UNKNOWN to many, Laak town in Compostela Valley is home to hundreds of caves waiting to be explored.
As part of efforts to promote these potential tourism destinations, Laak staged on July 27 to 29 the annual Laak Cave Festival with the theme, "Youth is a Good Steward of Caves and Karst."
The focus of the activity is to educate the youth, especially the senior high school students and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials, on their town’s own treasure and to learn how to protect and conserve them for the future.
Prescilla Decena, caving coordinator and tourism receptionist of Compostela Valley provincial government, said in an interview that they are positioning the town as the “Cave Capital of Davao Region” to attract more tourists.
Decena said the annual festival started in 2011. The Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines recognized their annual activity as among the best practices in the country.
The local government initiated the Laak Cave Festival for the locals to be equipped with sufficient knowledge on the tourism edge of Laak. This is to allow them to efficiently promote and share the beauty of their hometown.
They are also eyeing to step up the festival by offering caving activities to other cave enthusiast and adventure seekers beyond Laak. They are improving the accessibility to the caves with the scheduled construction of more roads.
Laak Mayor Antonio Libuangan has supported this tourism activity seeing that it will pave way for the town to be known for its rich natural resources and tourism attractions.
He also emphasized the need to promote the widest participation of the different sectors of the society in planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating cave activities.
“In pursuit of these activities, we, from the government and private sectors, pledge to support all efforts to achieve their ends, and in particular, commit ourselves to support Laak Cave Festival,” he said.
The experience
Located in Barangay Sto. Niño, participants visited the Tagalog cave. It was named after the land owner named Alfredo Valentin who is a migrant from Luzon. The cave is located around three to four kilometers from the barangay hall. The cave is situated two meters away from the main river and the water is observed to go through the cave. There were also groups of bats resting on the stalactites.
Underground, an array of stalactite and rock formations would wow the cavers. One of the guides said that you can determine whether the cave is "alive" if there is water dripping from the stalactites.
In one of the caves we visited, it was more challenging because cavers would have to descend to waist-deep muddy water to cross to the shallow part.
The barangay hired trained local cave guides who will assist the cavers as they explore the cave. In adherence to Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)’s safety measures, they do not let explorers go inside without proper protective gear. The cavers would be required to wear skull guard and bring flashlights.