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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday, April 20, 2017
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IT IS IRONIC that an isolated small group of islands, the municipality of Caluya, now holds the record of being the biggest income earner among the 18 municipalities in the province of Antique. With an annual income of approximately half a billion pesos annually, it has the potential of morphing from a literal coal mine into a figurative gold mine.
Caluya’s jump from 4th class to 1st class municipality in 2007 could be described as phenomenal. The majestic municipal hall, a stone’s throw away from the beach, mirrors progress. So, too, do the concrete buildings, the creeping road network, electricity and water system. Construction of its expanded sea port is ongoing.
Caluya owes the phenomenon to the island barangay of Semirara, where Semirara Mining and Power Corp. (SMPC) mines coal for local and export markets. I bet my bottom peso; very few Antiqueños know that the coal industry thereat has been around for more than 70 years.
Fewer realize the historic presidential proclamation that sealed the good fortune of Caluya because of coal deposits at Semirara. So let it be known that the original hand that signed Proclamation No. 648 was that of President Manuel Luis Quezon. Way back on Nov. 20, 1940, Quezon signed the so-numbered document “establishing as coal mining reservations all the coal deposits and coal-bearing lands in the southeastern portion of the province and island of Mindoro, and the islands of Semirara, Sibay and Caluya in Antique.”
In fact, it was the government-owned Semirara Coal Corp. that originally ran the coal mine until 1997 when it turned over coal exploration to David M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI) as subcontractor of the Department of Energy.
Mayor Genevive Lim Reyes, however, would not like her constituency to depend on coal alone for survival. Most of the eight islands comprising the isolated municipality 36 kilometers off the northeastern Antique mainland have tourism potentials, given the opportunity to develop. Being only three hours away by boat from the famous but now congested Boracay Island, the “spillover” tourists would soon turn it into another “paradise” where they can go snorkeling, diving, boating or swimming alongside playful dolphins.
The barangay island of Sibato, a 15-minute boat ride from the municipality, is very much like Boracay with white-sand beaches. Unlike Boracay today, however, its sea is still pristine and crystal-clear.
Caluya sprang a big surprise in January 2016 when its Tatusan Tribe bagged the championship in the “Kasadyahan” segment of the famous Dinagyang Festival in Iloilo City. The tribe had earlier topped Caluya’s corresponding tourism event, the Tatusan Festival.
“Tatus” refers to its indigenous blue-streaked crab that thrives on coconut meat. Incidentally, this year’s Tatusan Festival is scheduled on May 17 to 18.
Caluya is accessible by ferry boats plying the Caluya-Libertad route. A dot in the map in the northernmost tip of the province of Antique, it has a population of 30,000 spread across the cluster of eight islands.
Apart from Caluya poblacion, it consists of seven other islands: Sibay, Sibato, Sibolo, Liwagao, Nagubat, Panagatan, and Semirara.
Through the initiative of Mayor Reyes, seaweed farming has become a very profitable livelihood of the townsfolk. Caluya is now the fifth largest seaweed producer and exporter in the country.
Reyes herself is a political star that now twinkles in the entire province. She is the newly-elected president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, Antique chapter. I see her in my viewfinder, ascending to a higher level. (hvego@yahoo.com/PN)
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