ARAW ng Dabaw, which commemorates the birth of Davao as a chartered city 77 years ago in 1937, is slowly transforming into a full blown sports bonanza with all 24 events at stake from the flagship contests like basketball, volleyball, chess and even fun sports duckpin bowling.
Traditional games such as Dama finds its way as an official Araw entry, to the delight of thousands of previously neglected enthusiasts of the pastime, which is also a sit-down sport like chess but more fun and comparatively faster and less complicated.
Mayor Duterte, in previous celebrations, thought of recognizing original Filipino games to renew our love and enthusiasm for traditional Filipino pastimes played and invented by our forefathers. Dama and other traditional games like Arnis de Mano are ingenuous Filipino sports. Arnis was invented by our forefathers for self-reliance and love for freedom. Filipino Arnis, like the Chinese Wushum, takes lesser recognition in international sporting events as mere demonstration sports.
The South Koreans get most of their gold medals in the Olympics because of the early recognition of their Taekwondo as one of the official events in the Olympics. They have mastered the art long before other countries take serious practice of the original Korean sport.
Our own Arnis has recently been named as national sport by an act of Congress which effectively increased our interest of the game with the help of the Department of Education.
Whenever Arnis gets its own recognition by the International Olympic Committee, bigger countries like the US, Canada, United Kingdom and Germany will be the same countries competing for the gold in the Olympics since most of our old timers and expert doble baston masters have long been in exodus to impart mastery of the game in foreign land for recognition and the lure of the good life.
Arnis will be one of the major events in the monthlong festivity here. Araw celebrations in the past prior to the lengthy leadership of the Dutertes in Davao was significantly a major cultural festival.
Today, and at the advent of the Duterte leadership in Davao City more than two decades ago, Araw Ng Dabaw celebrations double as a sports festival in recognition of the power of youth and a rekindling of the physical and competitive spirit of the young people which comprise the majority of our population.
Two more Araw festivals and it will be another Olympic year in 2016. It will not be asking too much if we will revive our quest for the first Olympic gold under a Duterte presidency. With the most scandalous issues hitting the country's top legislative, people are weary of another prototype presidentiable senator. We should now try somebody from the ranks of the city mayors, the biggest most potent political group. But Duterte himself repeatedly deflects the clamor to go the next level. He insisted that he is not eligible and lacks moral qualification.
The longest serving mayor of the country is the only political leader in this whole wide world that admits his deficiency to all. So what qualifications are we still seeking? Here is a man, who has the moral courage of beating his breast in public. Audacity, compassion, humility are some of the strongest, most competent virtues of a leader.