Guimaras pushes for agri-tourism

Tacloban City — Agri-tourism becomes fully alive as Guimaras province celebrates Manggahan Festival. The province with its five municipalities truly becomes alive.

In a visit to Guimaras province, a ten-minute pumpboat ride from Iloilo City wharf, PIA learned that Guimaras is holding a week-long celebration named after the very fruit that has become its landmark-the mango.

The Manggahan festival scheduled from May 16-22 has already been drawing visitors from Davao, Cebu, Dumaguete, Bacolod, nearby Iloilo, Samar and Metro Manila judging from the guest list the provincial tourism office keeps.

Governor JC Rahman Nava prodded his visitors to specially partake of the “eat all you can mango treat’ though the visitors sorely missed it.

The good looking governor said that their mangos have become so famous even if he said it is only the third best product Guimaras produces. First comes rice, he said. However because of the quality of their mangoes, it has become their landmark.

From May 16, the visitor is treated to an agri trade fair where all the province’s One Town One Product (OTOP) are featured, Food Festival, Agri Trade Fair, Mango Growers Visit, Adflaw sang Mag uuma (Farmers Day) Jobs Fair, Panindahan sang Mangga, Mango Fruit Festival (Picking) and the Soft Launching of Guimaras Technology & Livelihood Development Center (TLDC).

Celebrities from Manila are also expected to come as featured in a streamer announcing Monsour del Rosario also a tae kwondo expert.

Children are also featured in Tagisan ng Talino on May 21 with the Senior Citizens to hog the limelight on May 18.

Sports are also offered as in Tae kwondo championship on May 18, motorized Banca Race and Biking around Guimaras.

As the highlight, the province will be doing the Search for Lin-ay (Maiden/Lady)2006 whose pictures of pretty ladies are conspicuously displayed in the capitol lobby. The pageant night is scheduled on May 20.

The Grand Parade, Float Competiution and Street Dancing take center stage on May 22 the eve of Manggahan sa Guimaras Festival.

Agri-tourism is promoted nationwide to include Eastern Visayas. If Guimaras has a Manggahan Festival, then the province of Samar also celebrates a number of festivals. To name a few they have the Banigan-Kawayan Festival in Basey, which showcases the colorful hand woven mats and bamboo crafts produced by the town; the Pahoy-pahoy Festival in Calbiga, wherein farmers pay homage to the scarecrew and the role it plays in ensuring a bountiful harvest; the Kinarawgan Festival in Marabut, which celebrates the coconut as the tree as life and the blessings heaped upon it by the Christ Child and the Mangirisda Festival, a celebration of the bounty of Maqueda Bay extolling the virtues and industry of Catbalogan fishermen. (Ninfa Quirante PIA-Samar)

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