When one mentions Pagsanjan, the tourist capital of Laguna, the two things that come into mind are the iconic Pagsanjan Falls (a memorable travel image of the Philippines, dating back to the 1970s) and “Shooting the Rapids”, the boat trip to the falls. Those attractions remain, but the town also has much more to offer, especially for history buffs. To help me find out, I enlisted the help of Ramon “Mon” Cabela, the town’s retired municipal tourism officer. Joining me on my trip was my son Jandy and lady friends Joy Tenedero, Desiree Benitez, Jessica Bez and Julie Ann Zafe.
After a three-hour trip, via the South Luzon Expressway, we met up with Mon at the town’s imposing, Spanish-era Arch of Guadalupe. Also called Arco Real or Puerto Real, it was built from 1878 to 1880 through forced labor, or polo y servicio, under the supervision of Franciscan Fr. Cipriano Bas and Don Manuel de Yriarte. We hadn’t had lunch yet so we followed Mon, on his motorcycle, to El Panchito’s Fil-Mexicano Resto, a restaurant offering Mexican street-food favorites with a Filipino twist.
After lunch, we explored the town’s other Spanish- and American-era gems. Most of the town’s ancestral houses are along Rizal Street (formerly known as Calle Real) but the most notable is the 1912 mansion of Don Telesforo “Porong” Ejercito (a respected political leader during the American era), sitting on a two-hectare lot along Cosme Street.
The present Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, built in stone in 1690, was improved by Fr. Joaquin de Coria (who engineered the stone belfry and Romanesque dome) from 1847 to 1853. Its transept was added in 1872 by Frs. Serafin Linares and Cipriano Bac. On March 15, 1945, during World War II, the church was heavily damaged by American bombing but was reconstructed, after the war, without the original dome.
Across the street from the church is the Municipal Building. Originally built in the middle of the 19th century, it originally housed the Tribunal del Gremio de Naturales (Local Government for Natives) and was occupied by Filipino revolutionaries in 1898 and American troops from 1899-1903. From 1903-1907, it served as Laguna’s first public high school, housed the municipal elementary school until 1911, and later became the seat of the municipal government. Destroyed by American bombing on March 20, 1945, it was rebuilt from 1951 to 1955. Another Spanish-era relic is the Agujo de Cleopatra (Needle of Cleopatra), an obelisk transferred from the old Plaza de Reina Regente Maria Cristina to Plaza Colonel Francisco Abad in 1961.
Of course, any visit to Pagsanjan is never complete without Shooting the Rapids. It being a long four-day weekend, the hotels and inns were fully booked but Mon was able to secure for us a fully furnished apartel for all of us to stay in. We decided to shoot the rapids very early in the morning to avoid the rush of excursionists from Manila.
Pagsanjan Falls is actually located 3 miles outside Pagsanjan, at the rugged highlands of Cavinti, where it is called Magdapio Falls. However, the only passable route to it is the Bumbungan River of Pagsanjan. Donning life vests and helmets, we boarded our long fiberglass bancas for the rather slow, hour-long river journey upstream to the falls. Our boatmen had to paddle against the current to push the boat or use their feet to kick the rocks and propel the boat. At places where the rocks were too many and the water too shallow, our boat slid over steel pipes placed at proper intervals.
Along the way, we made a stopover at Talahib Falls, about 900 meters downstream of Pagsanjan Falls, to admire its natural beauty. Before reaching the deep, magnificent gorge and Pagsanjan Falls, our boatmen had to negotiate the extremely deepwaters of Kawa-Kawa, a broad bend or curve of a river. The impressive 91-meter-high falls is actually a series of five falls, one after the other in magnificent gradation. Behind the falls is the dark and mysterious Devil’s Cave, or “Cave of the Demons” (so named because of the opening’s devil-like face profile). To get behind the falls, we all boarded a bamboo raft were raftsmen pulled on a series of ropes laid across the lagoon. Another rope guided the raft behind and underneath the falls to the Devil’s Cave. The 5-kilometer, two-hour Shooting the Rapids, the climax of the visit, is the actually the thrilling downstream return trip. Our boat wound through boulders as we passed the 14 relatively safe but roaring rapids of the Bumbungan River.