George Braseros is certain there is gold buried in the jungles of Mindanao. He is so sure it is there, just waiting to be dug up, that he has sunk a small fortune of his own into searching for it. And he knows other men have died for it.
As we bump along a track heading north out of the town of Digos, a chaotic, polluted port town like so many others that cling to the coast of the Philippines' second largest island, Braseros becomes more animated. He is taking me to a coconut grove where he and the owner of the land sank a shaft two years ago after an elderly Japanese man "read" signs left on rocks and carved onto the trunks of trees identifying it as a treasure site. His belief is absolute.
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