Sarangani’s Seascape | Prehistoric
Caves | Century Old Houses | Capitol
Park | Sarangani Golf Course & Country
Club
Plunge in deeper into Sarangani’s
underwater world! A tank, mask, snorkel and fins are all what
it takes to delve into that fantastic view of multihued coral
ecosystem and marine fauna that abound.With the changing weather
conditions, every snorkeling and scuba diving would certainly
be unique from each previous engagement.
So experience that invigorating
vibes while knitting through Sarangani’s haven of dolphins,
whales, marine turtles, and the endangered sea cow (dugong)
and make it a lasting glimpse to remember.The impressive covering
of Acropora (branching corals) filling the seascape of Tuka
Marine Park of Kiamba will certainly captivate you to no end.
Archaeologists at work in Maitum.
Maitum Caves
Exploring through Ayub cave is
like traveling back to the metal age of the Philippines, circa
500 BC to 500 AD. A unique and fascinating assemblage of archeological
find (human faces and figures in earthenware medium) that
depicts Sarangani’s cultural wealth was excavated here.
These potteries were used as
secondary burial jars. Its coverings were molded as human
heads emulating different facial expressions of happiness,
contentment, and even a trace of desolation. Such were shaped
artistically tracing the most conservative detail of the human
face that can still be seen in the broken fragments of the
jars outside the cave... retaining their natural color even
up to now.
Some of the artifacts collected
are now displayed in the National Museum while others are
kept by some of the residents nearby the cave.
Ayub cave is made up of Miocene
limestone formation. The opening is about two meters wide
and two meters high, sloping downward to at least 20 degrees
angle and extending a length of 11 meters from the entrance.
But earthquakes, which cropped up sometime in 1970s to 1990s
widened the cave’s opening.
Ayub cave is located at
Barangay Pinol in Maitum, about 50 meters away from the national
highway and approximately 30-minute ride from the Poblacion.
Surrounding plants have, however, made this cave unnoticed.
Set in seemingly-classical downtown
Glan are several ancestral houses mostly built in the early
part of 1900s. The imposing balconies, canopies, and walls
of “kalados” and concrete stepboards leading to
wide wooden staircases will certainly awe-inspire antique
trippers.
Some of them even hold striking
collections of prized oriental sets and other precious antiques
displayed right in the drawing room. The
municipal government of Glan preserves the ancestral houses
taking pride of its ancestors’ birthright.
Visiting travelers cannot help
but marvel at the grandeur of the Provincial Capitol Building,
which also houses offices of national line agencies. They
say it is unrivaled. Some of them even dubbed it the reenacted
“White House” in Southern Mindanao.
To see the imposing Provincial
Capitol Building becomes, in most cases, the object of some
visitors in going to Alabel, the capital town of the province.
Equally drawing attention is
the Kasfala Hall that accentuates even more the beauty and
the value of the park. True to its Blaan name, which means
“deliberation,” the well-designed edifice serves
as a sheer witness to the many issues and concerns deliberated
and resolved in seminars, trainings, conferences, consultations
and the like.
Strategically enclosed in a 26-hectare
lot, the capitol park is a huge landmark of untiring devotion
and excellence by concerned leaders who were instruments of
unification and development of its people.
Other facilities like the FVR
rest house and pool, cultural center and gymnasium, training
center, and sports complex complete its almost pronounced
coziness.
The 18-hole Golf Course and Country
Club at Sitio Pulatana, Malandag, Malungon lies in a well-landscaped
of verdant grasses and trees. It is only a 30-minute leisure-drive
from the town proper of Sarangani’s capital town Alabel
and 40-minute from neighboring city of General Santos.
For golf fanatics, the place
is just right to unwind.
Its two-story native-inspired
refreshment cottage can provide an outright vista of the golf
course’s backdrop, Mt. Matutum.
