Dagupan resumes river tour to boost pandemic-hit tourism

RIVER LOVERS Members of the City Children and Youth Choir in Dagupan City release fingerlings into the Dawel River during the Pisasalamat ed Ilog (river thanksgiving) on Tuesday as part of the celebration of Bangus (milkfish) Festival. Dagupeños cherish their rivers which are sources of livelihood for local families. —WILLIE LOMIBAO

DAGUPAN CITY, Pangasinan, Philippines — The city government on Tuesday resumed its 45-minute riverboat tour around the mangrove-lined Dawel-Watac River here after it was suspended for two years due to the pandemic.

Mayor Brian Lim led the cruise’s reopening during the Pisasalamat ed Ilog (river thanksgiving), which is part of the ongoing Bangus (milkfish) Festival, the annual summer spectacle that was formally relaunched on Monday.

At least 4,500 fingerlings of “siganid” (“malaga”), “bangus” and pompano were released into the river to replenish the source of livelihood among villagers.

Seven river systems crisscross the city and these are major sources of livelihood among many Dagupeños.

“Rivers are God’s gifts to us. If you look at the island barangays, the main livelihood is in the rivers. So … once a year, we will honor the rivers,” Lim said during the occasion.

While the festival was suspended in 2021, the city government and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources also released fingerlings into the rivers.

According to Lim, the river cruise was revived in anticipation of tourists who are coming to the city to watch festival activities and taste Dagupan’s popular bangus.

But Lim said they were still deciding whether to collect fees for the river tour.

The cruise takes visitors around unexplored corners of the city’s rivers aboard thatch-roofed boats that can carry as many as 30 people.

Pride

The river cruise, he said, aims to highlight the city’s “No. 1 product and pride” — the bangus — with the boats having pit stops along ponds where the national fish is cultured.

The river cruise was launched in 2012 by Lim’s father, the late Mayor Benjamin Lim, as part of the Bangus Festival, and was a top tourist attraction until it was stopped in 2016 by the next city administration.

Lim said the plan was to develop activities like fish feeding, allowing families to get off the boats to feed fish in the ponds, and to put up a restaurant and a souvenir center, massage and spa clinics amid mangrove patches, and a zip line across the river.

Local officials opened this year’s Bangus Festival with a switching-on ceremony for the festival lights and the unveiling of the “Kalutan ed Dalan” (street grilling) marker on the corner of AB Fernandez Street.

The marker refers to the “End Point of Kalutan ed Dalan” and honors the people of Dagupan for setting the world’s longest barbecue, as recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records on May 3, 2013.

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