Antique town’s mountain villagers earn a living as tour guides

Residents of the upland barangay Aningalan in San Remigio town in this province now have a new way to earn a living through tour guiding due to the influx of tourists to see the attractions offered by this once quiet place. (Photo By Iloilo Wanderer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0)

SAN JOSE De BUENAVISTA, Antique — Residents of the upland barangay Aningalan in San Remigio town in this province now have a new way to earn a living through tour guiding due to the influx of tourists to see the attractions offered by this once quiet place.

Ronie Mission, Jr., president of Aningalan Community Based Tourism Association, in an interview on Wednesday, said that tourism in their barangay started to boom because of their popular strawberry farm, the presence of giant flower Rafflesia and other natural attractions.

The barangay residents were given brief orientation on how to serve as tour guides and many of the jobless folks took interest.

“Right now there are 77 tour guides who are members of our association,” he said.

He said these tour guides now earn PHP20.00 as guide fee per tourist to Igbaclag Cave, Danao Lake, strawberry farm and other attractions in Aningalan, which has now become accessible because of the concrete road being constructed from San Remigio town proper by the Department of Public Works and Highways.

Mission said he is thankful to the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte for continuing the road concreting to Aningalan from San Remigio town proper, which is about 10 kilometers.

The road is designed to become a shorter route from Antique to Iloilo, with Aningalan being the last barangay of San Remigio town to Iloilo province.

The association president said that thanks to the road concreting project there are now 50 to 100 visitors coming to the area during weekdays and 300 to 500 during weekends.

Each tourist pays environmental fee of PHP10.00 to the barangay and another PHP10.00 as entrance fee.

With the increasing number of tourists flocking to this once quiet town, the association will be requesting for a more thorough training on tour guiding to empower the locals and also to know the “dos and don’ts” which they can relay to the tourists before they head to the attractions.

He added there are other areas which can be developed such as the Tipuluan Falls located at the mouth of the Sibalom River and other caves that have not yet been explored due to inaccessible roads.

He said that they also need to have hanging bridges in areas where Rafflesia thrive to prevent visitors from stepping on the flower buds.