To all our skimboard enthusiasts, the 5th National Open Skimboarding Competition will be held on December 27-30, 2008 at the Bantay Dagat Area, Tanauan Shorelines, Tanauan, Leyte.

This again will be an enjoyable event for everyone in Tanauan. See you all!

The local government of Tanauan is now pushing for the acquisition of the Bantay Dagat area of the Tanauan shores for them to make this as a permanent site for the well-received and –accepted annual Skimboarding competition.

In an interview SPAWNorg President Larry Basas revealed that even the President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, asked the Department of Public Works and Highway (DPWH) that owns the said lot, to award these grounds to the local government of Tanauan for them to have more permanent plans laid out for this annual event that draws more and more crowd every year.

Basas said Tanauan being the Skimboarding capital of the country, will reap so many benefits once this lot is awarded to them since organizers of the annual Skimboarding competition like SPAWNorg, can now come up with permanent structures that will house the equipment and facilities used for this event.

Permanent edifice and buildings will be built all over the place that will cater to visitors not only from other parts of the country but also from all over the world. Tanauan LGU plans to construct stores, hotels, stage, and the likes that will be used for the Skimboarding competition alone. This way, more stable facilities can be banked on each time the said event happens. So much effort and resources are wasted in building temporary shelters, tents and edifices every year for the annual Skimboarding contest and the only way to counter this dilemma is to put up permanent ones.

Making a permanent site for this Skimboarding competition will also be beneficial and be of great use to prep the planned international Skimboarding contest this year.

SPAWNorg, PSA and Tanauan LGU hopes to get a positive nod on this effort this year in time for the 5th National Skimboarding Competition come December 2008.

Tanauan has truly changed! Why am I saying this? I discovered that my beloved town is now a haven for shows exploiting young women clad in skimpy bikinis parading for all men to ogle at. Way before, shows such as this could have raised the eyebrows of the conservative groups, but then, this has been done previously, as I was informed, and no one seemed to object!

This Bikini Open Competition held just last December 30, 2007 was part of the nightly attraction to lure people to the 2007 Tanauan Skim Open 4^th National Competition (see related article previously posted on this website) as organized by the LGU. With a jampacked crowd, I suppose it completely stole the main attraction which was skimboarding. I deduce we’re not just touting the town now as the skimboarding capital but probably the center of bikini open and exploiter of women as well. Well, just nine very young women tried to outshine each other through a hotly-contested showcase of flesh and flesh and flesh to the delight of the audience composed mostly of men.

I have seen too many a bikini competition but not as vulgar and as indecently choreographed as this one. It became nauseating at some point as each girl tried to win the nod of audience and judges by doing stuffs and acts seen only in cheapy girlie bars. Foreign visitors acted as judges who all seemed to be shocked at the lewd show hurled at their face. One judge was even seen documenting the show with his digital video camera as each girl stepped down and gyrated right infront of the judges. The rest of the men scamper to the front with their camera cellphones as each one comes out of the stage. It was truly a sight of lust and basic instinct in men all trying to get a slice of the best meat, this time, the best view.

As the show progresses, the girls all generated yelps, not just shrieks, as they come out with less and less piece of cloth to hide their loins. What made it even more improper was that there were too many kids present. My godchildren, aged 7 and 9 years old could not help but utter, “Mama, panguli na kita, makaharadlok na man iton”. (Mama, let’s go home, this is getting scary). We had to protect the impressionable mind of these kids by bringing them home.

Now, the height of this offensive show came when the girls were made to have that “wet-look” by stepping down to a water shower all the more emphasizing their wares and executed steps way beyond the decency level. The audience really became euphoric! As if by act and reminder from God, even before the show was midway through, the whole of Tanauan was engulfed with darkness as the light went out. For nearly an hour, the show was suspended. Thanks to the generated light beamed at the beach front for the night scheduled skimboard competition, the Bantay-Dagat was spared from total darkness. Even then, most of the audience decided to go home rather than wait.

The show was indeed a success judging by the men who still decided to stay. Now, I could not just comprehend why the show must be presented this way. It could have been done in a tasteful manner as not to offend the taste of everyone and an acceptable decorum or modesty level for a show of this nature. Granting that this was done in the beach, still it did not justify the type of choreography and production the girls were made to go through. I really pitied those girls who, as I heard from others near me, that they are projecting images of easy lay girls or in local dialect, “baga hin mga pokpok”. I know these girls are decent but with the kind of treatment they got and the intensity of the competition, they really had to do shameful acts just to be shine and be noticed. Right after the show, I witnessed how one drunk man approached one of the contestants, asking for her number and uttering suggestive words implying the girl is an easy lay.

Even more, what deeply disturbed my mind is why our local government unit is nurturing this kind of show. Why do we have to resort to this cheap gimmickry just to lure domestic tourism and financial backers? They could have at least “censored” or mentored the choreographers and girls to produce a decent show and not as “wildly primitive” as this one. Had it been shown on national television, for sure, this could have generated negative publicity mileage for our town and its leaders or, probably, responsible authorities could have been sacked and sanctioned by now. By then, we would have unabashedly and completely achieved our dream as the Skimboarding Capital of the Philippines vis-à -vis Exploiter of Women”. Now, we do not want that to happen, right? After all, Tanauan, so they say, is the “Bungto han Kamag-araman.” Well, we just hope this will not happen again.

Sadly, even before I left for Manila, I heard there was another bikini open in Marabut, Samar, with almost the same set of girls joining the competition. But then, the producer of the said show, who also witnessed the Tanauan Bikini Open declared, “I do not want that kind of show as done in Tanauan.” Need I say more?