Fifteen years after his last visit, our writer notes the many changes in Davao City amid a crush of business meetings

DAVAO City has many names—City of Bloom, Fruit Basket of the Philippines, Gateway to East Asean Region. From childhood, my most memorable idea about the city has been its claim to be the biggest city in the world in terms of land area.

I visited Davao City a number of times in the early 90’s in the course of assisting a German-funded NGO establish income-earning enterprises like rice mills and coco oil mills for cooperatives in Davao del Norte, the province where Davao City is situated. In March this year, I revisited Davao City as a member of a team of consultants and experts tasked to document the achievements in clustering small businesses in specific regions of the country. Clustering is a century-old strategy of collaboration by Western firms to raise the competitiveness of small industries clustered by virtue of location, common marketing problems or availability of labor. But clustering in the Philippines is another story altogether.

Almost 15 years of absence is a long time and the first surprise of my recent visit to Davao City was the vastly improved international airport. It is now a two-story building with the first floor for arrival and the second floor for departure. Only porters and probably big-name politicians and businessmen were allowed in the baggage retrieval area, which was clean and cool. Greeters and well-wishers stood outside along the curb of the airport’s spacious parking area.

I don’t remember the main highway to the city to be very near the airport, but a few minutes after climbing inside a rented van, we were cruising a wide boulevard headed straight downtown. It was a four-lane cemented highway both sides and the only thing that bothered me was the presence of smoke-belching motor tricycles and a few bicycles headed up the wrong way on the airport road. (Come to think of it, you put up with the same insanity on the main road to or from NAIA, duh?).

On a major intersection before reaching the city, a two-lane underpass similar to Lagusnilad in front of Manila City Hall separates city-bound vehicles from those headed to the outskirts of Davao. We would pass by the same intersection several times during our visit in heavy as well as lean traffic.

Yes, we do have bananas

Our team went straight to an industry cluster meeting organized by the regional Trade and Industry office. Tapsilog from locally-made tapa and brewed local coffee were served. A team consultant remarked that the beef could not have come from locally-bred cattle because Mindanao has no animal fattening industry to speak of, aside from backyard raising. In fact, he claimed that Purefoods, a San Miguel Corp. subsidiary, mo longer produces corned beef in its Argentina product line and the Filipino hotdog firm merely packages in cans corned beef imported from Argentina for the domestic market. Purefoods has lost its production competitiveness against competing brands from the U.S. and South America.

Presentations during the cluster meeting, however, offered signs of hope for new export-oriented products particularly in the banana industry. Sagrex International, a machinery importer, has clustered with banana plantations for the processing and export of frozen bananas to Korea, and production of banana fries, an alternative to fried potatoes, for the local market. Four Seasons Inc., a three-year old firm, has developed banana chips from the Cavendish variety for export to Japan. A woodworking company is moving from the production of paletas to the manufacture of knocked-down wooden furniture that will compete locally with imports from Malaysia and Korea.

From the cluster meeting, we just dumped our travel bags at the hotel, took a quick lunch then on to our first visit to a cluster showcase. It was a medium-scale banana chip making enterprise that contracted about 80 manual workers year-round. The couple who manages the firm also runs a coco charcoal briquette making project.

After a tour of the production plant, the lead consultant remarked that the firm has combined two conflicting businesses on the same premises. The briquette enterprise is counter to the strict demands for cleanliness of a food enterprise like banana chip making. He also observed that quality control workers used their bare hands to make random checks on the size of the banana chips. While we toured the plant in boots, smocks and face masks, only a few workers in the hot processing area wore face masks. To think that the firm is applying for HACCP quality certification, a tough product quality standard for exporters, for entry into the US and European markets.

Sagrex International is a twenty-year old company with modern assets and machineries for the production of frozen bananas. We were treated to fried bananas which came from a batch kept frozen for two weeks already. They tasted just as crisp as fried bananas from a fresh bunch. Ketchup rather than sugar was the preferred dip for the fried bananas! During the demonstration tour of the freezing facility, the owner showed technical competence in operating an industrial plant. He actually designed and fabricated the cutting and packaging equipment for the banana product.

Tuna eyeballs for dinner

The Sagrex proprietor took our team to Marina restaurant for dinner. The dining place offers a wide range of preparations on tuna. Our banquet consisted of the chef’s main dish for the day, adobong tuna eyeballs, along with smoked panga, fried belly and pinakbet with tuna strips. The tuna eyeballs were crisp and juicy and dipped in vinegar with siling labuyo, went well with cold beer.

On the way back to the hotel, we got stuck in slow-moving traffic. Nobody of us knew but it turned out to be Araw ng Dabaw. Major events of the day-long celebration was taking place with an all-night party jam at the plaza featuring local bands on the main stage supporting Bamboo and Rivermaya on the bill.

Earlier in the day, the traditional parade made the rounds of the city. In celebration of the city’s 70th year of founding, the spectacle featured 300 groups, each presenting in diorama major segments of Davao’s history. The highlight of the festivities was the crowning of Mutya ng Davao.

Nearing the hotel, our car turned into short busy street with Korean restaurants lining up both sides of the road. One of the team consultants blurted out that Davao is also home to a large Korean community. He finds it sad because he has heard stories about Korean businesses settling down on their own, without any connection to the local Filipino community. Everything from raw materials to management tends to be an all-Korean venture with only insignificant support services from Filipino maids, drivers or waitresses.

We spent the night at the Bagobo Hotel, a mid-priced three-star hotel on a side street off Duterte St., a main thoroughfare. The beddings were clean, there was hot and cold tap water and 24-hour cable TV with no more than 25 channels, including the major TV channels. A pair of towel and soap was available to the guest.

The following morning, the free local paper at the hotel carried this headline: “NPA attacks police outpost, three dead.” Another story was that Congressman Floirendo has decided to run for governor in the upcoming elections in May “to repay the people of Davao for their support of (his) family’s public and business careers.”

Marang: sweet as atis and kaimito

I was having my second cup of coffee at Bagobo’s small café when an old friend from way back turned up. Ricky de Ungria, celebrated poet and present chancellor of UP Mindanao, was chairing the monthly gathering of Davao writer’s group that morning at the hotel. Ricky has completed his tour of duty as UP chancellor the day before and was glad to be just another professor at the University.

Ten a.m., Saturday and our cluster team rushed to check out of the hotel, then on to the airport for the 1 pm flight back to Manila. On the way to the airport, we sampled fresh durian and marang on a side road fruit stand. It was only then that I relished good-tasting marang comparable to sweet atis and starapple.

The local DTI office gave a sumptuous lunch for our team in a Chinese restaurant near the airport. It was a hearty treat with sweet and sour lapu-lapu and Chinese pao killing the palate in heavenly delight.

We entered Davao airport just before the call for last passengers bound for Manila was made. On the way up the escalator to the departure area, I had the opportunity to see Davao airport laid out like the lobby of a five-star hotel. The departure lounge was even more impressive (compared to my 15-year old memory of a crowded, hot waiting area) but I had no chance to savor the ambience. It was a slow dash to the plane at five minutes to final boarding.

Still, the plane stayed on the ground for another twenty minutes. The rumor that got around was that we were waiting out for some local big-time politico or actor Richard Gutierrez, a top attraction at the previous day’s Araw ng Dabaw, to get on board. Whatever, the airline once more lived out its legendary plane-always-late repute.