 to 30 people in one go here. And because my other friend was a chef, she started to fix the kitchen because she said, you know, Jen, people are going to want to come here because it's basically clean and natural and it's COVID, right? So what happened as COVID was opening up, the whole space began to be a little bit more organized. And now another friend comes and says, I want to be part of this because you're helping the community. And suddenly it became a company. It became the Banahoo Tres Marias because we were three women and perfect, right? It's women's month, right? Three women deciding we wanted to help the community the same way Chit, we three with EchoStore, remember? You, me and Rina doing EchoStore felt. We wanted to help the community. This time now we wanted to root in the mountain, a spiritual sacred mountain, and help this community, which was a fourth-class municipality, therefore very, very poor people who were really just agriculturally based and little micro businesses. So really the poverty was very intense.

Chit Juan

I know, you thought of projects for the women.

SPEAKER_01

Of course. Training. Okay, we were training them with housekeeping by ourselves, huh? Training with a food preparation, food and menu, proper hygiene in the kitchen, in the bathroom, everything. Suddenly we transformed these two homes into a tourism space. And so we said, let's do something and ask the DOT for accreditation. So we got a Mabuhai level accreditation.

Chit Juan

Okay. Can you tell us the Mabuhai level? What is uh for for the benefit of our listeners?

SPEAKER_01

So, right now, a lot of people are opening up farms, right? And all of this resource everywhere, right? And in the Department of Tourism, it has different levels. So when you're considered a Mabuhai level, it means like your bed and breakfast, your like a home stay, and everything is clean. Means to say your fire, everything that is the standards about. But they actually like accredited you as a tourism site. Yes. On the Mabuhai level. Very interesting. Yes. So it's a destination place, but on the Mabuhai level. So which is very rustic and down to earth. And so the food here, even, is all about how can we find the best produce around the mountain? Who are the best women who can actually cook these products, right? And how can we bring them together? Now it did not only become just the food, it suddenly became working with a local cooperative, which was suddenly they had bombs and oils and ginger teas and everything we were doing in Echo Store that we were selling was being made here. So we said, let's just embrace them into, again, a sustainable lifestyle, but now in a destination place where they can actually experience nature. So we positioned Banahoo Circle as something more than just houses where you can stay. It's like because it's small, it's like your doorway to the whole mountain. So that's why we started to teach because the challenge here is that people come to the place, they don't know what to do. Nobody tells them what to do. Even if the local government has given guidelines, you wouldn't know the culture and the history of the place, which is the Pamum Huesto. Very sacred in a way, no? You have guides. We have guides, yes. Do you train the guides? Yes. Yes. There are two kinds of guides in Banahao. You have the Pator, which is the people who understand the ritual of the Pamomuesto, and they pray for you as you they carry you in spirit. They carry you. That's a different kind of tour guide. And actually, they're not tour guides, they are guides we call Pator, specific to Pamuesto. And so we've started to work also with a small group that the LGU has accredited under the Department of Tourism tour guides. And I've sat with them, I said, okay, let me listen to your script. And we started to help them with the storyline, right? Because at some point, the only place where people could listen to what the story was about Banahao, which is why people go to a space, right? They want to understand the culture and not just experience the food, and that's all part of the tourism touch point. But really, why are they coming? So we put up a small video, and the video tells the story of what Banahao is from the time of the 19th century, how all the different catipuneros and people who were the healers would run into the rainforest because the cuguardia civiles would try to stop them because the church wanted everyone to follow the ways of the church. So this is pre-colonial. Yes, pre-colonial. And so this is seeping history in a funny way, because even Makary Osakai, he did not get caught by the Americans and the Japanese because he actually knew all the cave systems underneath here. Some spaces here is where the Japanese actually put their arms down. And funny, that's they saved in our land. How interesting, no? So there are sacred sites. So there is a history to the place that if we don't share this with the young and the youth, you will lose a living culture, no, that is there. So there are a lot of scholars who have done research about the different religious groups around the area, the kind of scientific water level of frequency of healing, the healing modalities, the natural and very traditional albularios. There's so much studies, but they're all very scholarly. So nobody's really, you know, kind of just storytold it so people understood. And that's, I feel, what our role is here is to storytell that thing of what the mountain is about. So people respect it more and understand it more, right? That they know that it's a living entity and they just cannot leave trash, you know. So which is why my art now, I'm an artist, right? I'm suddenly transforming into I'm only gonna do art from trash. And so I built a whole house from trash, beautiful, I think, because everybody now takes pictures Instagrammable. Right now I'm working on a bridge. Can you imagine? I want to transform this bridge because it's so ugly into beautiful art with trash and junk.

