This morning I was at a planning session for the promotions activities of the Kadayawan sa Dabaw festival. Marco Polo’s Art Boncato invited me just this morning to be a part of this committee. It was rather sudden and spur-of-the-moment, but I gladly obliged. I wouldn’t miss the chance of helping organize Davao’s own traditional festival.

I don’t want to jump the gun on the Kadayawan organizers, so I’m not going to divulge anything before the official announcements. But I would like to mention that this year is going to be different. For one thing, the younger generation is starting to take over the reins, and we’re bringing in fresh ideas.

The changing of the guards, so to speak, will surely be evident in the way the festival will be marketed to the rest of the country, and — to a limited extent — to other countries. And hopefully, this freshness will also be apparent during the festival itself in August. Expect the unexpected!

Of course, I know that the planners won’t for a second neglect the origins of the Kadayawan. No matter how we would like to modernize the event, we mustn’t forget that it is a celebration that’s deeply rooted in our past, in our indigenous culture.

The Kadayawan (“beauty” or “goodness”) festival is historically a celebration of everything that is good about Davao. It has also been identified with the traditional symbols of our city: the famous Waling-Waling orchid, the Philippine Eagle, Mt. Apo and our fruits. This year, it is being proposed that we carry all of this under one overarching idea, that of abundance.

I just hope that those who are still the ultimate decision-makers for this event will see the sense in what the young bloods are trying to inject into the planning of this festival.

Ok. I’ll stop there. We’re supposed to have another meeting to discuss the brochures and other collateral materials, but I’m going to be in Manila for the iBlog4 Conference this Saturday. At any rate, I’m going to keep you, my dear readers, updated on the Kadayawan sa Dabaw event details.