Anton and Dawn Lagdameo look out on the 9,000-hectare Floirendo property in Panabu district, Davao del Norte. The area, known to locals as Tadeco, or Tagum Agricultural Development Corporation, used to be a swampland, according to Anton. When his mother, Linda Floirendo, was growing up, a lot of narra trees grew here. They used to build the rest houses.

The family patriarch, Antonio Floirendo, Anton's grandfather on his mother's side, turned the swampland into an abaca plantation. Then, in 1968, the old man decided he was through with abaca and turned to planting bananas for the multinational company Chiquita.

Anton says it is only very recently that he has begun eating bananas again.

"I remember, every week we had a box of bananas in the house," he recalls, laughing. " "Yong lolo ko tumatawag, kailangan daw kainin namin, kasi daw it's full of vitamins. Which is true, 'di ba? Pero siyempre, pinipilit ka, hindi mo na kinakain. ‘Tapos you drive in here, all you see are bananas. Everything was banana, banana. "

Today, Anton is in charge of the family's pineapple plantation in Davao del Sur. The farm, Davao Agricultural Ventures (Davco), is a corporation managed by both the Floirendos and the Del Monte people.

"Now it's pineapple, pineapple," Anton says, laughing again. "Lahat ng kapitbahay namin, kumakain ng pinya. Pati ibon, pati aso."

On Dawn: red dress, Zara; pearl necklace by Jeux

On Anton: His own.

Dawn never uses baby talk with Jacobo. "I talk to him the way I talk to you now," she says. "I want him to learn the language, the right language, early on. They say kasi, when you don't baby-talk, they will learn to talk earlier daw, ‘tsaka diretso na kung magsalita. ‘Tsaka ako, kuwento ako nang kuwento sa kanya. I also say my prayers out loud with him."

Dawn had Jacobo circumcised before leaving the hospital. "Ayoko nang mag-suffer later on. Sabi ko, do it na, because while they're still young, their nerve endings are parang hindi pa masyadong developed. The pain is dull. It's not the way we imagine it to be."

Throughout the whole procedure, Dawn was there, watching. And where was Anton?

"Siya ‘yong, ‘I can't, I can't watch," Dawn says, mimicking her husband. "Sabi ko kay Jacobo, ‘Ay, don't worry, I'll stay here."

Dawn says she watched from a window outside the operating area, talking to the doctor all the while. Anton was close by, but not watching. Dawn gives a hilarious account of the ensuing dialogue.

Anton: "What are they doing, what are they doing?"

Dawn: "They're injecting na."

Anton: "What are they injecting?"

Dawn: "There! Oh, don't come near, they're cutting na, there's blood already."

Anton: "Okay, okay, okay... I don't know how you can watch it."

Dawn: "E, who else is going to watch it?"

Dawn goes on: "Noong nakita ng doctor na nanonood lang talaga ako, sabi niya, ‘Come here na nga, mag-assist ka dito. Pasok ako doon sa loob. Wala lang, hawak-hawak ko lang si Jacobo, sinu-soothe ko lang siya habang ginagawa ‘yong trabaho. Binigyan lang siya ng tsupon. 'Di man lang siya umiyak."

Dawn, Anton, and Jacobo, six months old at the time of this shoot, pose for YES! magqazine. In the receiving room of the Tadeco banana farm's main guesthouse. "This is guesthouse number one," Dawn explains. "This is where the lolo stays 'pag nandito siya. Dito sila nage-entertain pag may mga guests sila. ‘Yong ibang guesthouses—guesthouse two, guesthouse three—are where the other uncles and aunties stay.

On Dawn: dress, Zara; metallic black shoes, Solea; necklace, Jeux.

On Anton: all his own

On Jacobo: brown overalls with blue shirt, Junior by Debenhams.

The three rest houses in the compound, including this one, were built almost at the same time in the late sixties.

"This one is the house for the family—kay lolo, my titos, or whoever was here," Anton explains.

"The other guesthouse was parang Imelda's house"—referring, of course, to Former First Lady Imelda Marcos, his lolo's good friend. "She had a room there and all her guests that were coming. The third one was for the American guests."

The well appointed house still serve the same functions for the family and their friends.

Dawn relates, "They have their rooms there. Dati, 'pag may bisita sila na foreigners, dignitaries, dito talaga ‘pinapadala sa Tadeco. Kasi this is what the grandfather started with talaga. Ito ‘yong pinalaki niya talaga."

"Itong place na ito, sanay na siya na para siyang hotel," says Dawn, laughing. "All the people that work here are so used to the bisitas."

From the plantation's main entrance, you need another 15-to-20-minute drive to reach the compound with the rest houses. Along the way, right smack in the middle of the farm, you will find a residential community with its own school, hospital, and market.

"The lolo really made it whole for them, for the workers and their children," says Dawn.

"And this place is self-sufficient," adds Anton. "everything you need, you can get it here."