9TH PLACE : SIERRA MANDAYA

Dave N. Dionisio
Bulacan State University

The Philippines is ripe of adventure and cultural tourism. The demand for more places to
discover and explore will only grow larger moving forward. As it happens, the tourism frontiers that the country must develop and enrich are also themselves, abundant of indigenous groups protecting them, who are currently facing pressure from modernization and subsequent cultural decline. As such, it is imperative that today’s Filipinos must take steps to honor and preserve these unique cultures as well. An example of this is the Mandaya people of Davao Oriental. The province is still rich from undiscovered wonders, on top of its world-class hotspots like its tropical beaches. While there is great benefit to further developing and preparing it for tourism, it is also important to respect and help preserve the culture that had inhabited them for hundreds of years.

This is a point where the tourism goals and cultural appreciation and preservation start to converge. It is of paramount importance that those who take the lead in engineering the ideas that will utilize both are able to serve their mission with as much advantages as possible. In a quest to develop a project that shall accommodate domestic travel and civil aviation while celebrating the Mandaya heritage, the design shall find itself a true cultural gateway that will converge people within its halls.

This is the home of the Mandaya, the mountain range encompasses their domains and heritage. The mountain range is the witness of their history. To embody this stalwart image is to exemplify the sincere attempt to celebrate their culture now and onwards. Borrowing the Spanish word “Sierra” which Filipinos know to refer to mountain ranges, it shall converge with the Mandaya to form the name and conceptual foundation of cultural gateway. A mountain range of Mandaya experiences and heritage, a mountain range where you can feel the long history of expressions of these people, their skills, their crafts, and a testament to their resilience that bested the test of time.