A festival of distinctly Boholano products, including foods, in a Manila hotel has been planned to be simultaneous with the fifth Tigum Bol-anon sa Tibuok Kalibutan (TBTK) here in May next year. It will be a bonus promotion intended to heighten national awareness of the grandest homecoming of Boholanos from around the world. TBTK overall coordinator and Tagbilaran City Councilor Anne Mariquit Oppus said a Manila-based group is willing to arrange the festival at a known hotel in the nation’s capital right while TBTK 2012 runs here from May 10 to 18. US-based TBTK chairperson Betty Veloso-Garcia, fellow officials and heads of balikbayan delegations will be accompanied by Gov. Edgar Chatto to a courtesy call on Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III at Malacañang tentatively two days before they proceed to Bohol.

Oppus said in a meeting at capitol that she and the governor’s wife, Bohol First Lady Pureza Chatto, already initially met with the leader of the group who offered to help promote the TBTK. To avoid conflict with TBTK activities here, the Bohol product festival in a Manila hotel can run in whole week prior to the formal start here of the TBTK or when the celebration is at its height. Patent highlights of TBTK like the selections and awarding of the Miss Bohol International, Mrs. Bohol International and Ten Outstanding Boholanos Around the World (TOBAW), and school reunions were updated in the meeting called by Oppus. Except for minor adjustments, all other activities also stay as tentatively set. Oppus will have these posted on the TBTK website to guide the Boholanos worldwide.

A new TBTK activity, the Lions club will sponsor a dinner and ballroom dancing for a cause. There are homecomers who include those from foreign lands at Christmas, and Oppus urged his fellow TBTK organizers “not to miss the chance” of encouraging them to support the coming TBTK. Oppus said they still have to mobilize more resources for a grander and more successful TBTK, which was conceived and first held here during the time of former Gov. Rene Relampagos, now the First District congressman, and Chatto who was then the vice governor. Outside the TBTK meeting at capitol, some suggested for a congressional measure declaring Bohol as the country’s provincial homecoming capital as modeled by TBTK. The TBTK, the mother of all Boholano homecomings and reunions, is reputed to be unprecedented in the country. For the first time, TBTK flaglets will be displayed and waved during the TBTK motorcade, a finale activity. It will also be the first time that the motorcade will be joined by the different school drum and bugle bands ahead of their respective school alumni associations, motorists’/bikers’ clubs, and, if possible, horseriders’ club. (Ven rebo Arigo)