June has always been the month for the Dragon Boat Festival in Macau, and this year is no exception as organizers Macau Sport Development Board, Macau East Asian Games Organizing Committee and the Macau China Dragon Boat Association get ready to commemorate this ancient custom.
Training furiously the past months for the women’s open is the 20-woman Philippine National Dragon Boat Team. According to team leader Geraldine "Dina" Bernardo, her oarswomen are in excellent shape and are primed for topping, hopefully, the competition, or if not, for grappling on even terms with them.
The only problem darkening this bright prospect is financial, as the team’s trip to Macau is self-financed, in the main. The 27-member delegation is short of funds and still casting about for generous sponsors. The problem is aggravated by the fact that there is not a wide awareness locally that Dragon Boat racing is an international sport, which though Asian in origin, exists all over the world in such countries as US, Canada, Australia, England, etc., and that is very much alive and well in the Philippines.
Actually, there are about 20 private dragon boat clubs in the Philippines, affiliated with the Amateur Rowing Association of the Philippines (ARAP). Their umbrella organization is the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation, organized in February 2003 to give autonomy to the clubs. It was in 1987 that a Philippine team first participated in the SEA Games in Jakarta, besting more experienced teams. The national men’s team was organized in 1991, the women’s team in 1997. The former has won several medals in successive SEA Games and other Asian boat races, while the women notably won the silver in the 2003 Asia Pacific Cities Invitational Races held in Macau.
Dragon Boat Racing, explains Bernardo, differs from sculling, better known as Olympic racing, where rowers row backwards and have a coxswain barking orders. Oarsmen row facing forward to the beat of a drum. The boat is long and narrow, with a dragon head and semblance of tail, hence the name Dragon Boat.
Meanwhile, Macau and the Dragon Boat festival co-organizer Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau are gearing up for the event, which attracts large holiday crowds and tourists to the Nam Van Lakes where the races are held. The races themselves are guaranteed to be exciting, colorful and noisy, with large cash prizes, as well as medals, trophies and silk banners to be awarded to the winners, the Philippines’ (and Dina Bernardo’s) 20 oarswomen hopefully among them.
For inquiries on tour packages to Macau, contact your favorite travel agent or call the Macau Government Tourism Office-Philippines at tel. No. 812-2505/813-0947. For inquiries about the Dragon Boat National Teams, call Dina Bernardo at mobile phone (0917) 572-7294 or tel. No. 839-0184 or log on to www.pdbf.com.