More visitors trek to Sagada caves as tourism picks up 

SAGADA, Mountain Province — More tourists arrived here last week compared to the number of visitors who came in August to December this year bouying up officials claim that tourists’ confidence to this “hinterland resort” has been regained.
With more tourists, Police Inspector Cristina Gamboa, Sagada police chief, declared that the recent perceived slump in tourism is over.
The number of tourist buses has tripled, and local lodges and hotels have registered good occupancy rate. No statistics are available at the moment, but 25 to 30 tourists a week is a good indicator that soon the average could possibly rise to 50 a week.

Over the years after former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo frequented this place with earliest form of civilization and the Spaniards and Americans as explorers, tourists have increasingly come and gone with memorable experiences with natural scenery of mountains, caves, exotic food and modest but cozy lodging facilities.
Gamboa recalled that the slump in the local tourism industry was due to one local tourist who went missing up to now, and a skirmish between the government forces and the New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.
The missing tourist, a woman in her late 30’s and native of Dagupan City, was among the two busloads of foreign nationals, mostly Japanese who were curious to see the church dome like chamber of the Sagada undergound coves with a tributary of the Chico river which appears to be a clear natural swimming pool.
A typhoon nearby the area that time spawned unprecedented volume of rain, resulting to the flooding of the Sagada caves while the group of the victims were about to surface.
The woman lost control of her body while clinging on to a slippery boulder resulted to her fall to the rising floodwaters.
Local rescuers assisted by the Philippine Navy and other volunteers who spent a month of search failed to see the missing person up to this time.
The second tourism setback here came after two weeks from the date of inundation of the caves .
Special action force of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Philippne Air Force (PAF) figher pilots and Philippine Army (PA) dislodged a good number of the rebels from a discovered NPA training camp in this town.
At that period, Police Senior Inspector Dave Limmong, the public information officer of the Police Regional Office Cordillera (PROCOR) confirmed that removal of the NPA from the area was one of the security operations in the last barangay elections.
Later, it was found out the NPA made the mountain not only their sanctuary as observed by residents, but also as staging area for their dispatches to various surrounding areas like Abra and Kalinga.
Since that time, no further sightings of the rebels was reported. Gamboa confirmed that the Philippine Army have set up camps in the former stronghold of the NPA purposedly to preserve peace and order in this idyllic place.
Gamboa said that people would find their town a good tourism haven just like before or even better.