This is not in defense of the Suroy-Suroy program of the Cebu Provincial Government because I am sure Governor Gwen Garcia or any of her spokesmen can very well defend this tourism initiative.
Rather, this is in disagreement with those like former Cebu City mayor and now Rep. Tomas Osmeña who tend to measure the benefits of any initiative in terms of the cost of the undertaking and the financial gain to be derived therefrom.
To me, the Suroy-Suroy promotes Cebu in a way that has never been done before. Aside from advertising, which is the conventional approach, the Suroy-Suroy actually takes tourists directly and physically to different places of interest in Cebu.
In fact, the Suroy-Suroy is just one aspect in the all-out promotion of Cebu by Capitol. The provincial government also has a cable television station called Sugbo TV which I find very useful and informative. It is on Channel 14 at Skycable.
Aside from the usual news channels, I have always been drawn toward information channels such as National Geographic, Discovery, and Living Asia. But these channels are dedicated to facts and information that have nothing to do with Cebu.
Having the Sugbo TV completes my sphere of interest in information in addition to news. And while Capitol does use Sugbo TV to also promote its interests, like letting people know what the provincial government is doing, it is a small price to pay for all the info you can get.
In fact, I would invite Osmeña to watch Sugbo TV to broaden his horizons as a Cebuano. He may be the grandson of a great Cebuano and has been mayor of Cebu City for many years, but I bet there are many things about Cebu that he does not know but will discover on Sugbo TV.
I myself used to take pride in my being a true-blue Cebuano. But until I started watching Sugbo TV, I did not realize that all I really had was the years of being one. I discovered that having lived your entire life in Cebu does not guarantee expertise in your own home province.
The many feature stories on Sugbo TV about the many places in Cebu two chartered and seven component cities (or four, depending on the final ruling on the cityhood of three) and 44 municipalities (or 47, again depending on the above) opened many vistas truly unknown to me.
I have been to Santander in the southern tip of Cebu and as far north as Daanbantayan, but I have never really spent time in almost any of the places that I just breeze by in my occasional trips.
But the feature stories on Sugbo TV, about the towns and cities, the places of interest in them, and the cultures and historical facts that define their people provide truly invaluable insights to what it is like to be Cebuano.
It never fails, that each time I watch these types of segments on Sugbo TV, I cannot help but feel a strange welling up inside, a surge of emotion that I cannot truly describe except that it must have something to do with this pride I have in being a Cebuano.
Not all of us can be tourists even if we want to. There are a lot of Cebuanos out there who, for one reason or another, but mainly because of the inability to afford it, can never become tourists and will thus forever remain strangers in their homeland.
If for this alone, I believe Sugbo TV provides the means to visit other places in Cebu many Cebuanos can never go to, through the magic of television. They will get to see the beauty of their province, the energies of its people, the food they eat, the products they produce.
The knowledge you derive, the feeling of belonging and rediscovery, the sense of pride and oneness these are more than can be quantified by any financial gain most people expect from any undertaking.
Governor Garcia should institutionalize Sugbo TV because it is doing a very good job of not just promoting Cebu but opening it up for discovery and learning, not just for others but, more importantly for Cebuanos themselves. Sugbo TV is one thing I must truly thank Garcia for.