Search for missing mountaineer in Batangas continues

View of Taal Lake as seen from the summit of Mt. Maculot. DON LEJANO/INQUIRER.net

SAN PEDRO, Laguna, Philippines —The search and rescue operation for Victor Joel Ayson, the mountaineer who went missing during a solo climb to Mt. Maculot in Cuenca, Batangas, on Easter Sunday, continued with more mountaineers joining the search.

On Wednesday, Senior Superintendent Rosauro Acio, Batangas police director, said they resumed the search with help from the Philippine Air Force and additional police units in order to cover a wider area.

Acio, in an earlier phone interview, said the local police in Cuenca had stopped looking for Ayson after a vendor, who owned an improvised store along the mountain trail, told them that Ayson was seen descending the mountain, also on Sunday.

Ayson, 27, was last seen at the Batangas port in Batangas City on Sunday morning after he and a group of mountaineers returned from a one-week trek to Mt. Guiting-Guiting in Romblon during the Holy Week, according to his girlfriend Angelyn Semantar.

Semantar said Ayson, however, left the pack and traveled alone to Cuenca for a solo day-hike in Mt. Maculot.

“He told me he should be on his way back to Manila by lunch time. I tried to stop him but I couldn’t,” Semantar said of her last phone conversation with Ayson on Sunday morning. Ayson went missing since.

Semantar said they started looking for Ayson, a computer mainframe designer, when he failed to come home in Quezon City on Sunday afternoon.

“The vendor said she saw (Ayson) descend the mountain around at 9:30 a.m. (Sunday). She said she remembered him because she sold him a bottle of water,” Semantar said.

Acio said a local trekking guide or porter came forward on Tuesday afternoon and informed them that a mountaineer, fitting Ayson’s descriptions, deposited his backpack and brought a smaller bag for his ascent. The backpack was never claimed.

“Last night, I was calling his name and I think I heard someone answer me back. There are three of us who heard someone (moan from afar). I don’t know, but I really hope that’s him,” said Semantar, who was interviewed by phone from Mt. Maculot on Wednesday.

She said their officemates and mountaineers from the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman had started arriving since Tuesday evening to help the search, while Ayson’s parents stayed in a rest area at the foot of the mountain. Ayson graduated from UP Diliman with a degree in Business Administration.

Photos of Ayson and calls for help  circulated in social networking and mountaineering sites. Ayson’s Facebook account was filled with daring photos of his previous climbs.

Semantar said famed mountaineer Romi Garduce, the first Filipino to complete the “Seven Summits” or the highest peaks in the seven continents of the world, would be coming to Mt. Maculot to help the search.

“He really loved climbing. He’d been to Mt. Maculot before so he should be familiar with the trail already,” Semantar said of Ayson.

Mt. Maculot is one of the popular hiking destinations in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), especially during Holy Week and Summer.