Sunday, May 11, 2008 Sabaldan: Michele Wie-like fan of Mayor Rody Duterte By Romy Sabaldan Davao Beat
DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte's blown up photo with Paraluman Hager on his side giving him a buss greets all the visitors and guests at the front desk of the newly-opened, well-manicured Villa Hager Resort in the heart of Mayor Domingo Lim's municipality of Lupon.
That photo, according to the Michel Wie-like par buster of Rancho Palos Verdes, was taken in one of the engagements of Duterte to JIB's professional modeling center where Paraluman had once taught our young girls proper decorum.
She adores the mayor just like many of the Dabawenya women her age.
Things look brighter in Lupon, home to some of the most scenic waterfalls of Davao Oriental.
Emil together with an international hotelier named Shane Beary are exploring on the many possibilities of helping Lupon reach its maximum tourism aqua-sports potentials.
This, I told the future generals of the Philippine Army in a recent breakfast meeting with ARENA XI led by PIA's Efren Elbanbuena. New TF Davao Commander Colonel Ricardo Reigner Cruz is one of them and predecessor Colonel Alan Luga, the officer and a gentleman who puts his work where his heart is, slinging his CQB handgun breast-high and is now leading the PA's 10001st Brigade whose AOR includes Davao Oriental.
Not only that plans are afoot to make Lupon as the center of football of the region as Hager and I had inspired Mayor Doming to make this child-friendly game his municipality's focus sport.
We visited the track oval of Lupon with Shane and two-year-old Brod Miko and found the place to have been inhabited only by goats and their ruminant kids playing and feeding among shin guard-high grasses.
With Hager's link to the Zurich-based FIFA of Joseph S. Blatter, he can even conspire with the international football body in his home base in Switzerland to channel some of its football infrastructure programs to Lupon. All that FIFA needs is a place big enough to build a coliseum. But all 45,000 residents of Lupon and children should first learn to know football by heart to fill up that first 20 to 40 thousand seating capacity football grandstands of the football-loving Davao Region.
Emil, according to Paraluman, has one thing in common with Adolph Hitler. They both have the identical birth date of August 20. But Emil has so far conquered only the beautiful lass from Lupon. But if he is successful in making football alive again in the area, then I would recommend to Mayor Lim that he be awarded the moniker as "Harrison Ford" of Lupon.
Emil is the husband of Paraluman. Emil Hager, the Travel Tourism Media Redaktor from Switzerland also coaches Palarong Pambansa football player Ken Hager, 15 years old and mentors eldest son Marlon, who is one of the best junior golfers of Rancho.
When I reported back to Scoop-Davao, the mother-sponsoring agency that sent me to Palawan, my peers are already in the midst of the final preparations for the next golf event in Davao after the highly successful Pomelo Tee of Rancho. This time it will be Mano a Mano encounter starting this week at the Matina fairways by the architects against the pros.
Speaking of pomelo, I told them this: our world-class fruit is the one thing that I sorely missed in Palawan. All they have in their stalls are mangos priced double that of what we have in Davao at P90 per kilo because they import them from Guimaras, home of the best mangos in the country.
When my wife confronted me with the question, you mean you did not miss me?
I told her, wife is different. You may not be the apple of my eyes but I had always treated you like the apple!
