On Caves and TV's Crappy Fantasy Series: The Case of Calinawan Cave

People, before you patronize watching the crappy fantasy series on your TV, I want you to be aware that MOST of the production people of these TV series are not at all conscientious in creating their sets on the locations, especially on forests, caves, sea, river sides. They ALWAYS leave the natural sites dirty, bastardized and vandalized!!!

Please don't help the crappy, greedy and stupid TV producers to earn so much from our environment's expense! I personally got to know this as some of the caves I went through were vandalized by the production outfits. A cave is public and government owned. But when a cave is within a private property or land, watching over the cave is a big challenge especially if the government is not that keen on conserving these natural sites and they have not yet set the management and tourism plan for that cave.

An example of this cave is the Calinawan Cave at Tanay Rizal. The cave guide even disclosed to me the movies, TV series shot on their caves for a fee of P 20,000 per day of shooting with no conditions. Meaning, the production staff can do WHATEVER they want inside the cave. So they went on putting nails on the stalactites so that they can hang the incandescent lights, they covered the same with glue and splashed glitters on it to make the show location appear sparkly on TV, they created swimming pools inside the cave, blasted portions of the cave and even painted the caverns silver destroying the precious spleotherms.

It's so heart breaking to see how the stalactites and stalagmites that formed hundreds to thousands of years got destroyed by mindless TV and movie producers who does not care at all with our natural resource and environment. Caves can never be replaced, rehabilitated and rebuilt. The only way to stop this people from continuing destroying the caves is to not patronize their movies and TV shows and massive information campaign about the importance of caves and its ecosystem. Moreover, people should not rely on government alone to watch over our caves, in this case, even the 'cave owner' sold the precious cave resource to the TV industry, people need to realize the importance of this ecosystem and be vigilant in watching over it. Information should be shared by informed people such as you and me to as many people as possible so that potential abusers and passive citizens can think twice in making untoward activities on caves or in any part of natural environment.

Knowing and not helping in correcting a wrong doing or situation is favoring the oppressor of our nature. 

Below are the photos taken inside the worst cave I've ever seen.

                                                            A silver painted stalactite

                                       the makeshift pool area for a TV series mermaid 

                                                 A nail in the silver painted cave column

                               the big column with glue bits where they put glitter clusters

                                                           another one with glue marks

                                 the still naturally sparkly stalactite with glue  marks

                                            Me and a friend on top of the blasted cave area

I went here twice and in a span of a year, I saw the cave changed from bad to worst. The only good news when I heard when I came back the second time is that, the cave is now being closely monitored by DENR-PAWB. A government agency taking care of protected areas and wildlife.

I just do hope that when I return again one day, the cave will be alive again...

An Appeal to All of My Friends..

Caves naturally form very slowly ranging from hundreds of years to thousands. Each has its own characteristics, features and diversity of life and ecosystems. It has been man's earliest abode, its refuge from dangers and for some it was their holy grounds. Its dark, deep and calm environment never fails to mystify the outsiders.

Legally defined as any hollow naturally occurring void, cavity, recess or system of interconnected passages beneath the surface of the earth or within a cliff or ledge and which is large enough to permit an individual to enter whether or not the entrance located either in private or public land, is naturally formed or man-made. 

Caves right now should be treated as a museum, a place of geological, historical and biodiversity significance, it should be taken cared of as a fragile and non renewal resource that is irreplaceble. It should be treated with respect along with the flora and fauna that survives in its natural pristine state that is quiet, damp and dark.

Not many are aware that we have a Philippine Caving Act, a republic act: CAVE ACT RA 9072 of 2002 which aims to manage and protect cave and cave resources. Implemented by DENR in coordination with Dept. of Tourism, National Museum, National Historical Institute and LGU units, this cave act provides guidelines along with its implementing rules and regulations IRR DAO 29 of 2003 for National Caves and Cave Resources Management and Protection Act with an excemption of the Palawan Undeground River that is under the jurisdiction of Palawan local government. Curretly since its inception only a few hundred caves were succesfully categorized and identified by our government under the DENR- EMB and through the management of PAWB - Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau.

But what is the current state of caves in the Philippines? At least from what I've seen being a regular caver who had explored about 3 dozens of caves in less than 2 years?

From my stand point, the Caving Act is somewhat human-centered. Its governing rules centers on how humans and citizens can benefit on the use of caves, as it is being marketed more for tourism than for its proper conservation resulting in uncontrolled "ecotourists", bastardized cave spleotherms and environment, receeding fauna life on the cave, dying flora and eventually its depreciation.

I've seen this on most caves that I've been through, how the private land owners by which the cave is located had overly altered the cave systems putting up cemented ladders and rails (for an unnamed cave in quezon), how the the Hoyop-hoyopan cave in Albay with all its dozens of incandescent lights and its wires littering the cave denying it, its right to darkness with the cemented dance floor on its largest chamber, the cave in Calinawan in Rizal that can be described as dead as the land 'owner' sold it day to day for teleserye productions without any conditions to protect the cave from the production set-up, the producers and creative artists covering the stalactites with glue and splashing it with glitters, put dozens of nails on them, cement and painted portions of it, all of the sake of a renting fee of P 20-50 thousand pesos per day of tv shooting.

I contrrolled myself not to cry as one of the owner's  tells me proudly that their cave has been used by numerous teleseryes on TV like Dyesebel, Encantadia, name a fantaserye and sure it was shot at the Calinawan cave and even used by the movie Yamashita treasure, as one portion of the cave was blasted for the movie's finale. 

