Students from three schools in Antique will be organized as cave advocates to campaign for the protection of this natural resource.

Board Member Pio Jessielito Sumande, Sr., chairperson of the Committee on Environment at the Provincial Board, proposed the idea, inspired by lectures of Asian Union of Speleology general secretary Aris Neil Cristales and National Museum Western Visayas researcher Merlyn Geromiano on April 28, 2023, as part of the Cave Month celebration in Antique.

“Students from the University of Antique, St. Anthony’s College, and Advance Central College who were able to attend the lectures during the Cave Month celebration will be the ones initially to be organized to help in the advocacy,” Sumande, who authors Provincial Ordinance 2021-256 declaring the month of April as the Cave Month in Antique, said in an interview on Wednesday.

Both speakers, he said, encouraged the conduct of mapping and intensified information and education campaigns to protect caves.

They will be provided the opportunity to visit some caves in the province for appreciation and help them raise the awareness of their peers not to commit vandalism or remove any resources they could find inside caves.

“We will also be printing information and education materials for the students to help distribute,” he said.

Antique might have the most number of caves in Western Visayas when mapped considering that a municipality sometimes hosts up to four caves, such as in the towns of Libertad, Tibiao, Sibalom, and San Remigio.

“There are caves in Antique that had also been used as burial sites of the Indigenous Peoples (IPs),” Sumande said, citing the cave in Barangay Bulalacao in Sibalom as being utilized by the Ati Indigenous Peoples.

Antique’s Environment and Natural Resources Office Senior Environment Management Specialist Jennifer Juliano, in a separate interview, said

Antique is the only province in Western Visayas that celebrates Cave Month.

The celebration is mandated by Provincial Ordinance 2021-256 in compliance with Republic Act 9072 or the National Cave Resources Management and Protection Act which provides for the conservation, protection, and management of caves and cave resources.

“Caves are really important not only for recreation, but more so it ensures that there is sufficient supply of water for the community,” Juliano said. (PNA)