Of festival and environment
IN MY OPINIONKlaus Doring
While writing this piece, the Kadayawan Festival 2017 in Davao City is just around the corner. Since every year, the celebration offers an incredible array of activities full of fun and joy: dance group competitions, street parties and yes, a food trip at the strip. Sure, Kadayawan is also everything about indulgence in the best cuisines that Davao has to offer. Kadayawan is indeed always a feast of sorts.
Living in Davao City for good since 1999 now, I observed the Kadayawan Festival becoming more and more attractive and enjoyable. I spoke with many tourists during last years and -of course! – expatriates, who kept on praising this festival and its incredible atmosphere. The friendliness and the warm hospitality of Davao people have been mentioned and experienced many times. What a sign for this wonderful city.
Kadayawan means also environment – in other words – thanking and protecting Mother Nature! This is actually what my heart touches most, because I am an advocate of environment protection! Sometimes, believe me, in the Philippines a tough job!
After several publications about this topic, also in this publication, I did receive several messages and mails telling me, what nonsense I would write about Mother Earth and how to protect her/it. One Anonymous even wrote me, that the nature knows how to help herself. I just thanked this fellow guy for his very own opinion. During that time, I wasn’t really in the mood to start a (useless?) discussion.
Yes, our earth is still slowly (?) but surely dying – but, uninhibited innumerable people are still on stage as enviroNment destroyers – free from worries and drive away eventually existing moral conflicts. Don’t worry – I am not the one who is planning to destroy the Kadayawan Festival joy and party feelings. I just still like to recall former Davao City’s mayor and now President of this country, Rodrigo R. Duterte’s Kadayawan message from 2009: “With global warming and climate change, a very real phenomenon in our lives now, we need to look to our indigenous people for wisdom and guidance as they have always been respected toward their relationship with the earth!”
This was 2009. How about now in 2017?
Yes, all of us need to do more in protecting and promoting our environment. As I mentioned it many times before: I hope and pray that plenty of us participate ACTIVELY if possible in a multi sector campaign of having a shared environmental responsibility. Start already during school education! It’s never too late.
For the sake of our following generations! Happy Kadayawan 2017 in Davao City!
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