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Jeno Panganiban describes scaling Mount Everest an ‘incomparable moment’ as he, Miguel Mapalad, and Rick Rabe become the first Filipinos to reach the world’s highest peak in 19 years
MANILA, Philippines – If there is something Mount Everest’s peak gave Jeno Panganiban, it was its silence. With the sky only above him, he knew he had reached the top of the world.
“You see the best sunrise ever, and it’s unlike anything that you can see anywhere else,” he said as he waited early morning to watch the sunrise on top of Everest, following an overnight climb to the mountaintop.
“It’s an incomparable moment,” Panganiban added in Filipino during his Century Tuna Homecoming event at the Westin Hotel in Mandaluyong.
The 30-year-old Panganiban, alongside Rick Rabe and Miguel Mapalad, became the first Filipinos to reach Everest’s peak in 19 years last month. At his age, he was also the youngest Filipino to ever do so.
Leo Oracion holds the distinction as the first Filipino to summit Everest in 2006.
Before this year, Regie Pablo was the last Filipino to scale Everest, doing so in 2007. This was also the year the all-Filipina team of Carina Dayondon, Noelle Wenceslao, and Janet Belarmino reached the peak.
Along with Mapalad, Panganiban was part of the Philippine 14 Peaks Expedition Team that plans to scale the 14 highest mountains in the world.
Everest was only the second on their list, but, according to Panganiban, it was unlike anything he had seen before.
“You can see how round the world is on top. You see the horizon,” he described the peak of the mountain in the 15 minutes he spent there.
“Climbing Mount Everest is, I think, the most enduring experience that I’ve experienced in my life… It felt like every step counted up there,” Panganiban added, noting the challenge of high altitude where the oxygen is thinner than usual.
The mountain stands 8,849 meters and has been known for its perilous trails, which include a death zone notorious for taking the lives of numerous mountaineers, including Filipino Philipp “PJ” Santiago II, who died before Rabe, Panganiban, and Mapalad scaled Everest.
Despite the dangers, Panganiban, who was a software engineer before getting himself interested in hiking, believes the peak was all worth it.
“When I reached the top, I can say that it was all worth it,” he said. “I mean, that is where I realized all my dreams as a mountaineer.”
More than himself, his goal was to give more recognition to the Philippines, especially after a nearly two-decade spell without any Filipino mountaineer on Everest.
“I am in a bigger goal of bringing pride and glory to the Philippines,” Panganiban said.
Next for him is Mt. Dhaulagiri in Nepal, the seventh-highest mountain in the world at 8167.1 meters, which, Panganiban said, would make him the only Filipino to scale three 8,000-foot mountains.
Until then, Panganiban hopes to inspire more Filipino mountaineers to conquer such terrains and perhaps continue the Philippines’ legacy on Mount Everest.
“I hope I can inspire more people. It’s important for us to reach every mountaineer’s dream for everyone to know that it is possible.” – Rappler.com
