Ang Dabawenyo

When you go around town, you’ll notice quite a few ongoing construction projects and new restaurants and coffee shops. There are more businesses registered with the Department of Trade & Industry, albeit mostly SMEs. It really looks like Davao City is a boomtown again. But if you look closely, you might notice some things that are a bit disappointing. Like how they’re half-baked.

For example, a restaurant that looks magnificent on the outside, and might even be quite presentable inside… but doesn’t spend a peso on staff training. Or — and here’s a pet peeve of mine — a well-designed and glossy brochure that you know cost an arm and a leg to produce… but the literature is poorly written.

Tonight my friends and I were at the “seawall” (where the Statue of David stands), and we were laughing at why the management felt they had to put signs on everything. Reading them just made us laugh even harder. The English was bad, for one — they could’ve written it in Tagalog or Visayan instead — and they just didn’t make much sense at all.

I happen to like the place, actually. It’s cool, refreshing and peaceful (except when there are rowdy teenagers with blaring car speakers). It’s obvious that the owners spent a sum to build the statues (there’s an impressive replica of The Little Mermaid as well), roads, gazebos, fish ponds… So why not buy the whole package?? Why stop at the infrastructure?

I mean, if we’re to become a global city (something that investment promoters, including myself, have been trumpeting), we should be more aware and conscious of the overall image for Davao. We could hire the best PR agency in the Philippines, but if what we’re selling isn’t on a par with international standards, we might be setting ourselves up for a huge embarrassment. Putting out half-baked goods just won’t do.

Of course we can’t change overnight. What’s imperative, though, is that we all start to realize that we’re not just a city in the Philippine South, but one that is participating more and more in the international arena each year. If all of us appreciate what this means and take positive action, then the aggregate of our actions would surely result in a much-improved version and truly marketable package of our beloved city.