TACLOBAN CITY – The national government is set to provide P50 million to construct road access to one of the famous waterfalls in Calbayog city. Samar Rep. Mel Senen Sarmiento said that the P50 million will be used to construct a concrete access road going to Bangon Falls, one of the most well-known waterfalls of Calbayog but remain unexplored by visitors due to road difficulty. According to Sarmiento, the construction of more than three kilometers access road is expected to start next year.
The Samar solon said that the development of road access to Bangon Falls is under the Eastern Visayas Tourism Roadmap of the Department of Tourism. Bangon Falls, one of the more than 20 waterfalls of Calbayog, is located in Barangay San Joaquin and entails a one hour and 15-minute ride to Brgy. Tinaplacan, and from there the falls is still about 3 kilometers away from the highway which can be reached through a ‘habal-habal’.
According to Rep. Sarmiento, once the road access is developed, tourist activities in the area can be explored and maximized to lure more visitors to the site. Meanwhile, Calbayog Mayor Ronaldo Aquino said they have been pushing for the development of a number of their waterfalls and make tourism as a prime economic driver in the city. “We don’t have large spaces for bigger malls; we don’t have big ships that dock in our port. Thus we look at our tourism potentials to provide us the economic benefit it can give us,” Mayor Aquino said during a recent press conference. Bangon Falls has an estimated height of 60 meters. At the topmost part is a circular pond about 30 meters in diameter which is wide enough for swimming and deep enough for diving.
It was one of those identified by the DOT-8 as tourism-development area for Calbayog City and as part of the Eastern Visayas Tourism Roadmap.
The Tourism Roadmap envisions to heighten the competitiveness of the region as alternative destination of tourists and increase their length of stay, thus, spreading the economic benefits of tourism to all parts of the region. (AHLETTE C.REYES)
