Visiting Cebu again

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

CEBU CITY – I’M making this piece in this beautiful and booming place in our country’s south. This is my seventh visit here since 1966, during my cycling heydays and once placed third in the 1977 Tour of Cebu that our provincemate Efren Casta of Bolinao won. I came here this time to visit my cycling contemporary, my Cebuano friend and cycling organizer Jose Deresas, to assist him in the 2012 Tour of Cebu tentatively scheduled on January 16-18. It’s a three-day bikefest exclusively for region seven riders that will traverse all the municipalities of the province. I’m here with my 22 year-old son Moses and my village mate Joefer Cendana, both basketball players in my town. My visit here happened to coincide with the National SK Congress and so my 17 year-old daughter Raisa, the SK chairperson of barangay Buenlag in Mangaldan, my birthplace, is also here attending together with her co-chairpersons headed by Councilor Charlene Joy Flores, the SK federation president of Mangaldan and their lone chaperon, the reliable Cris Casupang.

Cebu province is highly noted for producing world boxing champions like the famous Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Dodie Penalosa, Gerry Penalosa, Bernabe Villacampo, and Malcom Tunacao to name a few that I could remember. No wonder the boxing buffs here are heavily favoring Pacman to win his third match against my amigo Juan Manuel Marquez slated November 13. Siete-dies  ‘ika nga ang pustahan. That’s what I found out during my chitchat with the natives here. Cycling records say Cebu is the second province, next to Pangasinan, that produced at least three Tour champions including the late Rodrigo Abaquita and Jose Moring, Jr. in the 1960 and 1961 Tour of Luzon, respectively, and Rolando Pagnana won in the 1986 Marlboro Tour.

Waterfront Hotel, located at Juan Luna boulevard, already hosted multi-world title fights and this is also the place where the SK National Congress is being held. Raisa describes the place like a palace full of foreign visitors and dignitaries. “Walang binatbat ang Dagupan sa ganda ng Cebu at ang kanilang tourism industry,” said Moses.

History says Cebu City is the first and oldest city of the Philippines. It’s popularly known as the “Queen City of the South” with 52 towns and nine component cities. If Pangasinan has a pilgrimage site called Our Lady Of Manaoag, Cebu City also has its famous image of Sto. Nino that has millions of devotees and is at the center of their popular annual Sinulog Festival. Deresas also said that guitar, which is made of grapefruit wood, is their number one product and being exported internationally.

If God permits, I will visit this flourishing place again early next year, not for fun but for a job.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: So the Lord said to Moses: “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall tell Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land. And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh will not heed you, so that I may lay My hand on Egypt and bring My armies and My people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them” EXODUS 7: 1-5 

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