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Thursday, December 22, 2005
Davao's 4th quiet Christmas
By Charles Raymond A. Maxey
IT'S the holiday season once again, and people in Davao City celebrate Christmas and greet New Year without firecracker explosions and sans the gory scenes of dismembered fingers in hospitals. So, what else is new?
Four years after Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte first implemented the firecracker ban in the metropolis that broke a Filipino tradition, people have embraced the policy that even a mild explosion nowadays from a tiny firecracker would certainly send shivers down their spines.
"People have become used to it. We have been celebrating Christmas peacefully here," says City Administrator Wendel Avisado.
Avisado said he does not think the mayor is going back to the old practice, especially with the local chief executive getting a full backing from the City Council.
The City Council had complemented Duterte's order by passing a law, that prohibits the manufacture, sale, distribution, possession or use of firecrackers and pyrotechnic device in the city.
"We have not gotten an order from the mayor suspending the implementation of the law. It continues to be so," Avisado said.
City Council majority floorleader Emmanuel Galicia said Duterte has a good reason to ban firecrackers and that is to prevent injury or even death to people.
"I begin to understand the reason why the mayor has to do that. I realized it was a good policy," said Galicia, who was one of those who opposed Duterte's call for a total ban on firecrackers before.
During a multi-sectoral meeting called by Duterte at the Grand Men Seng when the ban was implemented last 2001, Galicia stood up to remind the mayor that the national law only regulates the use of firecrackers.
Invited during the meeting were businessmen, church leaders, council members, top police officials and members of the Davao media.
Duterte insisted on banning firecrackers totally and for the people to do away what he called a “destructive tradition”.
"I was alone. Generally, it is really for the good of the people," Galicia recalls.
It turned out that Duterte's bold move was not only an effective one to avoid injury, but also changed overnight the people's lifestyle in celebrating the yuletide season.
Based on records from the Davao Medical Center, there were 47 firecracker-related injuries in 1998, 59 in 1999 and 88 in 2000.
Of the 88 victims in 2000, five were admitted and 83 were sent home after being treated, underscoring the havoc posed by firecrackers and pyrotechnic device to people.
The number declined dramatically when Duterte imposed the policy. From December 21, 2001 to January 4, 2002, the number of firecracker-related injuries in the city went down to only two.
In the next three years, Davao will register almost zero incidents, with only a single incident during last New Year's Day and the victim wasn't even from Davao but from the Island Garden City of Samal.
Berto Yaba, 32, a mechanic who resides in Buhangin, said he and his neighbors have been celebrating Christmas the past four years strumming the guitar and singing with the videoke.
"We have some food, of course, but we are content with just singing and listening to Christmas songs. Just like that," Yaba said in the vernacular.
"We also dance," added Yaba, whose scar on his left shoulder constantly reminded him of his folly ten years ago when he set off a "five-star."
In Calinan, people in the poblacion used to troop to the Chinese community in the area to witness fireworks and explode firecrackers during Christmas.
Today, they just stay in their homes and be with their families when the clock strikes at midnight on Christmas eve.
City Hall also had come up with programs and activities to brighten up everyone like the hosting of lantern-making contest, street dancing, and choral competitions in the barangays.
Four years after the days and nights approaching Christmas were silenced of those nerve-wracking explosions, Dabawenyos are still out there, reveling, singing, dancing, blowing their horns and dragging cans and steel bars with their cars and motorcycles.
They may jump and squeak in fright every time they go out of the city and are taken by surprise by an exploding "rebentador" or a even a "baby rocket," but unlike their more rowdy fellow Filipinos, Dabawenyos are sure of one thing come Christmas and New Year's Day...they will be waking up the next morning to see their fingers still intact.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (December 22, 2005 issue)
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