Thanks, but no thanks!
August 23rd, 2004 at 8:45 am (Davao City)
A lot of people, specifically, those in the media business have time and time again went by the belief that bad publicity is still publicity. Today, instead of reading articles about how successful the Kadayawan Festival here in Davao was, I read an article on how “unsafe” Davao streets are for suspected criminals on the Across the Nation section of the PDI (08/23/04). Even the most publicity-hungry city wouldn’t want this kind of publicity.
For the longest time, Davao City, along with the rest of Mindanao has been suffering from an unsubstantiated negative image which has left the city struggling to uplift its economy, specifically, its tourism industry. Despite of all the good things that has been happening in Davao, it is still most popular for its iron-fisted Mayor and the infamous summry killings supposedly done by the Davao Death Squad. It seems to me that Davao City or any other city outside Metro Manila only gets airtime or newspaper space when it has a controversy brewing.
How about praising Davao and Region XI for having the highest percentage of collected taxes for 2003, which by the way is 98%! Or how about pointing out the fact that inspite of the alleged summary killings, Davao has the lowest crime rate in the Philippines pegged at only about 5 per 1,000 residents? Take that! Aside from a couple of pictures on the Kadayawan, which I suspect to be nothing but mere space-fillers, there was not another word about it. Nothing on the 100% hotel occupancy rate, nothing on the various activities, the concerts, the fluvial parades, the float parades, etc, etc…
I could go on and on about the wonderful things here in Davao which I believe are worthy of a news article (or articles) that can be read by the entire nation. The point is, what does a city have to do to deserve national attention? Or rather, what does a city have to accomplish to achieve positive national attention? Bad publicity might at least put Davao on the map, but it isn’t something I appreciate. I would rather live in an obscure city than a city that is notorious for its “salvagers”.
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hoop said,
January 2, 2006 at 10:38 am
That’s what I like about blogging and the internet… it give’s davaoeno’s a chance to project the place they live in for what it really is… a great city
Ady001 said,
July 26, 2006 at 7:10 pm
This is correct. Quash Manila imperialism!