Gangub Cave in Bataraza

The Gangub Cave is also known to the locals as Panuyon Cave. It was taken from the root word 'Panoy', a native Palaw'an term which means 'bats' or 'paniki' in tagalog. Gangub Cave is a nice destination to visit on a sunny day like this.

This is the largest cave in the limestone karst of Sandoval. It is about 40 to 50 m above sea level and has 3 openings. Palaw’ans named the cave Panuyon after the  type of bats found inside. The largest entrance is about 20 m high and 10 m wide. Inhabitants of the area recently transformed the cave into a Christian church.

There is a huge guano deposit inside the cave, though a large portion of it was already mined. The minor mouths of the cave revealed a few earthenware sherds, and may have been potential habitation areas in the past.Guano samples for dating were taken from this cave. The sampling reached a depth of around 180 cm from the surface. Actual thickness of the guano deposit was estimated to be more than 4 m. The initial sample from the guano deposit at the 101depth of 40-45 cm (sample code Gun 2) yielded a date of 27,652 +/- 400 bp (Paz 2003).

Photo credit to: Bataraza Palawan