Antipolo City in Rizal has a folk song called “Tayo Na Sa Antipolo” and the chorus goes like this:

Tayo na sa Antipolo
At doon maligo tayo
Sa batis na kung tawagin ay
Hi, hi, Hinulugang Taktak
At doon tayo kumain
Ng mangga, suman, kasoy, at balimbing
Kaya’t magmadali ka
At tayo’y tutuloy na sa Antipolo

English translation:

Let’s go to Antipolo
And there we will bathe
At the the stream that’s called
Hi, hi, Hinulugang Taktak
And there we will eat
Mango, rice bar, cashew, and carambola
So hurry up
And we will proceed to Antipolo

Photo from an Antipolo City website.

The song prominently features Hinulugang Taktak, which is possibly the most famous waterfall nearest to Metro Manila. Legend has it that during the Spanish Era, the local townspeople found the clanging of the local church’s bell during the noon Angelus too disturbing so the bell was thrown at this stream and thus “hinulugang taktak” which supposedly means the “place where the bell was dropped.” I know that “hinulugan” means “dropping place” but bell in Tagalog is “kampana” so I assume that “taktak” represents the bell’s sound.

Due to the falls prominence as a tourist destination and to help preserve it, the falls and the surrounding area has been declared the Hinulugang Taktak National Park by Republic Act No. 6964 in 1990. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped the stream from getting polluted by upstream wastes and so it is no longer safe to swim in the falls unlike a few decades earlier. The falls itself is just for viewing and a swimming pool was constructed instead within the park area. Good thing there are efforts underway to help preserve the falls and to reduce the pollution.

Want to learn and see more? Here’s are two blog posts by Bikoy and Ivan, and another one about the commemorative 1-peso coin depicting the falls. As always, there are plenty of pictures in Flickr including this photo of the National Park’s map.

Download KML file (for Google Earth)