Philippine Daily Inquirer
Fireworks in Puerto Princesa City greeted recently the news that the Palawan Underground River had been named among the world’s new seven wonders of nature. Although the election owes partly to Filipinos’ online savvy, it is also true that the underground river, with its “cathedral” of stalactites and stalagmites, really deserves the honor. It is truly an awesome wonder of nature.
But the list of winners is considered provisional because the votes are still being checked, validated and independently verified, according to the Swiss-based New7 Wonders Foundation, which organized the global survey. The final list will be made early next year, but Mayor Edward Hagedorn said he and other Palawan officials are confident that the Philippines’ entry will stay in the final seven. The other six natural wonders on the list are Argentina’s Iguazu Falls, South Korea’s Jeju Island, Indonesia’s Komodo Island, Vietnam’s Halong Bay, South America’s Amazon rainforest and South Africa’s Table Mountain.
Believed to be the world’s longest, the 8.2-kilometer Underground River winds through a cave before flowing directly into the sea, with caverns and limestones that look like the vaults and domes of cathedrals and with natural rock formations that look like colossal sculptures. The subterranean river is a treasure trove of information for scientists studying how the Earth evolved. At least 11 minerals have been found in the Underground River, stunning experts who said that only a few caves in the world have more than three or four minerals.
The Underground River likewise supports one of the major biodiversity areas in the country. “The Almighty wrought this masterpiece of nature,” said Environment Secretary Ramon Paje, who was the national campaign manager of the government’s push for the listing of the Underground River. To that, we say, “Amen.”
But there are risks now that the Underground River has moved from being a “local to a global jewel,” as Paje rather triumphantly put it. The main risk was unwittingly mentioned by deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte when she quite naively declared that the listing would trigger a tourism boom for the country. The optimism flies in the face of historic efforts of Hagedorn and Puerto Princesa officials to regulate tourism lest it degrade the Underground River and Palawan’s great biodiversity.
Be that as it may, the expected tourist influx would be a “welcome problem,” according to Hagedorn. “We are up to the challenge,” he added. “We view the Underground River’s recognition as a perfect opportunity to again showcase our commitment to preserve our natural environment as our legacy to the whole world.”
But there’s really cause for worry. Philippine management of eco-cultural sites has been woefully poor. The Banaue Rice Terraces, declared by the Unesco as a World Heritage Site, are crumbling not only because of floods and giant earthworms but also because of official neglect and communal abandonment. What the ancient Ifugaos carved and tilled for thousands of years are expected to be lost in the next decades by a new generation of Cordillerans lured by white-collar professions in Manila and alienated by the agrarian grace of old. The so-called stairway to heaven is expected to crash down to earth sooner or later.
No image sends the message across that Banaue is a beautiful fiction and soon a beautiful dream more than the sight of the Ifugao dressed in traditional loincloth and costume, offering himself to be photographed for tawdry tourist snapshots or postcards for a few dollars more. In short, tourism, which, lest we forget, is a form of marketing, has debased and trivialized just about every cultural community or practice and just about every natural site. The real wonder of wonders is tourism, its sheer power at gimmickry and crass commercialism.
But Philippine tourism is its own worst enemy. The Philippines proclaims itself as a nation of hospitable people but the country is hardly hospitable to either tourist or local. Our international airport terminals are dirty, dangerous and hardly tourist-friendly. Our streets and tourist parks are mean, grimy and fatal—a dozen foreign tourists were killed in the park named after the national hero in 2009. Loose firearms have abetted shootings in shopping malls and the killings of European Catholic missionaries in Mindanao. Palawan has its great underground river but the rest of the country is an underworld.
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