"Marikit ng Lipa"

Malepunyo Range or Mounta Malarayat is an extinct volcano located in the provinces of Batangas, Laguna, and Quezon.

Mount Malarayat does not only provide a majestic sweeping scenery to Lipa City but it also serves as a wind breaker in times of typhoons plus it supplies clean and cool air to the city.

The mountain range is home to thousands of flora, fauna, and other forms of life and one of which are civet cats as the source of famous alamid coffee. Water is also seen as the primary ecosystem service of Mt Malarayat to Lipenos.

As previously written in our previous Lipa Status's article, with so many benefits of the mountain to Lipa and nearby towns, the mountain should be given utmost priority and protection not only by Lipa but the rest of the cities and municipalities covered by the mountain range. We should be learning from what's recently happening in other places and the effect of climate change.

More Details: Mount Malepunyo is its highest peak located at Barangay Talisay, Lipa City standing at 1,002 metres (3,287 ft) above mean sea level by the ridge of its caldera. The second highest peak of the range is Mt. Dalaga standing at 755 metres (2,477 ft) above mean sea level situated at the boundary of Santo Tomas, Batangas and Alaminos, Laguna. During the 1990s, the name was changed by the locals of Santo Tomas to Manabu as a shortened Tagalog phrase Mataas na Bundok which means "High Mountain". At the center of the mountain range is a cliff known as Bagwis Cliff by the locals, yet due to its shape that resembles a goat's breast, it is also called as Susong-Kambing (en: Goat's Breast). In time, mountaineers have also mistakenly named this cliff as Susong Dalaga (en. maiden's breast) which is actually the oldest name of Manabu Peak.

How Safe is Lipa from Typhoons?

 With the recent calamities in the country, you will sometimes think how safe is Lipa City? The last typhoon that badly hit Lipa was Glenda (Rammasun) in 2014 which was one of the only two category 5 super typhoons on record in South China sea. Typhoon Glenda put Lipa in total power outage for about 2 weeks and connected to power outage was scarcity in water supply. The typhoon also put damaged to few properties and flooding in some areas of the city.

In general, Lipa can stand strong typhoons which can be attributed to the protection being provided by Mount Malarayat and Mount Maculot. Lipa is also on high elevation which helps the city not to be flooded heavily if having high density of waters from strong typhoons.

However, time is changing so quickly. Lipa became the most populated city in Batangas since 2015 and population at present may now be approximately close to 400K. Lipa being the most commercialized center in Batangas has attracted a lot of real estate developers and currently has the most number of subdivisions in Batangas. In the recent typhoons that visited the country, more areas got flooded in Lipa although not yet life threatening but is getting to be alarming.

The city government of Lipa should have an extensive ordinances that will cover the protection of Mount Malarayat, ecological balance in the city proper, sustainable drainage, sustainable subdivision framework, and other long term projects that will reduce the effect of climate change. Individuals, organizations, and business establishments should always think if their actions or waste products will have unfavorable effect in the environment. It's not yet too late to improve the health of our environment in Lipa.

photo: Arthur Chicky Mijeno

Breezy Lipa

It's time of the year again when people of Lipa are having challenges in taking a bath directly from tap water at any time of the day because of the outside temperature.

Northeast monsoon or "amihan" is bringing chilly weather in Southeast Asia which includes the Philippines and even extreme condition in some areas.

Cold months have more "winter feels" like in Lipa City since it is situated at an elevation of more than 1,000 feet above sea level and visually dominated by Mount Malarayat making its temperature lower than average Philippine temperature all year round same with Tagaytay and Baguio as having the coldest temperature at least for the cities in Luzon.

Winter monsoon is expected to peak on December until February but this year is more active because of La Niña event which will trigger for flash floods, flooding and rain induced landslides on high risk areas.

Lipa Opens Christmas Attractions

Lipa City Government opened its Christmas attractions today in two separate venues. First was at the City Hall grounds where selfie lovers will surely enjoy the Walk of Light and the other one was at the City Plaza where giant Christmas tree is located with a grand fireworks display and Christmas give away to early patrons.

LCP Celebrates 11 Years

Lipa City Philippines or LCP Facebook group is entering a new decade this October. Established in 2009; LCP aims to bridge Lipeños around the world, serve as a platform for city forum on relevant issues, and increase awareness on current affairs.

LCP is a free and private social media group being managed voluntarily by dedicated and passionate individuals who have their own respective professions. With its popularity and extent, LCP plays an important role in communication and serves as a daily journal of Lipa and nearby towns.

The pioneer social media group of Batangas and biggest group dedicated to Lipa has now almost 208K filtered members. Let's take a look at LCP's activities in the past 10 years in this 1 minute video.

Smart Living in Lipa

Lipa City residents will soon experience a smarter way of living after the Lipa City government headed by Mayor Eric Africa signed a memorandum of agreement with Information Technology Business Solutions or ITBS.

The project aims to promote sustainable development practices to address growing urbanization challenges in Lipa. Using technology, the government and residents of Lipa will be able to manage complexities in the way we live our lives and do business.

The level up application of technology in the city will include Citizen Digital Card, Disaster Emergency Management and Operations Ecosystem, Mobile Apps, and High Tech Database. These applications will receive, analyze, and manage data real time to help both local government and citizens of Lipa to improve the quality of life in many aspects. According to the city government, this will be the first in Southern Luzon.

Top Countries where OFWs from Lipa are Based

UAE is the country of destination for most of Lipeños working abroad with 15% population followed by USA with 13.5% and Italy for 3rd spot with 9.5%.

Completing the top 10 list are Saudi Arabia, Canada, Taiwan, Qatar, Australia, Israel, and Singapore.

In top 20 are Japan, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Spain, South Korea, Vietnam, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Macau. The rest are scattered in 78 other countries.

Metrics are approximates from the total number of OFW members in Lipa City Philippines or LCP with a total population of 16,929 as of Sep 30 out of the total 207K filtered members of the group.