WITH the onset of the most anticipated and merriest episode of the year, Las Farolas, the country’s living museum of river monsters, is preparing for the heavy influx of local and foreign visitors.
The preparations of the museum are in full swing—from the mobilization and reorientation of its manpower for a more comprehensive yet enriching tour for the guests to the intensified upkeep and maintenance of the facility. Las Farolas on Frontera Verde Drive beside Tiendesitas, Ortigas Avenue, Pasig City, is not to be outdone as far as Christmas “dressing” is concerned, with thousands of colorful lights, lanterns and buntings adorning its façade and interiors.
Las Farolas COO Bernie Repalbor said hundreds of groups have already made reservations for the holiday season and after.
The tours are being arranged through the different travel and tour agencies based in Metro Manila and the provinces. During the tour, which takes an hour, visitors are introduced to the facility’s burgeoning “family” of more than 3,000 rare and monstrous-looking yet gentle freshwater species collected from the four continents. Among the more popular of its occupants, which are housed in biotopes, are the arapaima, arowana, wels catfish and Australian lungfish. New members of the collection, which will surely amuse and thrill the guests, are the vulture catfish, the spotted gar, ripsaw catfish, short-bellied red-tailed catfish, flathead catfish and aba aba knifefish. The aba aba knife fish, which can reach up to 5-1/2 feet in length and weighs almost 42 pounds at maturity, is an interactive species that follows a guest’s hand movement upon tapping the giant aquarium in Las Farolas.
Besides getting a close encounter with these river monsters which are personal collections of Henry G. Babiera, proprietor of Las Farolas and staunch biodiversity conservation and environmental protection advocate, guests will get a glimpse of replicas of prominent centuries-old churches in the Philippines, selected tribal and cultural artifacts and houses of indigenous people in a diorama.
Las Farolas stores sell exotic freshwater fishes, aquarium accessories and fish meals. The stores are run by the founding members of the Ornamental Freshwater Fish Breeders and Exporters Association of the Philippines (Ofbeap)—Jojo Velasco of Mojo’s Aquatic Escape, Edmar Acorin of Acorin Petshop, Joseph Cabral of Primo Aquatics Trading, Dennis Hipolito, Lodeth Ávila of LAB’s Pet Essentials, Bernard Cenizal of Joy-Joy Petshop and Antonio Baldo of Fishaholics.
Ofbeap’s Babiera is working closely with the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in the preservation and conservation of endemic freshwater species.