By Lemuel Pagliawan
Can-Avid E.Samar–The municipality of Can-avid in the province of Eastern Samar is taking an exciting ride with this year’s Christmas season to also vigorously promote its tourism potential to possible visitors.
Last December 18, Monday, the local government unit spearheaded the 6th Annual Giant Lantern Festival which showcased the ligthing ceremony of about 14 giant lighted lanterns held at the town’s great park plaza. The lanterns were entries from the overall 28 barangays of the town.
Municipal Mayor Vilma Aseo Germino pointed out that this event mainly aims to put their town in the spotlight so that local residents as well as visitors from other places would visit the town proper during Christmas occassion to witness the glimmering varied lights of the giant lanterns.
“This initiative is geared towards promoting tourism in our town by attracting visitors to come to our town and thereby see for themselves what we have to offer,” Germino said.
The local chief executive expressed optimism that through activities like this could propel local economy and consequently help the town’s income which also redowns to more development projects in the future.
“If we have tourists or visitors, our local vendors or business establishments will earn some amount, thus, business activity here will become vibrant which indicates progress once sustained,” Germino added.
She said more economically beneficial activities in the succeeding years are to be launched in Can-avid as she envisions to make her town a tourism hib someday by optimizing the use of locally available resources.
She said accessibility around the town’s mountain villages already saw significant improvement through the national government’s intervention such as the NTF-ELCAC projects as the town was among those indentified as former insurgency infested areas in the province.
About 5000 people witnessed the town’s giant lantern festival last Monday. Some onlookers were from other neighboring towns like Dolores and Taft and even from Leyte province. This was coincided by the Christmas Party of the local government unit of Can-avid.
Meantime, prizes for the winning giant lantern festival contest were provided by 4Ps Partylist Cong. Marcelino Libanan of P200,000 for first prize; P150,000 for second prize from Eastern Samar Gov. Ben P. Evardone; and P100,000 for third prize from Ms. Marie Villarino, a local contractor. A Consolation prize of P10,000 for each participant was also given to non-winners.
The lanterns were made of locally sourced recyclable or reusable materials and installed with electrical connections for ligthing purposes.
Germino expressed gratitude to all who witnessed and supported the event which was highly anticipated by local residents. She said more activities of this sort maybe organized in the coming years directed towards uplifting the tourism potential of the coastal town of Can-avid.