By HENRY EMPEÑO |

IBA, Zambales — Zambales tourism is taking a backseat in this time of the new coronavirus.

Last Tuesday, Zambales governor Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. announced the cancellation of the iconic Zambales Mango Festival, which takes pride in the locality’s claim to fame as the producer of the world’s sweetest mangoes.

Two days later, Castillejos town mayor Eleanor Dominguez followed suit with her own declaration: the Suman Ibos Festival for this year, as well as other fiesta programs and events, has been cancelled due to the Covid-19 threat.

Zambales, which hosts the Subic Bay Freeport and a kilometric stretch of shoreline with some of the best beaches north of Manila, is a popular tourist destination especially during summer. The weeklong Mango Festival, which is an annual event set in early April, has provided the province with much tourist traffic and media exposure since its inception in 1999.

But Ebdane said the health and safety of the community comes first before eminence or economics.

“It’s sad that the tourism industry will be most impacted by the outbreak, with the food service businesses here being hit the most, but we have to set priorities,” Ebdane said in a phone interview.

“And it’s not only the Mango Festival that’s going to be affected. I’ve already cancelled our hosting of the CLRAA (Central Luzon Regional Athletic Association) competitions—although Zambales is a favorite venue because of our excellent sports facilities here—and I’m also thinking of suspending town fiestas and other public events that attract a large number of people,” he added.

Ebdane said the provincial government is taking the Covid-19 threat seriously, although the province had so far recorded only two persons under investigation (PUI), and that both had been sent home since.

“Containment is the key. We implement measures to prevent contamination from covering a larger area,” he said.

Ebdane said they have come up with a three-tiered strategy to prevent Covid-19 contagion in Zambales, with health safety measures strictly enforced down to the barangay level.

He added that the provincial government has also designated dedicated medical staff and equipment for the ongoing health emergency, including a separate isolation facility in Botolan town to spare the provincial hospital in Iba from having to admit Covid-related cases.

But a major strategy in preventing any outbreak is the suspension of mass gatherings like fiestas and sports events, he pointed out.

Ebdane said that he will also order all business establishments in the province to implement safety protocols to help government efforts in curbing the pandemic.

In Castillejos town, Mayor Dominguez has issued Executive Order No. 11 on March 12 to cancel the Suman Ibos Festival 2020, as well as other planned local government activities with the potential to expose local residents to infection.

She said the festival is expected to draw a huge number of participants from the town’s 14 barangays and generate a heavy influx of visitors and guests, but it had to give way “to ensure the health, safety and well-being of the constituency.”

The cancellation of major public events, she said, extended to private sector activities, except for school commemorative programs that will still be subject to compliance with Department of Health guidelines.

With the new coronavirus threat, several other community fiestas and popular tourism events in Zambales may go the way of the Mango Festival that would skip its awaited staging this year. These include the Paynauen ‘Duyan’ Festival of Iba town on April 25-May 1; Olongapo City’s Sibit-Sibit Summer Festival in the last week of April; and Botolan’s Domorokdok Festival on May 3-4.

In the Subic Bay Freeport, events with large public participation that were scheduled this month in facilities owned by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority have all been cancelled, except for religious celebrations leading up to the Holy Week in April. — With CARRIE T. ASPA

 

TOP PHOTO: Zambales Mango Festival street dancers will be sorely missed with the cancellation of the popular annual tourism fare this year