Then there's Sumaging Cave management that has no control in permitting visitors inside, who uses gas lamps inside the chambers damaging the cave atmosphere and the formations and who allows visitors to enter without any protective gears putting them at risk. 

All of this happened while the Caving Act is in effect. So what happened? This became, because simply, people do not have respect for the caves and for the environment in general. I believe that poor implementation is just one aspect as no one can police and fully guard the environment BUT people, do we need to abuse nature just because no one will catch us as no one's watching? 

I don't personally want to lock it up and fully preserve all the caves. Preservation is different from conservation in a sense that in conserving, people are still allowed to use and make use of it. Preservation does not and besides, how can one appreciate such nature if no one see's it? but I definitely agree on it for caves and ecosystems which are very fragile.I just wish that the use of it and the appreciation will be harmonized and implemented with proper management, responsible caving and vigilant nature guarding.

Caves need serious protection. They are very good potential source of information that can be used for scientific purposes especially on climate studies, they may have very unique species that may be endemic to us and if properly taken cared of and holistically managed, it can provide high ecotourism returns from generation of jobs from local people, taxes contribution and live commerce to the area on where the cave is located. Many countries now are very pro-active in developing cave management guidelines in order to protect their caves as surge of tourist from around the world spelunk from one cave to another.

With this, I plea to all of you, for this year, to have an advocacy that helps conserve the environment be it a forest, mountain, cave, river, seas or ocean, be it for biodiversity conservation of animals, birds or those found in the water.

Please dont be a free loader in this world, letting such organizations and small group of people push for change on how humans should behave with nature, on how to protect it and conserve it for you and your future generations. Please take out even a small attention you give to yoursef and share some of your time to help improve the situation of our nature, you may even do this by changing and sacrificing a little comfort from your lifestyle, reducing consumerism, reusing things, choosing products that's not harmful to the environment or animals, conserving water and electricity and most of all, not supporting or patronizing environment-destructing teleseryes and movies, skylanterns, fireworks and modern architecture with no green resposibilty.

Please let this be part of your new year's resolution, as a friend, I will forever be indebted to you.

Jenny

On Why I love Caves...

Many friends ask me, "Jenny, why caves?" and most times, I feel like I have to answer them the shortest possible way (so as not to bore them), but this time, I want to enumerate on why I have so much fascination with caves and spelunking and I hope that some will want to try this activity in a responsible way! Partly wishing though, that this don't become a trend like that of 'mountaineering' where some of the climbers are just apt to photo ops just to be 'in' leaving trash in the mountains, creating new trails that slices the mountains. NOT IN MY CAVES you people! No vandalism, no groupie spelunking that can result to ugly caverns!

Opps sorry, got carried away... Going back, below are the reasons why I love caves and spelunking: 

1. It’s our first home!

Caves were our first home! Our ancestors found comfort and safety inside the caves and our civilizations first thrive inside these caverns. Our dwelling places right now, be it your apartment or condo unit are in fact modern caves!. Caves with cable TVs, microwave ovens, doors and windows and PCs.  Maybe I’m just an old soul.

2. I am a nature lover

You get to be intimate with nature while trekking on your way to the cave, rock climb a little, trek long  stretches of mountain side, dip in a sea, pass by the falls and just the simple joy of breathing fresh and  highly oxygenated air. The scenery and the experience elevates your sense of well-being in general.

3. I love ST - “Space-Time”

Going inside a cave tells you lots of history. It literally acts a time machine taking you back in the past!. Suddenly your environment changes to prehistoric times when you’re inside these chambers. The sight of stalagmites and stalactites tells you that they were there as a result of hundreds of years of geological changes! Some caves are even older than some civilizations that we know and most of them are still on-going changes (solution caves) and is very much alive.

4. I love Geology

I love rocks and its formations, soils and terrains. Caves forms so slowly. Some caves resulted from the passing of lava from previous volcanic eruptions, creating an underground highway (primary cave or lava tubes), then there are caves 'created' by the sea (sea caves), caves from melting glacier (ice caves) but the most of the common caves are found in the terrestial/mountains that feature beautiful speleotherms that forms slowly. There are karsts cave that resulted from the the rain hitting and slightly melting the limestone rocks creating holes on and under it (karst caves). Caves are places of art for me and people should give respect by practicing LNT Leave No trace as they go!

5. Serenity

Caves gives me a different kind of feeling and weird as they may say, comfort. Caves are dark;some are cramped and very quiet. Some people may not find comfort with this and may feel the other way around- claustrophobic! But being in a cave gives me serenity, maybe justifying the very introverted old self that I am.

6. Curiosity

No caves will ever be the same! I get pretty excited every time I’m arranging a trip to another cave.There are different interiors inside and I almost always cannot wait to discover what’s inside of them.

There are so many more reasons, but I have to stick to this first half dozen.  If you want cheap trips and one-hell-of-an-experience, try spelunking!

Check out the facebook group I had created – Pinoy Spelunker (https://www.facebook.com/groups/PinoySpelunker/) and see the caves I've been through, you can email me for guides, directions, what to expect, and rates- of the guides, transpo, environmental fees if there is any on the particular area. 

I advocate responsible caving or spelunking as well as with proper conservation of caves ;-).

When caving, be sure to leave no trace on the site, don’t vandalize and destroy the cavern formations and most of all carry back your trash when you go, as much as possible, clean and pick up the trash left by others on the trail.

We have to love our nature and nature does not stop from the mountains and oceans alone, it should also include our home, our first homes).

sheer happiness, inside Paniki Cave
Biak na Bato National Park, San Miguel, Bulacan