AT THE ONSET our host in Iligan City was not keen on letting us take off for a whole day to visit the Islamic city of Marawi because the kidnapping wave had not abetted and non-locals like ourselves were supposedly specially vulnerable.

But our bullheadedness was not for nothing. We thought it a bit unjust that the reputation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was getting a beating because of the handiwork of a few hooligans.

A hardy group of independent filmmakers, led by Isa Dalena and Rox Lee, could not be intimidated by talk of dangerous living. They hired a passenger jeep to ferry us from low-lying Iligan to hilly Marawi, there where the weather changes from sunny to rainy to foggy and chilly in a day.

Still drunk from the ''Kasadya'' street dancing's swirl of southern colors unfurled during the Iligan fiesta in September, we expected the hues of clothing to heighten even more as we zigzagged to Marawi for something like 45 minutes and then stopped just outside the Aga Khan Museum, a small-scale Cultural Center at the verdant campus of Mindanao State University (MSU).

This museum, donated by Prince Karin Aga Khan IV, was inaugurated in the 1960s by the then newly crowned Miss International, Gemma Cruz. (Today, Gemma Cruz-Araneta is serving as tourism secretary.)

First to greet our eyes was what we thought to be a chandelier of some kind, the manggis, described as ''a cubical framework tied with bamboo boxes of various colors and sizes.'' The framework is usually hung from the top of long bamboo poles planted slanting on the ground. During feasts, boys with sipa would try to hit the boxes until they drop, and these decorated boxes are brought home. Not unlike the pabitin of Luzon.

There is a sculpture of the sarimanok, which literally means ''cock-like'' and symbolizes royal merry-making. This symbol appears in festivities and in bunting.

Speaking of bunting, the residents of Marawi like to announce their hometown successes to the world, whether it is a recently passed bar examinee or a newly appointed official of the Commission on Elections, with streamers stretched across trees or hung between electric posts.

And you don't have to be that big-time to deserve a congratulatory streamer. If you passed a refrigeration course from a correspondence school, you can have your name painted onto a streamer complete with your grade.

Also found in the museum are prototype ceramics with okir designs. The okir recurs on brassware, clothing, wood and woven mats, but this is the first time that it is seen on pottery, thanks to research and development funds from the Filipinas Foundation.

There are miniature torogan, the traditional Maranao royal house, the lamin, a Maranao prince's dormitory that is made of wood carved with okir, with a sarimanok atop the roof, and awang, the Maranao boat painted also with curvaceous okir forms.

Our guide, Samuel Briones, an anthropology professor and protocol officer of MSU, explained that to test the strength of the torogan, two carabaos are allowed to fight inside the house. The torogan also functions as center of enthronement and of weddings, and venue for resolving fights.

The museum is not too particular about the items remaining untouched by human handlers. So Rox tried out the sound emitted by the brass gongs comprising a kulintang ensemble, and by the dadabowan, a large drum carved out of wood and traditionally played by men. There are smaller gongs on a stand called langkongan, and women are its traditional players.

Various species of fish in the 357-kilometer Lake Lanao, including the extinct ones, are named. Those still existing are the hito, dalag, biyang puti, carpa and gorami. The manalak, pait, manabud, katapa-tapa, baokan and lindog are long gone.

Under glass are stuffed animals like the slow lemur or kukang, white-necked stork or madre-madre, the Philippine cockatoo, abucay or katala in the local language, the serpent eagle or tikwi, and the monkey-eating eagle with wings outstretched and a stunned-looking monkey on its claws.

There are paintings, too, by Abdulmari Imao and Jose Joya on the walls, and a huge Maranao royal bed (panggao) with a colorful canopy in another section. At least four slender royals can easily fit on the bed.

The museum tour went well, except that the toilet could stand better maintenance. Then we hied off to Lake Lanao to toss coins into the water to appease the spirits living there. In the distance we could make out the gleaming dome of a mosque, what Briones promised: ''You will see squalor, you will see affluence.''

Downtown gave us the heebie-jeebies. ''Tondo in Baguio,'' as one newsman put it. Ramshackle shanties leaning on one another, garbage strewn any which way, a fishy odor emanating from the eateries.

While the other group members went on a food adventure by trying out a particularly spicy (as in coated with red-hot chillies) chicken curry, eating with their bare hands as utensils were not the norm, we settled for a kilo of lanzones, what the bakery seller called empanada (sugar-dusted, with sweetened coconut strips inside instead of chunks of beef or chicken), and a soda.

Much later, as we hunted for good buys in the market--and they were a-plenty, from inlaid boxes to sequined parasols to ''crazy-cut'' mats and cloths with eye-piercing colors--we learned from Briones that he had asked for some men to keep an eye on us, shadowing us stealthily just to ensure our safety.