Kris visits Oslob’s whale sharks

IT isn’t everyday that someone famous visits barangay Tan-awan in Oslob town, southern Cebu.

So when residents heard that TV host and presidential sister Kris Aquino visited their barangay, they stood in line at a docking area holding cardboard sheets with the words “Welcome Kris Aquino” printed on them.

Kris was in Oslob yesterday as part of her Cebu itinerary of her TV show “KrisTV”, aired in ABS-CBN.

Oslob Mayor Ronald Guaren told Cebu Daily News that he and municipal tourism officer Elizabeth Tabasa accompanied Kris during her stay, which included seeing the now famous whale sharks of Oslob that come to feed on krill near the shore.

Kris and her TV crew boarded a paddle boat for an encounter with the whale sharks or “tuki” as locals calls them.

“She was amazed. She said Oslob is luck because this is becoming a tourist attraction in the Pilipinas,” the mayor said.

Kris and her crew stayed for an hour and then returned to Cebu City.

Some residents carried cardboard greeting cards at the docking area a distance from the hut where Kris interviewed the mayor.

On her Instagram online account, Kris posted photos of her visit to the store of Rico’s spicy lechon (roasted pig) in Banilad, Cebu City and how she tried an underwater “sea walk” offered by a resort in Mactan Island.

The Oslob municipal government recently finalized guidelines on whale shark watching and declared the waters off barangay Tan-awan a Marine Protected Area (MPA) since it is a whale shark habitat.

The technical working group said the MPA covers two perpendicular lines from the coast line (low tide) extending 100 meters to the sea.

The third line runs parallel to the coast for 500 meters in barangay Tan-awan and the fourth line shall be the coastline (high tide).

The boundaries of the MPA will be marked by buoys. Mayor Guaren said the guidelines were made a part of the existing municipal ordinance regulating whale shark tourism Correspondent Carmel Loise Matus