92 Sarah Webb
upon promoting the Park to foreign tourists, as “only 25 per cent of tourists are
locals [nationals]”. Ramon stresses that the need for this promotion cannot be
underestimated because, “the River is our future”.
Once Ramon’s tour arrives at Sabang, we exit the van, and he takes our group
photograph on a guest’s digital camera as a remembrance of the trip, at her request.
The van has dropped us at the recently reconstructed concrete pier, and from here
we are to take a short motorized bangka (boat) ride to the mouth of the Underground
River. An alternative access to the mouth of the Underground River is via a four-
kilometer hike. While this trail was once a popular alternative to travelling via
bangka, it is not included as an option on the organized tours that include the cost
of bangka transport and do not allocate time for walking to the River. Upon arriving
at the beach near the mouth of the River and walking to the entrance, visitors are
organized by tour guides, boat operators, and Park staff into smaller paddleboats
and given life vests and hardhats. As we enter the cave, the guide’s joke that bumps
against the boat are “only crocodiles” is met by screams. He continues joking with his
knowing guests by telling them not to look up if they feel water dripping on them, in
case it is urine from the bats or birds that inhabit the cave. Inside the darkness of the
cave, staff operate a powerful light to make certain features visible to guests. These
formations are always identified by guides as familiar objects or famous figures—
various fruits, Sharon Stone (“that sexy lady”), Jurassic Park (a dinosaur), and many
images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Upon returning to Sabang beach from the
Underground River, tour guests take a buffet lunch of Filipino foods at one of the
outdoor beachfront restaurants. An older woman on the tour encourages Ramon to
eat with the group. Ramon politely explains he will be taking his own lunch with
the other tour guides and reminds the guests that buffet means not “all you can eat”,
but rather “eat all you can”. The final activity at Sabang beach before returning to
the van is to consider a vendor’s offer of a renowned local delicacy—tamilok (a
mangrove woodworm reputed to enhance fertility). Those who are “brave” enough
to do so pose for photographs in the act of eating the mollusks.
This day-tripping account provides insight into how flows of revenue, national projects,
and the tastes and aspirations of some Filipinos converge to shape the practices and
meanings of commodifying nature. Central to understanding this nexus is considering
how a “wondrous” nature is packaged as accessible, recognizable, and pleasurable
for certain Filipino consumers—who themselves labor to produce the Underground
River as an essentialized nature in accordance with their own aspirations of national
benefits. Central to shaping this process has been the increasing privatization of
visiting nature on central Palawan Island. As the above account suggests, it is private
tour guides who provide the major facilitation of tourist experiences of the Park
and the Underground River. These tour guides, on behalf of their absent employers,
make a certain nature identifiable and pleasurable for new masses of visitors (for
example, by facilitating encounters with invisible crocodiles, convenient starfish,
urinating bats, captive monkeys, and exotic mollusks). Indeed, the ways this nature
is made visible or consumable might better be characterized as spectacle rather
than environmental education, given that guides’ focus is on making their guests