Historic Albay town bares enormous tourism growth

Tour the area of the majestic Mayon Volcano on an ATV (Photo courtesy of Mayon ATV Tours on Facebook)

CAMALIG, Albay – Rich in history, culture and natural wonders, this quaint municipality sitting close to the foot of majestic Mt. Mayon is pulling a dramatic local tourism industry lift.

In its report released Friday, the Municipal Tourism Office (MTO) said that for the inclusive period covering April to June this year alone, the municipality already received a total of 15,107 tourists, 447 of them foreigners.

This figure, according to Jed Villanueva, the municipal tourism officer, is exactly 228.05-percent higher than the 7,715 arrivals during the same period last year and even surpassed the 12,061 recorded for the whole of 2014.

The 2015 second quarter report of the MTO came following this year’s holding of the town’s Pinangat Festival, a colorful merry-making that runs for two weeks in June, bringing to fore the town’s culinary pride —pinangat, a concoction of ground shrimp or fish paste wrapped in gabi (taro) leaves and cooked into a stew with ginger, chili and coconut milk.

This culinary creation mastered by almost every kitchen hand here to capture the discriminating taste of fellow Bicolanos as well as tourists and visitors is considered as one of Bicol’s signature delicacies next to the mouth-burning Bikol Express.

Part of the celebration this year was the Heritage Walk that featured pinangat-making competitions and exhibitions and town’s century-old church and colonial houses that drew a total of 1,587 tourist arrivals, Villanueva said.

He attributed this remarkable local tourism industry achievement to the aggressive promotion initiated by the local government and the development of the various tourism wonders around the municipality.

Apart from its proximity to Mt. Mayon, which is famed as the world’s most perfect cone-shaped volcano, the municipality has several natural wonders that tourists and visitors coming for the year-round fun and adventure in the nearby Legazpi City also marvel at.

“While Bohol has its Chocolate Hills, Camalig has its Quitinday Green Hills, an exciting formation of over a dozen of mini-peaks located in Barangay Quitinday that has been emerging as one of the of Albay’s tourist attractions drawing local and foreign travelers,” Villanueva said.

Quituinan Hill, whose pinnacle is protruding over its adjoining rolling hills — giving one an opportunity to get a vivid sight on all directions of the expansive downhill plains, is another natural wonder that the municipally boasts of.

This hill, which the Japanese occupied during World War II as their observation point, features an underground sanctuary used as hiding place of Japanese soldiers and site of the great battle that claimed many lives before the end of the war.

The place has been developed by the town government as a historical and scenic spot whose view extends up to the entire urban landscape of Legazpi City and Daraga, Albay.

It also offers a good view Mayon Volcano.

The municipality is also known for a series of caves that have become favorite destinations for spelunking enthusiasts.

Apart from Hoyop-hoyopan, these caves are the Calabidongan, which features an underground river and a population of bats; Moraleda, a cave with a hot-spring in its interior flowing to one of its outlets; and Quitinday, Solong,Taloto and Su-uman that are all located on hill tops belonging to the Quitinday Hill formation.

Classified as a first-class municipality based on income classification, this town also boasts of archaeological findings, showing that the place had been inhabited by people with developed social attributes of cultural, religious, social, political and economic relationships and organizations as early as the years 200 BC to 900 AD, the period referred to as the early Iron Age in the Philippines.

Attesting to these findings are human bones, pottery, bead work and artifacts believed to be 4,000 years old, which have been unearthed from Hoyop-hoyopan Caves.The municipality also takes pride of this historical church, considered as one of the most massive, strongest and beautiful in the region that had stood over the different periods of the country — the Spanish, American and Japanese eras.

Owing to the town’s richness in history, Camalig Mayor Carlos Erwin Baldo said his administration has been pushing for its declaration as a heritage site and installation of historical markers to identify cultural assets or properties located in the town center such as the St. John the Baptist Parish Church and the cluster of Spanish-American colonial houses.

“We have also included in the project the Quituinan Hills World War II Japanese Camp and the archaeological site Hoyop-hoyopan Cave,” Baldo said.

These cultural assets and sites, he added, are eligible for the National Historical Commission’s declaration based on structures dating of at least 50 years old and 70-percent authentic, among other qualifications, that reveal something meaningful about the town’s past.