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Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Ledesma: When the festivities begin
By Jun Ledesma
Sunbursts
THERE'S more to Davao City than beaches, eagles and flowers.
The festivities in Davao City start where the Asean Tourism Forum actually ends. Foreign and domestic tourists who are first timers in this city should know that one of the biggest celebrations that this southern capital observe is the Araw ng Dabaw or the city anniversary in March.
As early as today, plans are already afoot on how the City will celebrate its founding 69th founding anniversary. As in the past we start off with the search of Mutya ng Dabaw in every district and athletic competitions. The climax of the event in on the 16th of March when there will be grand floral, fruits and fluvial parades and street dancing featuring the many colorful tribal dance of indigenous peoples in the City.
The parade normally takes five hours to wind up. It will be good to make your hotel reservations as early as now. The most spectacular and dizzying event in Davao City moreover is every August 22 to 26, when the city celebrates a thanksgiving festival called Kadayawan.
August is the month when the harvests of various fruits and flowers are at their peak. The festival has become so famous that under the leadership of City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, participants from other provinces in Mindanao have been welcomed to take part in all events and win cash prizes and other incentives put up by the city government and the private sectors. Davao being the center of trade, communications and cultural exchanges in the south is a magnanimous host to its neighbors. The abundance of fruits of various kinds, are sold practically for a song during the festival. The fruits are wholly the products of Davao City.
The resplendent parade of entry floats, street dances featuring kaleidoscopic and genuine tribal costumes and instruments are spectacles that cannot be duplicated by other regions in the Philippines. The reason being, we have more indigenous tribes in Davao and Mindanao than there are in Visayas or Luzon. For this reason, Kadayawan is richer in content as they depict the true and unexpurgated presentation of cultural dances costumes and music and cadence.
Davao City has become a favorite hub for national conferences. The airline companies have increased their daily flights here led by the jumbo jets of Philippine Airlines. Recently Asian Spirit also included Davao in its routes. There are direct flights from Singapore and Indonesia. I travel very often but seldom do I see familiar faces in the flights in and out of Davao City anymore. It is because we have more visitors that fly to and from Davao than there are traveling residents. We have more expatriates staying in Davao City now than there were a decade ago and the number of domestic investors has increased by leaps and bounds.
Davao City obtained a loan of close to P1-billion last year intended for infrastructure projects. From the loans proceed, the city bought equipment for the building of farm to market roads, garbage and sanitation equipment to include dump trucks, flood control facilities and traffic signs upgrade among others. All these are intended to support the investors who are branching out to Davao City.
As they say, the best is yet to come. This is about the only time when Dabawenyos get to be tourism conscious. Of course the leftist elements have always their piece against it. They do not see tourism as an opportunity for growth but as a vehicle for prostitution. But many have been driven to prostitution because of lack of opportunities. Mayor Duterte and the rest of government leaders in the adjoining provinces and cities have given the industry a big push. Hopefully this will open up an entirely new vista for tourists later to consider Davao not only as a place to bask under the sun but a place to bring their capital investments in.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (January 18, 2006 issue)
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