Punta Cruz: “Top tourist attractionâ€
By FRED C. FUERTES
The Punta Cruz Watchtower, built by the Augistinian-Recollect friar 1,211 years ago, symbolize this historical, history-rich coastal municipality.
Historians and researchers say that the tower and the wooden cross beside the fortress were erected almost the same year.
Constructed out of stones and patterned after Spanish fortresses, the towering structure served as a watching place to warn inhabitants around the area when Moro marauders from Mindanao and Sulo who hit our shores to kidnap women and innocent children to be sold out as slaves back home.
Folklore, handed down from generation to generation, narrates that a group of fishermen were on their fishing expedition along Maribojoc Bay. Wonder of wonders, their fish net yielded a unique catch – a big, straight piece of wood.
They dragged the wood ashore, formed it into a cross, for they were already Christians at the time, and erected the same on the exact spot where it now proudly stands.
The cross, folklore reveals, served as the protector of the area’s populace.
When Moro buccaneers let go of their evil expedition, the inhabitants, warned earlier by the watcher atop the historical tower, implored the protection of the Holy Cross.
When the merciless invaders sailed over Maribojoc Bay, the sea turned into a large tract of land. Having no other alternative, the raiding pirates disembarked from their sea vessels and went on their destination.
At this juncture, just like the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea, flooding waters mapped out the philandering pirates from the face of the earth.
Although perennially promoted by previous administrations, Punta Cruz attracted a handful of local and foreign tourists.
When Mayor Leoncio Evasco, Jr. came into the scene having been catapulted to the mayoralty throne by the Maribojocanons long hungry for a change, the former Davao City executive and a trusted ally of the dynamic city top brass – Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, created the Municipal Ecological, Heritage, Tourism, Culture and the Arts Council (MEHTCAC).
Evasco tapped the expertise of the Ramasola siblings headed by top Boholano painter and artist Ric Ramasola, and other local talents including musician-priest Fr. Oriel “Witex†Echavia.
Paul Gelig, a successful Manila-based businessman who is on import-export business and reportedly operating a chain of bakery shops in the capital city, and a close peer of the former priest during their seminary days, was designated as Maribojoc’s economic adviser.
Gelig then former a corporation along with his close kins and the Watchtower Corporation, Inc. was born which eventually won a bidding to operate a souvenir shop and later, a coffee shop to cater to tourists’ culinary needs as well as souvenir items they can bring home.
The Bohol Alliance of Non-Government Organizations (BANGON) later implemented a 20-month project entitled “Building Livelihoods and Enterprises of Sustainable Ecotourism Development in Maribojoc, more locally known as Blessed-Maribojoc.
An essential element of this project, which is funded by the Philippines-Australia Community Assistance Program of the Australian Agency for International Development (PACAP-AusAID), is the formation of the Punta Cruz Cultural Collective, a community-based theater composed of 20 members (students and out-of school youths of Punta Cruz, Guiwanon, Lagtangon, Bood, Dipatlong, Poblacion and sition San Juan in the port area) who successfully passed the audition conducted by Boholano movie director Gardy Labad last August a year ago.
After two presentations entitled “Ang Tawag sa Bantayan2, the dance-drama group caught the admiration tourism officials. The dance ensemble was invited as Bohol’s representative to the Creativity Summit of KALAHI Cultural Caregiving focused on the UN Millenium Development Goals through World Theatre Week Workshops/ Showcases/Conference last March 24-29, this year.
The talented young Maribojocanons made waves in the capital city March 28 when they entertained audience at Clamshell I, Intramuros, Manila. The now nationally famous dance group rendered the intermission number in yesterday’s historic event.
The Punta Cultural Collective is Maribojoc’s version of the internationally famous Loboc Children’s Choir and the Loboc Youth Ambassadors Band.
With the declaration yesterday of the Punta Cruz Watchtower Complex by the National Historical Institute as a Historical Landmark and installation thereat of a Historical Marker, the beautiful and historical watchtower and its environs can now be at par with other tourist destinations of the island-province.
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