A NEW route to Mount Pinatubo.
So reported Sun-Star Pampanga on Monday of the “new 22-kilometer route” “opened” on Saturday, April 2, by former President and current 2nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda with 56 government officials, and businessmen-cum-off-roading enthusiasts led by Levy Laus, chair of the Pinatubo Memorial Executive Committee.
Enthused Sun-Star Pampanga: “The road crosses between (sic) ridges and even on top of steep mountain ranges in what could be an ambitious engineering accomplishment. It ends along a camping site on top of a hill that provides a view of Zambales and Tarlac. Mount Pinatubo would only be a two-hour hike from the drop-off point.”
A dirt road in reality, the route traverses Barangays Sapang Uwak, Villa Maria and Inararo, all in Porac town, and passes by scenic Miyamit Falls along the way to the Porac highlands.
Vice Mayor Dexter David was quoted as saying the municipal government “spent months in clearing the road with the help of Aeta guides and will be made available to tourists once security preparations are in place.”
That, even as Mayor Condralito de la Cruz asked the provincial government’s help in the construction of box culverts to drain rainwater and “minimize possible damage on the road structure.”
Reading the Sun-Star Pampanga story, I was reminded of a route to Mount Pinatubo – other than that through Sta. Juliana, Capas – which was opened in 2005 by Gov. Mark Lapid and Clark Development Corp. President-CEO Tony Ng with over a hundred mediamen, 4X4 enthusiasts, and businessmen including communications magnate Dennis Uy.
A photo essay of that event merited some pages in the book the Levy Laus-led San Fernando Heritage Foundation, Inc. commissioned us to write in 2007 – Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit, to wit:
The other way
In April 2005, Porac Mayor Exequiel Gamboa opened a trail to Mount Pinatubo from his town.
Not for the faint of heart, the trail goes through single lane dirt roads or what pass for roads carved out of the mountainside with forty-five degree gradients, sudden drops and deep ravines only the strongest of 4X4 vehicles can navigate.
Along the way are a series of waterfalls – Miyamit, the highest – that make refreshing detours to the adventurer.
At the end of the trail through seven mountains lies galudgud asu (mongrel’s backbone) – the final narrow stretch of less than a kilometer with sheer drops on either side, rising up the Porac peak to a panorama of shimmering silver rivers snaking through lahar canyons, and Pinatubo’s very summit that is reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings setting.
The Porac route to Mount Pinatubo actually germinated at the time of Gov. Lito Lapid, contemporaneous with the planning of the FVR megadike system.
For all his storied lack of intelligence, the Bida ng Masa has a wealth in folk wisdom and compassion for the indigenous people of Porac.
Lapid actually envisioned that very route – detours to Miyamit Falls, included – to its very end – the Porac peak, where shall rise the, pardon the politically incorrectness, Baluga Village of native huts for overnight stay, handicraft shops, and eateries serving exotic delicacies such as binulo (food cooked in bamboo tubes), tapang usa, estupadong aso, adobong sawa, deep-fried cobra meat, etcetera. Whether such menu will pass the PETA, PAWS and other animal rights advocacy groups is of course another story.
But Lapid really had that vision, at least in his first term as governor. I should know, I served as a senior consultant to him then.
So it was with a great feeling of exhilaration when we joined his son, in his turn as governor, opened that route in 2005.
So it was with an intense feeling of dejection when nothing more was heard of that route soon after.
It is so unfortunate that Lapid, the elder, as senator with tens of millions in CDF, seemed to have forgotten all about his dream of the Porac route.
It rankles that Lapid, the younger, as head of the Philippine Tourism Authority now the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority with hundreds of millions in budget, opted for some stupid wakeboarding site to be carved out of the Sacobia highlands instead of continuing what he started as governor.
With Rep. Macapagal-Arroyo and Gov. Pineda at the helm, may a fully functioning Porac route to Mount Pinatubo come to be.
So reported Sun-Star Pampanga on Monday of the “new 22-kilometer route” “opened” on Saturday, April 2, by former President and current 2nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda with 56 government officials, and businessmen-cum-off-roading enthusiasts led by Levy Laus, chair of the Pinatubo Memorial Executive Committee.
Enthused Sun-Star Pampanga: “The road crosses between (sic) ridges and even on top of steep mountain ranges in what could be an ambitious engineering accomplishment. It ends along a camping site on top of a hill that provides a view of Zambales and Tarlac. Mount Pinatubo would only be a two-hour hike from the drop-off point.”
A dirt road in reality, the route traverses Barangays Sapang Uwak, Villa Maria and Inararo, all in Porac town, and passes by scenic Miyamit Falls along the way to the Porac highlands.
Vice Mayor Dexter David was quoted as saying the municipal government “spent months in clearing the road with the help of Aeta guides and will be made available to tourists once security preparations are in place.”
That, even as Mayor Condralito de la Cruz asked the provincial government’s help in the construction of box culverts to drain rainwater and “minimize possible damage on the road structure.”
Reading the Sun-Star Pampanga story, I was reminded of a route to Mount Pinatubo – other than that through Sta. Juliana, Capas – which was opened in 2005 by Gov. Mark Lapid and Clark Development Corp. President-CEO Tony Ng with over a hundred mediamen, 4X4 enthusiasts, and businessmen including communications magnate Dennis Uy.
A photo essay of that event merited some pages in the book the Levy Laus-led San Fernando Heritage Foundation, Inc. commissioned us to write in 2007 – Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit, to wit:
The other way
In April 2005, Porac Mayor Exequiel Gamboa opened a trail to Mount Pinatubo from his town.
Not for the faint of heart, the trail goes through single lane dirt roads or what pass for roads carved out of the mountainside with forty-five degree gradients, sudden drops and deep ravines only the strongest of 4X4 vehicles can navigate.
Along the way are a series of waterfalls – Miyamit, the highest – that make refreshing detours to the adventurer.
At the end of the trail through seven mountains lies galudgud asu (mongrel’s backbone) – the final narrow stretch of less than a kilometer with sheer drops on either side, rising up the Porac peak to a panorama of shimmering silver rivers snaking through lahar canyons, and Pinatubo’s very summit that is reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings setting.
The Porac route to Mount Pinatubo actually germinated at the time of Gov. Lito Lapid, contemporaneous with the planning of the FVR megadike system.
For all his storied lack of intelligence, the Bida ng Masa has a wealth in folk wisdom and compassion for the indigenous people of Porac.
Lapid actually envisioned that very route – detours to Miyamit Falls, included – to its very end – the Porac peak, where shall rise the, pardon the politically incorrectness, Baluga Village of native huts for overnight stay, handicraft shops, and eateries serving exotic delicacies such as binulo (food cooked in bamboo tubes), tapang usa, estupadong aso, adobong sawa, deep-fried cobra meat, etcetera. Whether such menu will pass the PETA, PAWS and other animal rights advocacy groups is of course another story.
But Lapid really had that vision, at least in his first term as governor. I should know, I served as a senior consultant to him then.
So it was with a great feeling of exhilaration when we joined his son, in his turn as governor, opened that route in 2005.
So it was with an intense feeling of dejection when nothing more was heard of that route soon after.
It is so unfortunate that Lapid, the elder, as senator with tens of millions in CDF, seemed to have forgotten all about his dream of the Porac route.
It rankles that Lapid, the younger, as head of the Philippine Tourism Authority now the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority with hundreds of millions in budget, opted for some stupid wakeboarding site to be carved out of the Sacobia highlands instead of continuing what he started as governor.
With Rep. Macapagal-Arroyo and Gov. Pineda at the helm, may a fully functioning Porac route to Mount Pinatubo come to be.
