Negros Occidental is also known as the “Land of Sweet Surprises” and that much is apparent as soon as we touch down in the provincial capital of Bacolod after a 90-minute flight from Manila on a balmy October afternoon. The air is treacly with tropical humidity and golden sunlight bathes the fields of sugar cane from which the Filipino island province derives its nickname, with a sun-shower-induced rainbow hovering over a cone volcano in the dis…