Hello everyone, from Davao! Here’s what I have experienced on my first day here (aside from work, obviously):
City Proper
Osmeña Park, Museo Dabawenyo, Rizal Park
Our first stop is at the city proper, where I was looking at the landscape of the area. I felt familiar with the area right away as it somehow resembles Cebu. We passed through Osmeña Park, and went to Museo Dabawenyo.
There, we were given a glimpse of Davao — and since this is Davao, which is in the southern part of the country, I learned a lot:
- If Cebu has Lapu-Lapu, Davao has Datu Bago. (I’m linking this post from Davao Today as well to give you a bit of an insight at Davao’s local hero.)
- In ye olde times, Davao was just Davao as a province — and then in 1967, it was divided into Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental, with Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental included in what we now call the Davao Region eventually.
- Davao City — a charter city — is actually huge, but only a percentage of the area is developed, and the rest are mountains and forests with tribe people in habitat. I’ve been told that the tribe people do not want their land to be developed, and the city government’s OK with it.
- Speaking of Charter City, when Davao was signed as one during the time of President Manuel Quezon, it meant to say that the Mayor is the highest position, not Governor.
- The Chinese and Japanese have their shared history with Davao — the two started their contact with Davao through barter trade to labor respectively. (Further reading: “Davao as furusato: The shared history of Davao and Japan” [Sun.Star Davao])
The facade at the City Council Building shows this beautiful sculpture symbolizing unity and peace.
One of the best experiences that I had is at Rizal Park, where I feed pigeons. I got the moments on cam.
The Roxas St. Night Market is on its feet two days after a part of it was bombed. We were only able to get to the side of it that’s near Marco Polo Davao and man, for just ₱35 you have two rice packs (called pastil, which is basically rice topped with ground meat) and two barbecue sticks.
The dessert for that night is a ₱10-each matcha mochi that is so delicious we want Manileños to taste these for themselves.
I make it a point to buy/get local newspapers every time I went out of town; and in Davao, there’s the Mindanao Times (not to be confused with The Manila Times), EDGE Davao, Sun.Star Davao (ans their tabloid counterpart Super Balita), and Mindanao Daily Mirror. I believe Brigada News has its Davao edition but I was unable to get it though.
Speaking of Sun.Star, while their Cebu Edition had a major facelift, their other editions haven’t done the same. Seems that the new design roll-out is not done as a whole, something I do want to happen; but since this is a network of community newspapers, nobody said redesigning a newspaper was easy.
There’s not that much of local channels when I checked the local SKYcable at the hotel where I’m staying in as well.
Speaking of The Manila Times, the reason I’m in Davao is that I’m part of the team who managed The Manila Times’ 5th Business Forum in which President Duterte accepted his first award — the “Man of the Year 2016” award. I’m sure you’ve seen his speech as it’s all over the news.