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Friday, January 13, 2006
Living In Davao: A Bliss
By Cris D. Kabasares
"Davao City is an amazing story of how the richness of the land spawned multi-millionaires who started out with modest capital. How enterprising caretoneros (cart pushers) and lowly sacadas (migrant workers) became wealthy coconut planters. It's this incredible mix of people that makes Davao a thriving and exciting place to live."
SAN FRANCISCO, California -- I've lived in San Francisco, California, for nearly 40 long years--but I still freely--and proudly--call Davao City my home.
Today, when not traveling, my wife and I divide our time between California and an idyllic place called Mountain Haven tucked in Barangay Eden in Davao City where we have a modest vacation home overlooking Davao Gulf.
Isn't Eden the other name of paradise? There, living is good, quiet, and healthful. One sleeps and wakes up to the soothing breeze that gently sweeps the land from the foot of the mighty Mt. Apo.
That's why we live there from three to fours months a year, and truly love it.
It all started when I retired recently after 35 years in journalism, 10 years of those were spent in Manila, and a stint as a government hearing officer in San Francisco.
There's an exciting and different world out there that civilization calls retirement. It's the time in which we could do the other important things in life that we wanted most but didn't quite get around to doing them.
That world, it seems to me, is Davao City. Retirement is boring, a few friends in California who are retirees themselves had warned me. I'm completely unaware of what they're doing with their lives in retirement, but I know just exactly what I'm doing with mine and where I'm doing it.
It's in Davao where I'm enjoying my retirement rather enormously. Thomas Wolfe wrote "you can't go home again." Davao City seemingly flouts the famous poet. It has an incredible passion few true Dabawenyos are able to resist.
We come home to Davao. Most Dabawenyos I've met in London, Rome, Paris, Milan, Munich, Middle East, Eastern Europe, and on board cruise ships, told me they long for the day when they come home to live in Davao--for good.
Once I witnessed a Dabawenyo tossing away crisp 20-peso bills to people at the shed in the old Bangoy International airport. The brief scramble to grab a bill or two spilled over to the middle of the road as pesos were blown away there.
I recalled that the gladhander sat three rows behind where my wife and I were seated on the plane from Manila. He did it to fulfill a pledge--that when he comes home to Davao for good, he'll toss away P20 bills to his welcomers as soon as he comes out of the airport as a gesture of thanksgiving. He was home at last to retire after years of working in the Middle East, a fellow-passenger told me.
For me, in no other place is the feeling of being home so emotionally blissful than Davao.
As the plane I'm aboard approaches Davao Gulf, it glides a course between the mainland to the right and the island of Samal to the left. It soars over part of Davao City, makes a midair U-turn for the final approach, then that familiar thud of the tires, I know, I really know I'm home! Davao has a charm all its own.
People visit this place once and wake up the following morning with a decision to make it their home or praise its warmth and hospitality of the Dabawenyos.
This is a true account.
A friend and his wife from Vallejo, California, visited Davao for the first time in November, last year. Upon their return to California he called me to announce their decision to retire in Davao saying the city is peaceful. My friend is from Luzon, and his wife is from Samar. Like me, they have lived in California for over 30 years.
Davao offers limitless opportunities for the good life to retirees from other lands. It's is rich in history. It's the story of a land and people from pre-Hispanic times, and Jose Uyanguren's arrival in 1848, to the development of the vast Japanese abaca plantations.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Americans and the Commonwealth government extolled Mindanao as the "land of promise" and actively encouraged its settlement. Pioneers from different parts of the country came, many found their way to Davao where they discovered a vast and fertile region. Davao quickly became the metaphor for abundance and wide open lands. It still is.
Davao City is an amazing story of how the richness of the land spawned multi-millionaires who started out with modest capital. How enterprising caretoneros (cart pushers) and lowly sacadas (migrant workers) became wealthy coconut planters. It's this incredible mix of people that makes Davao a thriving and exciting place to live.
Dabawenyos now in retirement in Davao city find almost anything here. From glitzy shops, upscale malls, eateries, first class hotels, top-notched golf courses, entertainment, good educational institutions, and the toughest no-smoking ordinance in the country--Davao has it all. And it's an hour and 25 minutes flight to Manila.
They'll be glad to know that today Dabawenyos are working hard and smart to convert the region into a 21st century economic hub to span Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines under the aegis of the BIMP-Eaga ( Borneo, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines/East Asean Growth Area) pact. With Davao City as its axis, they have set their sights on lands beyond the Coral Sea. The ambitious quest ran into a storm kicked up by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, but they're successfully re-working the plans. They know they're going to make it.
This Asean Tourism Forum (ATF) being held in this city is expected to propel the region to a flourishing tourist mecca. When that boom happens, every other Dabawenyo would share its bounty.
Davao is the cultural and educational center of Mindanao and Dabawenyos are deeply passionate about their city, the biggest in the world (244,000 sq. hectares) geographically.
They sing their loyalty to Davao in a song titled "Tayo'y Dabawenyo" (We're Dabawenyos)--now heard in many places around the world whenever Dabawenyos gather to celebrate an event.
There's hardly a mystery behind it, the feeling comes naturally with the size. Davao City is a modern metropolis but it has a stunning countryside to explore. Its forests are still vibrant and rich of wildlife, just as its seas are blue and bountiful, and its rivers still flow from the mountains to the shores.
Davao is the place to be, to retire and live the good life!
Cris D. Kabasares is past president of the Davaoeños of California. He briefly served as a hearing officer in the City of San Francisco. A semi-retired
journalist, he and his wife divide their time between San Francisco, California, and Davao City. He writes a column for a New York newspaper.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (January 13, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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