Where the wild things are

Currently the Philippines has a glut of travel TV shows to choose from — everything from Survivor Philippines to the All-Girl Getaway. Obviously, the message is getting out there that travel is “more fun” in the Philippines.

But there are plenty of areas in the Philippines that remain practically invisible to locals. The national park system, for instance.

That’s right: the Philippines has hundreds of national parks, some 240 beautiful locations that very few Filipinos have ever visited.

And that’s the premise behind Last Wild Place, a reality show premiering on Lifestyle Channel, Nov. 10. Hosted by Paul Cuenca, the show sends five “concerned citizens” (not scientists or celebrities or government officials) to exotic locales amid the country’s outlying protected areas.

These are places rich in natural beauty, but dirt poor otherwise; few farm-to-market roads exist, and people resort to illegal logging and over-fishing just to survive. Cuenca, who is the show’s executive producer and previewed the first episode, started by quizzing the room: “Can anyone here name any national parks in the Philippines?” Silence. I actually heard crickets chirping. A few answers did emerge — Luneta Park, and the Parks and Wildlife Preserve in Quezon City — and that was it.

But under the NIPAS (National Integrated Protected Areas System Act) passed in 1992, the Philippines actually has 35,000 hectares of protected land spread throughout the country, encompassing not just parks but protected landscapes, seascapes, wildlife sanctuaries, watersheds, wilderness areas and heritage sites.

Says Cuenca, the idea behind Last Wild Place was to increase tourism to these remote places, which currently is pitiful. A place like Iglit-Baco National Park in Occidental Mindoro, for example, protects the remaining 350 tamaraws left in the world; yet the place got only 1,000 visitors in 2011, “and half are from Far Eastern University, they’re required to go there” because the national animal is their mascot. Compare that to America’s Yellowstone National Park, which draws 3.3 million tourists a year — almost the total number of arrivals for the Philippines, just in one park.

What does Last Wild Place show us? The first episode focuses on Calayan in Cagayan Valley, north of Luzon province. The show’s team — made up of Cuenca, his friend Ricoted Calero, noted wildlife photographer Ivan Seranos and photographer Anna Varona — did some humpback whale spotting, a little birdwatching, cavorting with a water buffalo, coral diving and checking out WWII wreck diving sites. All in one place.

Cuenca says the show will definitely focus on the road less traveled. “We don’t fly, for example,” he says. “We use the roro system which is very efficient since the Philippines is an archipelago. We also practice a ‘leave no trace’ system and remove whatever we bring to each place.”

For research, “We used the Internet on the NIPAS areas: if we typed in the name of a place and nothing much came up, that’s where we went!”

Similarly, they didn’t want to work with LGUs or NGOs who are already there “because they tend to show the ‘best’ parts of a place,” not normal conditions.

The show’s team had to resort to a lot of alternate means of transport: “We do whatever it takes to get there. We will trek, climb, kayak, dive, even bike our way to see the unspoiled natural beauties we have.”

No, it’s not a reality show contest. But it is a matter of survival for the environment and the local people, Cuenca explains. “We would like to create an awareness for nationally protected areas in the Philippines. Because, essentially, nobody goes to these parks. It’s out of sight, out of mind. Unless we show it’s there, how can we protect it?”

Commercial tourism is not allowed in these areas. But responsible ecotourism? Maybe. Other locales this season will include Romblon, the Babuyan Islands, Kalinga and Apayao, Occidental Mindoro, Mindanao and Negros. The show costs about P800,000 to shoot per episode, but looks even more expensive.

One of the show’s sponsors is Philex Mining Corporation. “You might see a contradiction there,” Cuenca acknowledged. “You might think, ‘our passion is conservation and here’s Philex, a mining corporation.’ But when I actually talked to them, and they showed us what they wanted to do, I thought it was a good challenge to take them on.”

Rochelle Hilario, Philex Mining Corp. marketing and communications manager, was on hand to field the sponsorship question: “My question is, why not Philex? Last Wild Place will be there to show you what we have done to reforest and rehabilitate the mining areas in Zamboanga del Norte and Negro Occidental to bring it back to a state that is better than before the mining operations. It’s an opportunity to communicate the truth that not all mining is bad.”

“The caveat was that if we’re going to do this with Philex, we have to do it within the context of the story,” added Cuenca. “It’s not going to be an ad for Philex. And they agreed.”

Other than the locales, what really came through for the show’s participants was how moved the local people were at being noticed. “When we arrived, people came from kilometers around,” says Calero. “They just came down from the mountains to greet us, they were so glad we’d come to visit them!”

“We hope people will want to go there and help,” Cuenca concludes. “Explore your own backyard. We encourage every Filipino to spend three to five days to explore a part of the Philippines you haven’t seen before, instead of shopping and eating in Hong Kong.”

It raises a philosophical point: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Cuenca warns us that, if Filipinos ignore the country’s natural beauty, it may not be around much longer.

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Last Wild Place premieres Nov. 10, 10:30 a.m., Lifestyle Channel, with a replay on Sunday, 4 p.m.