Chit Juan

But I also see that you are making like jams and you're making breads from your communities.

SPEAKER_01

Correct. Even the honey that we get here, the coffee. We have the food that we, you know, we look around. What is the best thing that we can now do? Frozen food. Because suddenly we realized once we were serving the food, we knew it was time to pack them up for freezing to be bought by the guests, because they would say, Ah, Pedinami, oh, wait, could we take this home? Suddenly, oh, everyone's asking for our chili sauce, everyone's asking for the kind of vinegar we serve. And so a new product has happened here. So it's small, but what we're trying to show here is that no matter how small you are, you make an impact when you begin to work with many, many smaller ones. So, for example, our chicken and our eggs, because our chickens alone cannot, you know, we could be the supplier for the Banahoo circle, right? But you have eggs, yes, because next door there are three women there who are raising chickens, ducks, and eggs. So I sat them down like three or four years ago. I go, see gay, kayoma gigging supply chain namin, okay? Can you make sure that you will consistently give, you know, I talk to them and they have been wonderful. So at this point, I gotta get some metrics how much eggs we bought from them and chickens and pigs. Nice, nice.

Chit Juan

So actually, for other listeners who may be interested in developing their own tourism or Mabuhai level sites, what do you think can you advise them to do first? What would be the most practical thing to do?

SPEAKER_01

That's interesting that you asked that, Chit, because I remember like 30 years ago, under the National Commission for Culture and Arts, I actually launched a program on cultural arts management and tourism. Because you see, in every space you're in, it's not just about putting up a space for people to visit and sleep and have food and then have a massage, but what is important and different in that space? What is culturally different, right? So that is the first thing, why they will come to you. The second is the amenities and the touch points of the experience. So when you look at it from the food to the bathroom to the way the bed, you know, our beds are international level. We may be mabuhai, but my partners and I decided our beds are international level, our sheets, and that's why there's a different energy and feel here when you go around Banahao, they'll all say, ah, yung maganda yung bayo lahat, I don't say banahoo circle.

Chit Juan

So, Jimmy, it is possible, it is doable that to recreate small community tourism sites that are sustainable in different parts of the country, as you have done with Banahao.

SPEAKER_01

Definitely. Now, our challenge here is to keep the standards, and this is why, you know, I'm part of the Wellness Association of the Philippines now, as well as the Philippine Tour Operators or Filtowa organization, huh? Because the direction here is how can we now really support community tourism? You know, under the tourism direction, in the region, we are number 14 out of 15. Can you imagine? We are so low in the list. Because tourists, you mean ASEAN, yes, we are number 14 out of 15, huh?

Chit Juan

So I guess number one would be Bali, those types. They already and Shailan and Vietnam are way ahead of us, right? Because, like in Bali, even a rice field, they can create a tourist place, right? Correct. But you don't want to give ideas to our listeners that you don't need a mountain, you can have a rice field, you can have anything. In Japan, there are so many tourists. This is right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Now, the challenge here where we want to bring it, actually, Chit, is uh because you need to have marketing, right? To know that when you go to a split to a space, the standards are the same. Which is why, as an example, let me show you here in Banaho Circle, we have kept the standards. So, this area where we are, with these two structures, with that additional brick house being fixed, is the Holy Trinity compound. We are putting up another just five minutes away, again, of old houses and more areas where our land is. And it is actually called the Holy Angels Compound. So the two compounds become standard in what we are doing. And this me, my dream is how can we now have others who have little homes here be part of the standard so that we can all embrace them under Banahoo's circles standards of tourism?

Chit Juan

Because in Japan they have home stays, yes, where people stay in farmhouses, they help out, and the kids, the young people love it that they don't pay so much, but get to experience and get to help the community. Is that the direction?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, like agriturismo also in Italy, right? They go to farms and they stay there. So the same thing here, and in Bali, but you see, there's government support in the others, okay? We need to have that kind of government support, which at this point it's not there really. The most they'll do is they'll do a tour training. But you see, again, what makes things work is for me that's what it is, and it's private sector's role to do this. But a lot of other women and other men also who own small destination things that they want to open alone, it's very hard for them to learn marketing shit, right? And the business itself, from the operations to the marketing, to the branding, to the food, to the kitchen, to the hygiene, that's a whole thing.

Chit Juan

But you know, Jeannie, you're doing a good job in that you start. Me, my pet peeve is a not so nice bathroom. You know that our community travels. So that's the first thing that I think communities should invest in. Yeah, good toilets, good bathroom facilities. You know, I even went to a place where the water just kept running because it comes from a mountain. And there's no way to store it and all that. So community tourism really has a lot of opportunities being offered to various communities in all our 7,000 islands. And I want Banahoo Circle Retreat to be an example, a shining example of how you did it by involving the community. So and the farmers, everybody actually.

