Video from Digos TV
"It is an adventure of my whole life."
This was how an 80-year-old Singaporean described his experience when he successfully summited the Philippines' highest peak on Wednesday.
Peter Chong, a retired in-flight services training director of a renowned airline company, said climbing Mount Apo was an adventure and incomparable to the mountains he took on.
"I have climbed many mountains, but this Mount Apo is incomparable to anywhere I have climbed. It is really an adventure," he said in a video posted on the Digos City Government Facebook page.
Digos tourism officer Perla May Demafeliz Griffin welcomed Chong with a bouquet of flowers when he arrived at the Barangay Kapatagan jump-off site.
Chong also did not forget to mention his mountain guides, Jowayn Paul Bagaoi and Allen Dale Griffin, who helped him during the entire journey.
"He measures every step to make sure I am safe. They took very good care (of me)," he told Griffin about his guides.
Last March 19, a 78-year-old retired engineer was the record holder.
"He (Peter Chong) saw the (Facebook) post we had regarding the oldest climber of Mt. Apo two months ago. He contacted his friend who knows me to make the arrangement. The rest is history," Griffin told ABS-CBN News.
Mount Apo, also known locally as Apo Sandawa, is a large solfataric, dormant stratovolcano in Mindanao.
With an elevation of 2,954 meters (9,692 ft) above sea level, it is the highest mountain in the Philippines and is located between Davao City and Davao del Sur province in Region XI and Cotabato in Region XII.
Mount Apo is a protected area and a natural park.—Report from Hernel Tocmo