Why Cebu can't move forward 24 years later

There is no doubt that the Sinulog Festival is one of biggest tourist drawers into the Philippines. We only started it in 1980, although the old ladies have been dancing the “sinug” since time immemorial. But before we were celebrating the Sinulog Festival, I used to ride my dirt bike all the way to Kalibo, Aklan to join the Ati-Atihan Festival. It was a long and arduous ride with 90% of the roads still unpaved. But the Ati-Atihan did not grow much because of its limited number of hotels and flights to Kalibo. Of course with Boracay Island just a 2 hour drive away; the Ati-Atihan has also drawn a good number of tourists.

Indeed, Cebu had the advantage of having an international airport that could bring tourists directly into our city, plus the fact that Cebu already created its tourism boom, when then Cebu Plaza Hotel magnate Anos Fonacier coined the “Cebu: An Island in the Pacific” slogan and we soared with what we then called our “Cebooom.” But kudos to the Cebuano entrepreneurial spirit for pulling off the Sinulog Parade. Indeed, we did not invent the Mardi Gras or merrymaking in the streets, yet we were able to make our Sinulog known throughout the Asia-Pacific Region.

Thinking back to the Cebu slogan “Cebu: An Island in the Pacific” reminded me of the recently coined slogan by the Department of Tourism (DoT) dubbed “It’s more fun in the Philippines,” which has generated a barrage of criticisms. The problem is, whether or not DoT Secretary Ramon Jimenez, Jr. has an open mind. If he is truly an advertising man, then he must possess and open mind because there are many good suggestions out there for him to use.

For instance in a recent survey, the Philippines took 8th place as “The 8th Friendliest People in the World.” This alone should trigger a better slogan “We’re Friendlier in the Philippines” and this definitely sounds better than the other slogan, which is almost like the famous slogan of United Airlines which blares, “Fly the Friendly Skies.”

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Every first week of the year, I always end up emptying my desk with old files and more often than not, we get to find old documents that we were looking for but were misplaced. One such file that I thought I had lost was my Cebu, Inc. file. What most of my readers didn’t know, way back in 1988, a group of well-meaning Cebuanos led then by the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) with Cebu’s business and political leaders, held a series of conferences or workshops in order to achieve our goals of making Cebu a City Second to None, which was the slogan of then Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña.

The first of these planning workshops was held on November 26-27, 1988 and was dubbed “Cebu in the Next Year of the Dragon, A.D. 2000.” Its vision was for the Province of Cebu to become a major financial, trading, service and light manufacturing center in Southeast Asia. It is now the Year 2012 or 12 years after that noble goal and yes, we have not reached that goal, not even near it! Then on March 4, 1989, we held another workshop, “Cebu in the Year A.D. 2000, Let’s make it Happen Now” and still nothing happened, despite our having the vaunted Cebooom!

Mind you, these workshops were facilitated by AIM’s top officials led then by Dean Gaston Z. Ortigas, Dean Felipe B. Alfonso, Prof. Horacio Borromeo, Prof. Gabino Mendoza and Prof. Victor Limlingan. We even created “Cebu: 2020” a group that would ensure that Cebu followed the right path to achieve our goals in the year 2020.

But Cebu 2020 was scuttled in favor of the creation of Cebu, Inc. led then by CCCI Chairman Philip Tionko, Norkis Group Pres. Norberto Quisumbing, Fr. Francisco “Paking” Silva and yours truly. This group was to establish a foundation to focus on all the concerns of Cebu, from traffic management, the urban poor’s growth and development and more importantly, we were supposed to be apolitical. Again, that did not take off. So 24 years later, Cebu hasn’t achieved much and I can only say that, if we continue with our present path as a centralized system of governance, Cebu’s socio-economic growth would be stymied. Worse of all is that, Imperial Manila’s focus is politics, politics and more politics, which is why the nation hasn’t grown compared to our ASEAN neighbors.

Enter a news report from The Philippine Star last Sunday that Scotland was preparing for a referendum to be independent from Great Britain. Way back in 1993, the Quebecers wanted to separate from Canada, but narrowly lost in the referendum. Their only difference is that, they speak a different language. Perhaps we should start the debate on whether or not we in Cebu should continue to remain as part of the Philippine archipelago or not?

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