Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Spectator sports
When it comes to spectator sports,
basketball and boxing are among the
biggest passions in the Philippines. Pool
- or what Filipinos call “billiards” - is also
popular, and football (soccer) has been
gaining influence, though mostly via
watching international leagues on cable
TV. Cockfighting is one of the view
popular pastimes that harks back to the
pre-Hispanic era.
TREKKING AND CLIMBING RESOURCES
Metropolitan Mountaineering Society
W
metropolitanms.org.
Sociable trekking group running expeditions throughout the year. On the
easier treks they may well be willing to take you along at short notice,
though you might need to take a basic survival course to be allowed on
the more challenging expeditions.
Mountaineering Federation of the Philippines
W
mfpi
.wordpress.com. An umbrella group that can offer general information
about routes and practicalities.
Pinoy Mountaineer
W
pinoymountaineer.com. This detailed and
well-maintained site is a good place to read up about trekking and
climbing, with sample itineraries for major climbs and a long list of
climbing clubs in the country.
Basketball
The Filipinos embraced
basketball
as they did
everything else American, from pizza to popcorn.
Every barangay and town has a basketball court,
even if all it consists of are a couple of makeshift
baskets nailed to wooden poles in the church plaza.
The major league - the equivalent of the NBA - is
the
Philippine Basketball Association
(PBA;
W
pba.inquirer.net), founded in 1975. Ten teams
compete for honours, all of them sponsored by a
major corporation and taking their sponsor's name.
You might find yourself watching Meralco Bolts
play San Mig Super Coffee Mixers, or Barako Bull
Energy take on Talk 'N Text Tropang Texters. PBA
games are all played in Manila (see box, p.98).
The San Miguel-Petron franchise (under the
name Beermen and now Blaze Boosters) is the
most successful, while Barangay Ginebra Kings is
the most popular. The players are household names
to most Filipinos: Jimmy Alapag (with the Talk 'N
Text Tropang Texters), Gary David (Meralco Bolts)
and Marc Pingris (San Mig Super Coffee Mixers)
command huge attention.
Caving
It's hardly surprising that
caving
- spelunking - is a
growth industry, as there are huge caves to explore
throughout the country. The largest cave systems
are in northern Luzon - in Sagada (see p.172) and in
Cagayan province near Tuguegarao, where the
Peñablanca Protected Area (see p.156) has three
hundred caves, many deep, dangerous and not
yet fully explored. The other exciting caving area is
the Sohoton Natural Bridge National Park in Samar
(see p.356).
Whitewater rafting and
zip-lining
Whitewater rafting
is becoming more popular in
the Philippines, notably along the Cagayan River
and Chico River in northern Luzon (see p.178) and
Cagayan de Oro River in Mindanao (see p.406).
Zip lines
have mushroomed all over the islands,
but some are much tamer than others - some of
the best are near Cagayan de Oro (see p.404) and
Davao (see box, p.426).
Boxing
Surfing
Surfing
is now well established in the Philippines,
with surfers taking advantage of good waves
in eastern Bicol (see box, p.206), Catanduanes
(see p.233), eastern Mindanao (especially Siargao
Island; see p.418), and around San Fernando in
La Union (see p.139). There are also any number
of hard-to-reach areas in the archipelago that
are visited only by a handful of die-hard surfers,
such as Baler in northern Luzon (see p.158), or
around Borongan (see p.358) in eastern Samar.
For general information visit
W
surfingphilippines
.com,
W
cloudninesurf.com and
W
surfingthe
philippines.com.
Boxing
has been big business in the Philippines
since the Americans introduced the sport in the early
twentieth century. In recent years, one name stands
out in particular:
Manny “the Pacman” Pacquiao
,
the poor boy from Mindanao who became world
champion (see box, p.447). Though you are unlikely
to see the great man himself, fights are held almost
every week, with major venues in Caloocan (Manila),
Cebu City, Mandaluyong (Manila), Tagaytay City,
Victoria (Negros) and Taytay in the Luzon province of
Rizal. Tickets are cheap and often sell out; whenever
there's a bout of any significance Filipinos gather
around every available television set. You can check
schedules for fights at
W
philboxing.com.
