It is totally comprehensible if Mayor Inday Sara Duterte-Carpio is excited about the Palarong Pambansa which opens this weekend.
For one, it will be the first time in 69 years that the national games will be staged in Davao City. For this to happen under her administration is in itself already a footnote in the annals of Davao’s history.
But more than its historic significance, it is the prospects of reaping the rewards of this one-time investment that should give reason for her and the rest of Dabawenyos to be excited.
The Palarong Pambansa, in past stagings, have been made as the “justification” for many provinces and cities much smaller than Davao City to be able to siphon a considerable budget from the national government in order to build a sports complex. This investment leads to huge revenues in terms of sports tourism during the staging of the Palarong Pambansa and the economic activities that it brings. Likewise, the investment on infrastructure also leaves the host LGU the necessary facility for sports activities for the locals and for future hosting of major events. Koronadal City, for example, built its sports complex way ahead of Davao City in the mid 90s and was able to host the annual sports conclave for two stagings along with hosting some of the events of the East Asean Growth Area (EAGA) Games. Koronadal’s investment allowed it also to host professional basketball games and other national sports tournaments in their small city.
In Davao Region, Davao del Norte came ahead of Davao City in capitalizing on sports infrastructure and has by far reaped handsome dividends with its sports facilities hosting the Palarong Pambansa, Batang Pinoy, PRISAA National Games and several other sports events of national magnitude. These spawned the necessity to build more hotels and accommodation facilities to meet the high demand.
Long criticized for not having standard sports facilities in the past, Davao City has awakened and is expected to assert itself as Mindanao’s premier sports hub given that it has all the necessary services and infrastructure to host major sports events, like the Southeast Asian Games, while still enjoying better traffic conditions than Cebu and Manila.
Davao City has arrived.
