Monday, January 28, 2008 Editorial: Coming into our own
TWO post-Sinulog developments provide cause for jeers and cheers.
Cebu tourism stakeholders decried the recent downgrading of the Philippine’s international aviation safety rating by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
In Sun.Star Cebu’s Jan. 23 report by Nancy R. Cudis, the Network of Independent Travel Agencies president Robert Lim Joseph worried that “when the US Embassy advised its citizens to refrain from flying on Philippine carriers, Americans may fly from the States to Manila, but not from Manila to Cebu.”
The Department of Transportation and Communications has been given three months to upgrade the country’s aviation safety back to category one. Presently at category two, the Philippines’ air carriers are “under heightened FAA surveillance while continuing their operations to the US,” notes the same Sun.Star report.
Local incentives
Despite this setback in promoting Cebu as a tourism destination outside the country, the home stretch shows a rosier outlook for domestic efforts to develop also towns and cities traditionally left out of tourists’ itineraries.
The Cebu Provincial Government’s timely cash assistance enabled the town of Alcoy to defend its title as winner of the 2007 Sinulog sa Kabataan sa Lalawigan. The town’s Siloy Festival is also the grand prize winner of this year’s Sinulog-based category.
According to Sun.Star’s Jan. 23 report by Katrina N. Tabanao, Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia gave financial incentives to Alcoy, Carmen (second placer in the Sinulog’s free interpretation category) and Carcar (fifth-placer in the Sinulog-based category).
The governor challenged other towns to join the next Sinulog competition, adding that she “accept(s the) responsibility of showing the youth that this is our culture,” Tabanao reported. Alcoy and Carcar City showed their winning Sinulog performances during the recently held Suroy-Suroy Sugbo Southern Heritage Trail.
In Sun.Star’s Jan. 25 report by Jujemay G. Awit, Alcoy Mayor Nicomedes de los Santos said he received many inquiries about the town after their Sinulog twin victories. He hopes this interest will translate into economic and tourism enterprises for Alcoy.
Reviving communities
Cultural tourism opens opportunities for developing small and medium enterprises; thus, heritage worker Ruel Rigor urges the formal and informal leaders of Cebu’s cities and municipalities to tap this avenue.
According to Sun.Star Weekend Magazine’s Jan. 26 feature by Katrina G. Coloso, Rigor was the keynote speaker during the Jan. 9 maiden meeting of Tabunon, a group of volunteers organized by the Central Visayas Studies Center (CVSC) of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas Cebu College.
Notably in recent years, the academe (i.e. CVSC, the Cebuano Studies Center of the University of San Carlos or USC), foundations (i.e. Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. or Rafi) and associations (i.e. USC’s Hambin) have partnered with local governments and volunteers to systematically document and preserve local heritage.
For instance, the heritage mapping of Argao, Dalaguete, Alcoy, Boljoon and Oslob was accomplished through Rafi’s Cebu Heritage Frontier program. In heritage mapping, the tangible and intangible elements of a town are identified for conservation and development through education, tourism and entrepreneurship, said Rigor during the Tabunon meeting.
By synchronizing vision, plans and activities, local stakeholders are steering away from the stereotyped packaging of Cebu’s tourism potentials, as well as the dehumanizing effects of commercialism (i.e. sex tours, trafficking). By prioritizing history and culture, Cebu leads.
