lets see....

do you find it amuzing how the three filipino's got on the summit???

care to post a link?

Wow cool, are they the first South East Asians?

From Philippine Daily Inquirer editor:

Unfortunately only Thailand and the Philippines were the only countries in South East Asia who were not able to climb the summit of Mount Everest. But now it is only Thailand !

Lack of financial support and qualified person had delayed the planned climb by more than 2 decades.


However, Next year the all women team of the Philippines will be the first ASEAN women to climb the top.


Filipinos’ Everest feat thrills RP community in Nepal

By Frank Cimatu
Last updated 09:49am (Mla time) 05/21/2006

Published on page A10 of the May 21, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

BAGUIO CITY—The nation was on top of the world with the success of the Filipino mountaineers on Mt. Everest, but no less thrilled and proud were the members of the small Filipino community in the kingdom of Nepal.

“We were so proud of our team, and we were so proud to be part of it,” said Alice Shakya, who owns the Namaste department store, one of the biggest in the capital city of Katmandu, and the Namaste shop in Baguio.

“Although there were only a few of us in Nepal, we tried to make the team feel at home and not get homesick,” said Alice, who is married to Jiwan Shakya, a Nepalese metal craft artist and trader.

Alice accompanied five members of the First Philippine Mt. Everest Expedition—team leader Regie Pablo and members Karina Davondon, Janet Belarmino, Levi Nahayangan and Noelle Wenceslao—back to the country last week.

According to Alice, about 100 Filipinos, mostly scholars and missionaries, currently live in Nepal.

She said those permanently staying there and those who had married locals numbered only 20—“and we all decided to be the extended family of our climbers.”

“We gave them Filipino food—adobo and mongo. Their favorite was paksiw, which is hard to get in Nepal because there is rarely any fish there. I had to use my connections,” Alice said.

‘Mabuhay’

The team members greatly appreciated the gesture.

Wrote FPMEE member Florentino “Jong” Narciso in his blog: “Mabuhay ang Pinoy abroad. We met people from Tuguegarao, Nueva Ecija, Cebu, Capiz, Davao, Iligan, Cagayan de Oro, Iloilo, Naga, Sorsogon [and others that I may have missed]. They prepared sinigang, dinuguan, pata, ensalada [and many more]. Pinoy food [is really delicious], especially after a week of dhal bat, nasala, roti momo [and other] Nepali food,”

On April 7, there was a general strike in Katmandu and most of the stores were closed, Narciso wrote.

“The good thing was, the Filipino community here in Nepal again hosted a wonderful dinner party for the team. A lot of Filipino food was prepared. Like, the pochero was really delicious. I guess wherever you are, the spirit of Filipino bayanihan goes with you,” he wrote.

Vinegar

Alice said the strangest food request came from Wenceslao.

“Noelle wanted vinegar. ‘Give me suka and alamang (fish paste) and I will be happy’ was what she said,” Alice recalled.

Emma Pariyar, who owns an expedition and travel agency in Thamel, helped the team get guides, equipment and billeting.

Alice said she was happy not only for Leo Oracion and Erwin “Pastor” Emata, the first two Filipinos to reach the summit, but also for expedition leader Arturo Valdez and FPMEE member Fred Jamili.

“They told us it was their dream since they were very young to climb Mt. Everest, but that they decided that the young ones should do it for them. In a way they got their dream. It was also our dream because we never thought of climbing Everest,” Alice said.

She added: “I was saddened only with Romi Garduce [the third Filipino to reach the summit]. He did not contact us Filipinos. We could have helped him.

“[The FPMEE members] promised to be back, and they were hoping that a Filipina would be at the top [of Everest next time].”




Daughter of 1st Sherpa on Everest married Pinoy

First posted 01:11am (Mla time) May 21, 2006
By Fe B. Zamora
Inquirer



Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the May 21, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


A BLUE pen lies somewhere under the snow at the summit of Mt. Everest, left there by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay when he reached the “roof of the world” with Sir Edmund Hillary on May 29, 1953.

The Sherpa’s young daughter Nima had given him the blue pen, and he dug a hole in the snow and buried it along with a few biscuits and chocolates as gifts to the mountain, while Hillary planted the British flag.

This is among the memories of her father that Nima, widow of the Filipino graphic artist and book designer Emmanuel “Noli” Galang, treasures.

She was in grade school at the time. “I just gave him the pen. I must have said, ‘If you go up to the top, here, bring this,’” she said, chuckling.

