A Cave in a School

Going into the cave inside Senator Ninoy Aquino National High School

requires some contortion skills.

As stated so many times in this blog, Kulaman Plateau has a hundred caves. You can find them in the usual places as well as in the unexpected ones. So perhaps it is not surprising that there’s a small cave inside the campus of Senator Ninoy Aquino National High School, right in the center of the town.

When I dropped by the school on October 20, I grabbed the chance of course to take a look at the cave. I asked a teacher to ask some students to guide me. It was examination day that time, and many students were loitering inside the campus in between exams, so the teacher asked a group of girls to accompany me. I swear that I didn’t lead the girls astray, away from attaining proper education. The cave is just about thirty meters from the nearest classroom and the ground where flag ceremonies are conducted every morning.

The passage inside was covered to prevent students from exploring–and

disappearing into–the cave

The mouth of the cave is very small, just a little more than a meter high and about half a meter wide. The ground in front of the cave’s mouth dips a little, and everyone except me was afraid to walk past the elevated portion. I asked my brother—who was with me, by the way—to stand in front of the cave’s mouth so that I could take a photo of the mouth with a person. I wanted the photo to show the size of the hole compared to a person. My brother refused. I asked the girls. They refused too. Some curious boys by this time had joined us. I asked them. They refused. They were all afraid of snakes or evil spirits that might be lurking behind the crevice. I had no choice in the end but to give the camera to my brother and stand in front of the cave myself.

I stuck my head into the hole and took photos of what was inside. It was a small cave indeed, as people had told me. You couldn’t stand straight inside it. The chamber near the entrance must be connected to bigger chambers, for the cave and half of the campus stood on top of a hill, which might be hollow under. I couldn’t verify this because the passage was sealed with clumps of soil, uprooted weeds, and a large plastic bin. It might have been done on purpose to prevent students from exploring the cave. But if all the students of the school were like the ones who accompanied me, the administration had nothing to worry about. We stayed in the premises of the cave for less than ten minutes.

Limestone juts out of the campus ground. Water might have eroded

through time the stone underneath and formed caves.