DavOr to launch Kabilin festival

DAVAO ORIENTAL (DAVOR) — The Provincial Government is set to launch next year its first and only festival dubbed as the Kabilin Festival. However, determined to pursue activities for this year, members of the Kabilin Festival Council pursued a set of tourism activities slated on the month of May of this year dubbed as “Prelude to the Kabilin Festival”. Activities were set for this five-day event. Among them is a tour caravan to the various tourism sites in the province — from Banaybanay town to Boston town — to be run by local and Davao-based tour operators. The highlight destinations include: the Mount Hamiguitan World Heritage Park in San Isidro town, San Agustin Eco Park in Governor Generoso town, Pusan Point in Caraga town, Aliwagwag Falls Eco Park in Cateel, and Subangan Museum in the City of Mati.

Provincial Tourism Officer Miguel Trocio listed several exciting activities for the festival such as cultural performances by indigenous-based performing groups. There will also be workshops on script writing, directing, dance choreography, tour guiding, and events management. He said that the province further needs to work on its tourism, culture and the arts as this is the new essential assessment area included in the Department of Interior and Local Governance’s Seal of Good Local Governance.

In addition to those activities, there will also be stage competitions such as singing contest, choral competition and even a drag show featuring local impersonators. While the Provincial Government sees the festival as a good vehicle to gain recognition and be promoted especially as a tourism destination, the Kabilin Festival aims to spur economic activities to benefit the localities resulting from the anticipated influx of tourists. For the first few months of this year, the Provincial Tourism recorded more than 700,000 tourist arrivals here in the province. While the Kabilin Festival is Davao Oriental’s first and official festival, it is also touted to be the first festival in the country that is ‘truly devoted to the conservation of the environment with strong advocacy to fight, abate and adapt to climate change, a phenomenon that is in the agenda of many developed countries’.