COVER STORY
Property consultancy firm PRIME Philippines, in a study released last week on the impact of the Mindanaowide martial law on Davao City, also indicates a growth in the hotel sector after the initial shock in the first couple of months last year.
“We believe as consultants that ML ( martial law) is healthy for Davao City because if there is no ML, the uncertainty will now be on security, which is a bigger problem... ML was the solution to prevent real estate values from dropping,” Prime Philippine founder and Chief Executive Officer Jet Yu told media in a briefing.
The PRIME report also projects a further boom in the hotel sector, pointing to the MICE promotion program.
“They come as tourists, then eventually they become investors, our economy grows, then we become truly a world- class destination,” Mr. Go said in a short speech at the party, where he also made a jesting reference to the President’s uncharacteristic and unexpectedly short, serious State of the Nation Address two days earlier.
Davao will forever be in political chronicles as the home of the country’s first president from Mindanao.
Mr. Duterte, for good and bad, has earned a permanent special spot in the local museum and has become an inescapable conversation piece with people visiting the city.
He is, for now, the city’s most famous child.
And perhaps, even long after he has taken a bow from the public stage, will be as synonymous to Davao as the beautiful waling-waling, the pungent durian, and the mighty Philippine eagle. —