A new segment was introduced by Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna in her ‘Capital Report’.
Dubbed, ‘Inside Manila,’ the said segment will feature heads of various departments, bureaus and offices who will give the viewers an insight into the goings-on in the city under his or her office.
“Ito po ang aming paraan para ma-interview natin ang iba’t-ibang departamento sa ating pamahalaan at maibahagi po nila sa ating mga kababayan ang mga kaganapan sa ating lungsod na me koneksyon sa kanilang departamento,” Lacuna explained.
First to have been featured was Department of tourism, culture and the arts of Manila (DTCAM) Director Charlie ‘Mama Cha’ Dungo, whose office, according to the mayor, had the most number of activities and awards in the past years.
For his part, Dungo credited Lacuna for the elevation of the DTCAM from a simple bureau to a department thus enabling it to develop more programs and projects.
Dungo said that as Presiding Officer of the Manila Council during the time of Mayor Isko Moreno, Lacuna aided in turning the then tourism bureau to a department.
Owing to this, Dungo said the DTCAM became no longer only dependent on the office of the mayor for funding and was thus able to move on its own, making policy-making and the formulation of programs and promotion efforts for the tourism of the city a lot faster.
He added that not all cities have tourism departments as mostly, they are only offices under the mayor’s office and some do not even have tourism officers in plantilla.
According to the mayor, the two and a half years of lockdown due to the pandemic was used by the city as an opportunity to look for sites that can be promoted for tourism.
“Napakagaganda ng mga programa at proyekto na laging inilalatag ng DTCAM and this is one way to prepare the city to promote other spots apart from the usual,” the mayor said.
Noting that while Luneta and Intramuros are in Manila, they fall under the national government and thus, the city is so limited in terms of what it can do for the said tourist spots.
The DTCAM has come up with a plan to promote eight tourist hubs, which falls under the comprehensive tourism and development plan that was crafted by the department and integrated to the master plan of the city.
These hubs include the Tondo which covers the Tondo Church, Divisoria business district, the famous street foods and the story of Andres Bonifacio and the Sampaloc area where Univesrity of Santo Tomas (UST), the oldest Catholic university, is located.