Herself a mountaineer in her youth, Nima, now 62, expressed elation that three Filipinos had reached the summit of Everest, duplicating her father’s feat 53 years ago.

“This is a great achievement. My congratulations to the mountaineers and to the Filipino people,” she said by
telephone from Singapore, where she now lives with her son Palden.

Nima said her father was “among the pioneers who opened the routes that these mountaineers now follow.”

“As my father always said, teamwork is the secret. Without teamwork, you cannot make it,” she said.

Marriage to a Filipino

Unknown to many, Tenzing Norgay’s daughter married a Filipino and lived in Quezon City where she learned the language “enough to haggle in the market.” (They met in Europe in the 1960s, where the then Belgium-based Nima, an employee of the Indian government, had been promoting Indian products like Darjeeling tea.)

Noli and Nima Galang lived in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines in the course of Noli’s career as a graphic artist. They had a son, a daughter and a granddaughter.

After Noli died in 2003, Nima moved to Singapore. She now spends much of her time shuttling between Singapore and Canada where her daughter lives, and traveling to other countries.

But when she was young, school vacations were usually spent trekking in the Himalayas with her father.

He was a Buddhist, which was why he viewed mountaineering as a way of honoring nature, said Nima, who recalled that climbing the peaks of the Himalayan range required a lot of courage and stamina.

“I think it’s easier now because there are small planes that can take [climbers and] the luggage to base camps. In the 1950s, we walked,” she said.

Youngest at 16

Nima said she reached as high as 23,000 feet when she tried to scale Mt. Cho-Oyu, at 26,750 feet the ninth highest mountain on earth.

She was then 16 years old, the youngest member of the first international women’s expedition.

Nima said the ascent and descent each took three weeks. In some instances, she said, the climbing expedition would take as long as three months.

But her old man was all for it.

“My father encouraged us to climb. He said it did not matter if we were girls,” said Nima, the second of Tenzing Norgay’s six children. (Her mother, Tenzing Norgay’s first wife, died in 1944.)

The successful British expedition on Everest in 1953 opened the world to the Sherpa mountaineer and his family.

Nima said she and her sister, Pempem, joined their father when he was awarded a medal in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London.

She said the Norgays also met with British royals during the latter’s state visits to Nepal and India, where the family had a house in Darjeeling.

Tenzing Norgay died in Darjeeling on May 9, 1986.

No more mountains

Nima said she had planned to climb more mountains but that marriage to a quiet, non-athletic Filipino artist changed all that.

“I was not able to climb any mountain in the Philippines,” she said, laughing. But she recalled with fondness her trips to Bohol and Northern Luzon.

She also took pride in saying that her brother, Jamling, reached the summit of Everest in 1996, following the trail opened by their father and Hillary in 1953.

Jamling would later recount the experience in the book, “Touching My Father’s Soul—An Odyssey to the Top of Everest.”

Try the link: Philippine Daily Inquirer



Here is another Link:
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Doc Ted: RP’s unsung hero on Mt. Everest

First posted 01:15am (Mla time) May 21, 2006
By Alcuin Papa
Inquirer



Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the May 21, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer


FILIPINOS are a big hit at Mt. Everest’s Base Camp not only for the 1-2-3 finish of three of their own but also for showing international expeditions what goodwill is all about.

According to First Philippine Mt. Everest Expedition team leader Arturo Valdez, FPMEE physician Ted Esguerra is probably the most popular person at the camp, which is situated 5,400 meters (17,700 feet) up the mountain.

Esguerra, a member of the Philippine Coast Guard and an expert in search and rescue, has been treating for free mountaineers afflicted with acute mountain sickness (AMS), as well as minor frostbite and respiratory ailments.

Normally, a visit to a commercial “clinic” at Base Camp would cost a climber $75.

“Our presence here, with Dr. Ted around, has had an impact on climbers from all over the world. He has been treating mountaineers who are suffering from AMS. It really shows the Filipino spirit and values,” Valdez said in a satellite phone call to the Inquirer.

Among Esguerra’s recent patients were Israeli, Belgian and South African climbers. “He has really become popular here. It shows the goodwill of the team, of Filipinos,” Valdez said.

AMS symptoms—among them headaches, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dizziness and difficulty sleeping—manifest themselves when the body is not able to acclimatize properly at high altitudes.

Esguerra, himself an accomplished mountaineer, had conducted studies on the effects of high altitudes on climbers with the US Air Force.

