Marikina’s Guinness bid receives big boost

Marikina Mayor Ma. Lourdes Fernando and the Marikina Colossal Footwear Team personally received materials for shoemaking yesterday from two big corporations, boosting the city’s bid to make the world’s biggest pair of shoes.

Willie Chua, vice president for marketing of the Valenzuela Tannery Corp. turned over 800 square feet of brush-off leather, shank boards and leather insoles enough for the five-meter pair of shoes for men. Valentin Lorenzo, president of Source Rite International Inc. also turned over 50 pails (15 kilos each) of adhesives.

During the turnover, Fernando expressed her profound gratitude for the assistance.

"These associations and companies believe in the creativity of our sapateros, so therefore, we should make it a point that if the shoe fits, it must be Marikina-made," she said.

Marikina, known as the "Shoe Capital of the Philippines" will formally present to the world the five-meter pair of shoes as the city’s official entry to the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest shoe category on Oct. 21.

To date, the Marikina team is ready for the stitching of the upper portion of the shoes. Members have 33 days left to finish the city’s bid to surpass the current shoe record of 3.12 meters made by Zahit Okurlar of Konya, Turkey.

The Marikina team is composed of Noel Box, Daniel Cotter, Floriniode Asis, Romell Villareal, Emmanuel Samson, Arthur Rivera, Armando Javier, Norman Arada and Cesar Paz.

Rivera, the team spokesman, said they are strictly following the Guinness guidelines, including documentation.

"This attempt to make the largest pair of shoes is a product of teamwork in line with Mayor Fernando’s motto – hard work, work well, work together. The scaling, even the type of needle for stitching and the cut to be used needs approval from all the team members," he said.

The largest pair of shoes is one of the highlights of the 1st Sapatero Festival to be launched on Oct. 15, 2002.

Major events include the launching of the commemorative sapatero plates and city postal stamps and the Tiangge sa Ilog.

Also included are the following: search for the oldest shoe manufacturer, shoe maker and oldest pair of shoes, a food festival, shoe fluvial parade, Sapatero Olympics, shoe caravans in Metro universities, shoe design contest, pulsating rondalla and drum and bugle corps exhibitions, dog shows and the tap dance contests. There will also be kite flying contests, a Halloween parade and nightly school variety shows.