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Mt. Pulag National Park will be temporarily opened on March 26-27 for athletes participating in the Altitude Obstacle Course Race World Series-Asia.

The event is an Asia Qualifier Event of the 2022 World OCR Altitude Race Championship to be held in Morocco in July 2022.

According to the Pilipinas Obstacles Sports Federation, 300 people are expected to go to Mt. Pulag for the event. Some 250 of which are participants while the rest are organizers and support staff. There will be 100 participants on the first day and 150 on the second day. The number is in consideration of the daily carrying capacity limit of the Mt. Pulag National Park.

Department of Environment and Natural Resources-CAR Assistant Regional Executive Director for Technical Services, For. Maximo Soriano, Jr. assured that organizers of the event went through the process of securing permission from the Protected Area Management Board.

"Rest assured that guidelines and conditions (set by the PAMB) will be strictly monitored in coordination with the different concerned agencies," he added.

He noted that allowing the conduct of the event is not only a decision made by the DENR but of community people themselves who had participation in the decision-making process.

The POSF assured that the participants will stick to the existing trails and will not open any new trail. Cleanup and restoration activities will also be conducted in accordance with the Mitigation and Restoration Plan submitted to the PAMB.

After the event, Mt. Pulag will again be closed to tourists and will remain open only for locals.

The PAMB has yet to issue a resolution opening the Mt. Pulag for tourists subject to the guidelines of the Inter-Agency Task Force.