By Charissa Luci-Atienza
The House committee on tourism has approved a bill seeking to declare Camarines Sur the country’s “Wakeboarding Capital.”
(MANILA BULLETIN)
The House panel, presided by vice chairperson Bohol 1st district Rep. Edgar Chatto, passed House Bill No. 3974, principally authored by Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte
“The bill intends to ride the growth of wakeboarding and watersports in the country, especially in Camarines Sur, and help promote tourism in the province by declaring Camarines Sur the Wakeboarding Capital of the Philippines,” Villafuerte said.
He noted that tourist arrivals in Camarines Sur grew 25-fold, from 58,000 in 2005 to 2.5 million in 2010 and in 2012 “due largely to the growing recognition of Camarines Sur as a major sports and adventure tourism destination, with the Camarines Sur Watersports Complex (CWC) at the helm of such growth and cognizance.”
Dubbed the “best wakeboard park in the world,” the six-hectare CWC is the first world-class watersports complex in the Philippines and in Asia, he noted.
“The CWC has been credited as the main pull for tourists to the province and the main reason for it topping the Department of Tourism’s tourist arrivals list year after year, citing three million arrivals in 2013,” Villafuerte said.
The CWC is situated within the Provincial Capitol Complex in Pili, Camarines Sur, the first and only local government unit-operated Tourism Economic Zone pursuant to Republic Act No. 7916.
Villafuerte said the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) once cited the tourism record of CWC as a “breakthrough in Bicol tourism industry.”
“CWC in Camarines Sur pioneered several world-renowned championship events and tournaments in wakeboarding, being the first to host the annual WWA Wake Park World Championships in 2008, which it also hosted in 2009, 2010, 2016, and 2017, the Asian Wakepark Championship in 2008 and 2009, the Reef Asian Wakefest in 2010, the King of Wake-Asian Wakepark tour of WWA in 2012 and 2013, as well as the Philippine Wakeboard Nationals, which it hosted every year from 2006 to present,” he said.
“The complex has attracted water sports enthusiasts from all over the world and has consistently been a favorite [of] both foreign and local travelers until today,” Villafuerte said.
HB 3974 seeks to rationalize all efforts pertaining to the promotion of tourism and making the tourism industry a major source of livelihood and an avenue for employment generation.
Under this bill, Camarines Sur shall be accorded priority development and promotion by the Department of Tourism (DOT) and its attached agencies.
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