THE local government of Davao City, through the City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO), will be opening a Japanese heritage tourism circuit that will showcase several old Japanese sites in the city.
Among the first to be opened are sites within the old “Little Tokyo” in Barangay Mintal and Calinan, which was the home of a prosperous abaca-centered Japanese community in the pre-war era.
“There’s the barangay hall, we have the Ohta Kyozaburo shrine, as well as the Mintal Elementary School, mag-ikot (turn) to Imin Museum,” Gracie Plata, Tourism Relations Specialist of the City Tourism Operations Office, said of the initial offering of the circuit.
Also included is the Mintal cemetery, which functioned as the cemetery of the Japanese community, and also the Monument of Eternal Peace in Catalunan Grande (also known as the Japanese Peace Memorial Shrine)
Imin Philippine-Japan Historical Museum, located inside the Philippine Nikkei Jin School in Mintal, provides visitors with a glimpse of the old Japanese community in the city, which, at its peak in the 1930s, numbered 20,000 migrants.
Other stops in Little Tokyo are the irrigation canal built by the Japanese, which is still being used by a power company, then the Barangay Hall, where several artifacts, World War II relics, and old photos of the bygone era are displayed.
Plata says the circuit will start at Sta. Ana Port in downtown Davao City. The old port is where the Japanese settlers disembarked from the ships to begin a new life in the frontier. Another tour stop in the downtown area is the University of Mindanao-Bolton.
“Bolton, the UM that is the old site of the Japanese consulate, then we go to City Hall, where in San Pedro we trace the old Japanese stores such as the Osaka Bazaar,” Plata said.
Plata said they are studying and researching for more destinations in the circuit. She said another circuit in Toril, where Japanese warehouses owned by Japanese abaca businessman Yoshizo Furukawa are located, will also be opened.
“For now ang ilo-launch natin ang Mintal na side, wala pa yung Toril kasi kailangan pa siya ng additional studies (For now, we will be launching the Mintal side, the side in Toril needs more additional studies),” Plata said.
They have identified several sites in Toril, like the old warehouses, office, monument, and graves of Japanese workers, which will be researched and mapped for another circuit.
Plata says they identified seven sites for the tour, which is named as Furosato Japanese Heritage Tour.
“Furosato, in Japanese, means hometown. It means Davao was the hometown of the Japanese here,” Plata said.
They are eyeing to open the circuit this September in time for Tourism Month. PIA DAVAO