SPEAKER_01

And so, how's your coffee doing? The coffee is fine. We're actually waiting drying for some beans, and it's always sold out in the sense that it's so small our harvests at this point that it's already finished by you know here in for use.

Chit Juan

Yeah, but then it's a good equalizer. Like when you don't have tourists, I'm sure there are off seasons, there are oh, we have so much schools.

SPEAKER_01

You know what? We are the partner to the Singapore School of Manila, we are the partner to National University. We have been talking to Treston International and Mapua. We're discussing the reason is through the years, since 30 years ago approximately, the Ateneo, UP, Darasal, they always come here for their sociology classes, especially Ateneo, because of Father Gorospe, he would bring students here to understand the local culture. So we continue this tradition, but now we're also doing trainings for HELOT, and we're looking at the trainings towards test accreditation for the tourism, like housekeeping, you know, things like this. So we're trying to move it that direction because we are actually. Developing a much bigger space in four hectares, which is going to be another level of a destination place, but it is going to be off-grid.

Chit Juan

But you know, you are so exposed and you know how to start, and you're an entrepreneur. I think what we want our listeners to get inspiration for is that they can also do it in correct space. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, definitely. Especially now. We're going to have a lot of OFWs coming home, maybe because of the war. They're displaced, yeah. And displaced, you'll have people who are skilled, huh? They they might have been chefs or cooks in the in the sea, in the boats, right? So you will have that kind coming up, people who have known international standards. We should be able to try to get them back. Because this is going to be where our community tourisms are going to flower and develop. Because you can't just hire somebody from Marriott to take care. No, it's going to be from the ground up. And I think this is the new way we should be looking at businesses.

Chit Juan

But community tourism definitely is more sustainable and they bring in their natural talent to cook and use local ingredients. It's really beautiful. So, how do our listeners find you on social media so that they can visit Banahao Nature Retreat? Yes.

SPEAKER_01

So we are on Instagram under Banahoo Circle Nature Retreat and also on Facebook. Now there is a website which we are updating because we're opening up the other compound, no? But you can look at it at banahoouscircle.com. And by April, we will have fixed our forest walk and an additional number of structures, old homes for now that could now become part of the experience. But there are walks that we've organized.

Chit Juan

They can go on day trips or weekends. Can you tell us the like an idea of if I only had a day, what time do I start? All right.

SPEAKER_01

We begin from Akati at 7 a.m. We say that because if you're going to come for the day, it would take you at least two hours right now with the way the roads are. But the good news that I'd like to share with everyone the moment the TR4 opens up, which is maybe end of this year, they're almost finished, no? That will make Banaha one hour and maybe 30 minutes max.

Chit Juan

Oh, that's great. Okay, so day trip start at 7 and you return about 7 p.m.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you can go home 7 p.m. You'll be home, or you can go home at nine, so there's less traffic, and you can have your meals here, do a tour of Pamomwesto. Then of course we have retreats that we also do here. Everything from kundalini, from dance retri, all sorts: school, family, healing. There's all different kinds of retreats. And kids, I want to be able to share that when we say Banahoo Circle, it's not just the structures in Mount Banahoo. It is representative of everybody who believes in what the mountain stands for. Spirituality, the echotourism, the environment support we must give nature, our diversity of our plants, our food source, right? It is what the mountain, still clean and preserved, represents, and a community actually that loves it. You know, so Banao Circle are people also, not just structures. But I like to say when you come to Banahao, our place is like the doorway to be able to experience a whole mountain, including Mount Cristobal.

Chit Juan

And you said it's pre-colonial. So this has happened many, many years now. Yes. And Banahao really has a name, except people don't know where I can stay. Correct. Now that you develop this Mabuhai class tourism establishment, I think that people can now experience the mountain and do their spiritual tourism or even just nature walks.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love to eat healthy food, right? The whole touch point of what an experience is in another space that should open your mind, open your heart to nature, right? And get a clearer understanding of, you know, there's so many beautiful spaces in the country. They don't need to be so curated and so perfect. Live it naturally. Live it naturally. Exactly.

Chit Juan

Thank you. Thank you so much, Jeannie. Let's concentrate on Banahao Nature Circle Retreat. And thank you for what you do for Dolores Queson in sustainable community tourism. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to the Good and Green podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the show and leave a review. It helps more people find us. And feel free to share it with a friend. Until next time, keep it good and green.

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Pacita "Chit" Juan

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