Driving a vehicle for 45 minutes towards the east of Iligan City, following a concrete and climbing road, brings you to the adjacent Municipality of Tagoloan. Up here, in the cooler mountain areas of the Province of Lanao del Norte, we can find the recently opened Mighty Cave Park.
The inauguration of this park was the highlight of the 40th Araw ng Tagoloan last 21 June. Speaking during the occasion, with the theme “Tagoloan Geared Towards Eco-tourism,” Mayor Maminta Dimakuta and Governor Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo highlighted the social and economic prospects in promoting the cave as a tourist attraction. The audience was amused as other speakers took turn proposing interesting ploys to attract visitors. I further thrilled the crowd when I added the suggestion of promoting the waters from the cave as a love potion.
Expectedly then, on my exit of the cave, the people cheered as I acted to have downed all the contents of my bottled water—though it was the same water I had with me before entering. Amid the festive atmosphere, I was amazed how the town became populous: it was sparsely so in the early 1980s when, as a young army lieutenant, I patrolled this hinterland municipality.
Even as I share in the enthusiasm to promote the nature park to usher opportunities for progress in the area, I am equally bothered in the preparedness of authorities to cope with the environmental consequences. During the tour of the cave, curious visitors and their guides alike—unaware of conservation measures—liberally touched the cave walls further endangering its fragile and already disturbed condition.
Eco-tourism, like in other countries, can offer us great opportunities for socio-economic benefits, but this cannot long endure if we don’t take serious responsibility to value and protect the natural site we promote as an attraction.
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