WHILE explaining the wisdom of providing a spacious tree-lined avenue strictly for promenades and shoppers only — which means no motor vehicles will be allowed along that strip — as one of the distinct features of the proposed Naga Metro Pacific Business Park along a 12-hectare expanse on Almeda By-Pass Highway, world-renowned architect and urban planner Jun Palafox revealed that according to surveys, people’s number one favorite past time is watching other people. That’s why, the internationally-recognized development planner said, there is always a need to provide a clear space where people converge, strut, loiter to and fro, or simply walk the time away amidst a refreshing and matching backdrop of, say, boutiques, shops and cafés. The architect, with a naughty grin on his face, paused to deliver the punch line by adding that the second favorite past time is, especially among women, “to be looked at!”

During that same occasion, Alfred Xerez-Burgos, Jr., president and CEO of Landco Pacific Corp. that will develop Bicol’s biggest business park-cum-shopping mall in Naga City, said that his company is celebrating its 15 years of vision, excellence and innovation, evolving from a consultancy service to a maverick real estate developer. Rightly so, he said the company is lining up a portfolio of 15 development projects throughout the country that include Naga City.

Among its prime projects are the Leisure Farm in Lemery, Batangas that features a traditional country-style village fair with a Village Store and a Village Plaza. Recently, it developed the Lakewood Golf and Country Club in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija as the next must-visit golf destination in the Philippines, after completing similar world-class gold courses in Tagaytay, Laguna, Subic and Baguio. The company is dubbed as a maverick for putting up of “industry firsts” in places where other real estate companies would not dare venturing into, such as the shopping malls in Legazpi, Lucena, and Cabanatuan while aggressively pursuing its first homes category projects in Metro Manila. It is also pioneering a seaside mixed-use development on a 92-hectare property in Calatagan, Batangas as a beach haven with panoramic vistas of South China Sea and Pagaspas Bay. On its drawing board is a picturesque Punta Fuego Marina in Batangas destined to become a first-class sailing hub south of Manila.

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On May14-21, or barely a month from now, Naga City will be the center of another historico-religious festival that is expected to draw tourists, visitors and vacationing devotees and pilgrims as it unfolds the much-awaited Summer Peñafrancia Festival, a festive collaboration of the Archdiocese of Caceres, the Our Lady of Peñafrancia Pilgrimage Foundation, Inc, and the Naga City Government.

Fr. Dan Imperial poetically refers to the forthcoming celebration as “a gentle breeze in the heat of summer” as it hopes to provide an expanded Peñafrancia festivities in the merry month of May, particularly for those who cannot attend the Peñafrancia fiesta in September nor can join its traditional mainstream activities, like the fluvial procession which traditionally forbids women and children from boarding the pagoda while on cruise along the storied Naga River.

Archbishop Leonardo Z. Legaspi, during the summer festival’s formal launching before members of the local media stressed that the “pagoda” or Ina’s large barge during the fluvial procession, and the famous Traslacion are not meant to be exclusive for men. Monsignor Legaspi said it is silly, nay baseless, to say that the pagoda is reserved for our Beloved Ina alone, so that no other beautiful woman should be there to attract attention other than She.

One plausible reason why women were disallowed in those main Peñafrancia activities is the bone-tearing rowdiness of those rites during the September fiesta that women can’t bear.

In the May Peñafrancia, Msgr. Romulo A. Vergara, rector of the Peñafrancia Besilica and co-chair of the summer festival, assured that women, children, and the differently-abled persons will take part in the street procession as well as in the fluvial procession on board the pagoda.

A “carrosa” for Ina will be constructed for the street procession (traslacion) so that women and children can experience the voyadores’ role with relative ease, minus the brawny pull by their male counterpart.

One of the distinct features of the summer Peñafrancia festival will be the Grand Santacruzan that we normally witness in May. The Santacruzan will take its truly religious significance with the commemoration of the traditional devotion through the re-enactment of the mystery of the “Finding of the Cross” by the Virgin Mary. This will take place before the grand procession of Reyna Elenas from different parishes of the Archdiocese of Caceres and the Prelature of Libmanan, the latter comprising the first district towns of Libmanan, Ragay, Del Gallego, Lupi, Sipocot, and Pamplona. The procession will commence, after the coronation, from the Naga Metropolitan Cathedral to Plaza Quezon, in the heart of the city, where there will be brief program, socials and street party among various parishes and participating LGUs, guests, and visitors.