| This is a City
that goes with so many titles and so many names. Blessed with
a fertile land and a kind weather (it is outside the "typhoon belt"), Davao City's foremost claim to fame is agricultural. It is called the
"Orchid Capital" and the "Fruit Basket" of the Philippines; and from its vast plantations and busy ports, the large, the flawless
, yellow skin bananas are shipped to various continents. To emphasize its gratitude to its generous land, the city's most colorful event
that take place on August called the "Kadayawan (which means both "superior" and "beautiful") Festival", required that 80 percent of the
materials used for participating floats must consist of flowers, fruits, and vegetables.
Davao City is also where you will find the country's tallest peak, Mount Apo, with an elevation of 9,691 feet. Souring in the forest
tops and air streams of this mountain full of fables and legends, is the mighty Philippine eagle (phitecophaga jefferyi)-perhaps the
biggest eagle in the world basing on its wide wingspan of seven feet. This majestic eagle that was threatened with extinction at one time ,
has been fortunately saved with the establishment of the Philippine Eagle Center in 1987 which has successfully bred 14 eaglets in captivity.
Thriving in the moistness of the thick tropical rain forest of Mount Apo are beautiful orchids, the rarest and most prized of all is
called the "waling waling" (vanda sanderiana). Unique in this region are delicious, exotic fruits like durian, pomelo, and mangosteen. If
you are searching for ways to describe the Dabawenyos, as the local people are called, like the durian they can be tough and thorny; and
at the same time, soft and luscious. Like its favorite emblem, the eagle, they have souring ambitions backed with a fierceness and fortitude
to make them happen.
Like the State of Texas, this city talks big. It is the largest city in the world, with a land area of 2,400 square kilometers
or 244,000 hectares. For comparison, Cebu City has 280 square kilometers; Hongkong has 1,103, while New York has 1,214 and Paris (city center)
has only 105. Davao City has perhaps the single largest banana plantation in the world, Tadeco, with an area of 11,000 hectars.
Even its disco called the Harana, has a playground so large it includes an open-air basketball court.
Mindanao, which Davao is part of, is considered the "Promised Land" of the Philippines with its rich, largely untapped natural resources.
It has a lush soil where practically everything grows so easily, a mild tropical climate spared by typhoons, timber, precious minerals like gold,
and seas that abound with highly prized species like tuna (so plentiful that an old joke quips that their fish die of old age rather than being caught).
And among the ceties in Mindanao, it is Davao that is leading the way in tapping the island's potentials, including tourism.
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