He is described in the FPMEE website as “an indispensable caretaker of the team’s physical health on Everest.”

Impressive

Valdez also said climbers from other expeditions from all over the world were impressed by the achievement of Filipino mountaineers Leo Oracion, Erwin “Pastor” Emata and Romi Garduce.

“They were very impressed by Leo, who actually helped open the summit by fixing the ropes for other expeditions. They were also surprised at the speed of Pastor,” Valdez said.

Oracion made it to the summit of Everest on May 17, after a 15-hour trek from Camp 4 (8,000 meters or 26,000 feet). He climbed with 30 other mountaineers but was held up by “traffic” along the way.

Emata followed suit on May 18 with a blistering 7-hour climb to the peak from Camp 4.

Garduce, 37, also made it to the summit the next day despite bad weather. After descending to Camp 4 to rest overnight Saturday, he will try to make it down to Base Camp if the weather permits.

Oxygen

Valdez recounted how alarmed he was that Oracion trekked from Camp 3 (6,800 meters or 22,300 feet) to Camp 4 without oxygen.

“I was very upset and afraid that his oxygen supply had run low because of waiting too long for his big group [of other climbers]. So I ordered him to use oxygen from Camp 4 to the summit,” Valdez said.

Even then, Oracion ran out of oxygen descending from the summit to Camp 4. “But we are still quite lucky he made it back safely,” Valdez said.

4-day descent

According to Valdez, Oracion and Emata are well and resting at Base Camp. They are scheduled to pack up and break camp today, and start the four-day descent to the Lukla airport.

From there, they will hitch a ride to Katmandu, where the Filipino community is waiting to welcome them with a celebration.

Oracion and Emata, both 32, are expected to be back in Manila at the end of the month.

“I told them to rest well because I want to go home already,” Valdez said, laughing.

Oh wow, they actually climbed it. Good job once again Philippines

Here are some of the pictures : Romi Garduce was extensively featured in this site:


Romi Garduce. Just another name to some Filipinos but to the mountaineering populace he is the new hero who gave the country new found honor. “Garduch” afterall, is not just a climber they look-up to. He is the Pinoy Spiderman who recently conquered the highest mountain in South America, Mt. Aconcagua, worthy of his countrymen’s adulation for being the first Filipino in history to have reached the highest altitude on record.




Mt. Cho-Oyu in China



see the link:
http://www.thenorthface.com/aunz/news/news...garduceacc.html

http://www.everestnews.com/everest2006/phileverest2006.htm

Congratulations Team Philippines.

However There was this feature earlier at ABS-CBN news that the wife of Dale Abenojar claims that her husband was the first to arrive at the peak using the Tibet side . Either way, at least it can now be said that Filipinos too have conquered Everest.








Oracion, 32, made history Wednesday May 17, 2006 to become the first Filipino to scale the Mt. Everest summit. Oracion made the feat at 5:30 pm local time (0730GMT)

Network executives at both ABS-CBN and GMA have denied there was a network race to the top amid published criticism from some sections of the local mountaineering community that they could get the three climbers killed.

"There is no such thing," said Rikki Escudero, assistant vice president of GMA which put up 2.5 million pesos (48,733 dollars) to finance Garduce's climb. She said "their lives are already at stake" just by their presence at the mountain.


Mountaineer Erwin "Pastor" Emata has reached the summit of Mount Everest at dawn Thursday, ABS-CBN News reported from Nepal.

Correspondent Abner Mercado cited information from expedition leader Arturo Valdez, who said that Emata stepped on the peak of the 8,848-meter mountain at 5:34 a.m. (7:34 a.m. in Manila). Mercado and fellow correspondent Vince Rodriguez are with the rest of the expedition at Everest Base Camp.

Valdez said Emata, a Davao native, called him up by radio to confirm word he has climbed the top of the world's highest mountain.

"We we're stunned [and] excited," Valdez told Rodriguez in an interview after Emata's successful climb.

Emata was the second Filipino climber to reach Everest's peak following Heracleo "Leo" Oracion. Oracion became the first Filipino to scale Everest's peak at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Oracion became the first Filipino to reach the summit of Everest Wednesday. He made it safely back to Camp 4 of the world's tallest mountain Thursday night.

well, another filipino victory.. proving to the world that we too have some tough moutaineers. this mt. everest climb would be a good publicity for the phil.

does it count if u go up there via helicopter?

lols.. hell no..

headline on the papers would be.. on top of the world, piece of cake.

The group is coming home