By: Mark Anthony Duran and Justin Kennith Gamulo, Davao Today Interns
DAVAO CITY – The City Tourism of Tagum unveiled on Friday its week-long plans for the upcoming 17th Araw ng Tagum starting on February 28 to March 7.
“We are here to promote the activities for the upcoming 17th Araw ng Tagum and we are very glad to say that we have more exciting things to happen during the event,” Carmen Apura of the City Tourism said.
She added that the week-long activity would include the awarding of people and groups for exemplary achievements and contribution to the city.
The awards consist of 13 categories, including the eldest Tagumenyo, top 10 taxpayers of the city, and a special award dubbed as the “Storya ng TAGUMpay” which she said “is the perfect catchword for Tagum’s success for the past few years’.
During the past celebrations, the city recognized only the achievements of past leaders “but now, the focus will be shifted to ordinary Tagumenyos with extraordinary feats”.
“We have already started giving out nomination forms for the different categories which we are going to search for. As of now, we are still looking for special people to whom we are going to give the individual and group awards,” she said.
She was also hopeful that their civic military parade would surpass the longest ever-recorded civic military parade last year.
“This year, we are going to start the assembly at 4am from Freedom Park near the old city hall to the new city hall,” Apura said.
“Last year, there were 13,000 persons who marched during the civic parade and it caused heavy traffic. Now, we have set alternate routes for the parade,” she added.
The city would hold the 14th Musikahan sa Tagum to search and show musical talents of Tagum residents on February 28-March 7.
Event organizer Marlene Alastra said that there would be different categories: choral showcase, brass band competition, RondallAWIT, Himig Handog, and the homecoming of music makers.
“We will have a mini concert and during the homecoming of all music makers in Tagum City, children will be taught in playing a variety of musical instruments,” Alastra said.
“We also planned to invite artists from Manila to come during the celebration,” she added.
A P100,000 prize would given to the Barangay Musikahan competition as 1st prize for both urban and rural categories.
Norma Pereyras, the event organizer of ‘Tagumenyo Bisag Asa’, also encouraged Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who will be going home to be involved and be present during the event on March 4 for a tree-planting activity in the morning and a friendly gathering at 6pm.
Pereyras said that the event was to give recognition to all OFWS and to express that they are not “left behind.”
They will conduct their first election of officers for OFWs on March 6 in order to maintain connections and to discuss among themselves of future plans on how to help the city.
“We are going to have an election of officers dubbed as ‘Elect and Connect’ and these future officers will have projects and activities later on,” Pereyras said.
“Even if they will go back abroad, they will be able to connect in order to sustain the program,” she added.
The budget allocated for these big events would amount to 4 million pesos all in all; 2 million pesos for Araw ng Tagum and Tagumenyo Bisag Asa and another 2 million pesos for the Musikahan.
The event organizers are positive that these events would be a successful one.(davaotoday.com)
