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==[[Marinduque News]]==
==[[Marinduque News]]==
'''Marinduque Netizens frown upon Mindoro Moriones'''
'''Palawan, Mindoro diving sites listed among world's best '''
*Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/173607/marinduque-netizens-frown-upon-mindoro-moriones
*Source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=795638&publicationSubCategoryId=200
*12:47 am | Monday, April 9th, 2012
* April 10, 2012 01:01 PM
:by   Gerald Gene R. Querubin
:by Juancho Mahusay
Inquirer Southern Luzon




SANTA CRUZ, Marinduque—Local social network users are frowning at a neighboring province’s version of Moriones Festival, fearing it might eclipse the original festivities being held on the island.
CALAPAN CITY, Philippines  – Two tourist destinations in Region 4B or MIMAROPA (Mindoro-Marinduque-Romblon-Palawan) have been listed  among the world’s  best diving sites, the travel news website  of the Cable News  Network (CNN) said.
In a tradition practiced yearly for over a century in Marinduque, men and women called Morions parade around the six towns of the province during Holy Week, dressed in colorful costumes—a parody of the Roman soldiers during the time of Christ.
 
For the Morions, the act of penance, thanksgiving or self-cleansing means enduring the hot costumes, hunger and thirst during the long walk around town. After a long, humid day, they join the early evening religious procession on Holy Wednesday and Good Friday.
The CNN’s list of best dive sites in the world ranked the Tubbataha reef, located southeast of Palawan, eighth and “The Canyons” in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro 45th among the top diving sites.
In Pola, Pinamalayan and several other towns in Oriental Mindoro, four hours away by boat from Gasan town in Marinduque, programs showcasing a similar Lenten show are being aggressively promoted every Holy Week.
 
In 2005, then Pinamalayan Mayor Aristeo Baldos called the festival “Centuriones” to make it distinct from the Moriones.
According to the CNN  website, a diver  will have a  “super-size dive experience at Tubbataha, where everything comes in giant form.”  It also said  that Tubbataha’s allure lies in its waters that  are “exceptionally clean, so the marine life lives much longer, making it grow to silly proportions.”
Gerry Jamilla, the Marinduque tourism officer, said Pola and Pinamalayan had been holding contests offering big prizes for the Morion participants. “The big amount of monetary prizes had lured numerous Morions from Marinduque to join the contests there,” he said.
 
The two municipalities in Mindoro have included the festival in their tourism come-ons and even allocated funds as prizes for the costume competition. Local officials have said that making the tradition a “little commercialized” would attract more visitors and provide incentives to participants for their sacrifices.
“Expect kaleidoscopic colors combined with guitar sharks, black tip reef sharks, nurse sharks, gliding blue-spotted lagoon rays, unicorns, boxfish, scorpion fish and more,” the CNN said.
Moriones identity
 
Pipo Nepomuceno, administrator of the Facebook group Marinduqueño Mandin, which has close to 4,500 members, said Mindoro’s version “put in jeopardy” the identity of Marinduque as the tradition’s origin.
Tubbataha is located 181 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa City in Palawan Province.  The reef is made up of two coral atolls divided by an eight-kilometer wide channel. Its diving area has a depth of five to 60 meters.
“Imagine a tourism advertisement of Mindoro with our Morions as its highlight? [Or worse] an ad of the Department of Tourism with Mindoro likewise having Morions or centurions,” he said.
 
Kasa Marin wrote that Mindoro should refrain from copying the Moriones and should establish a different event that would promote Mindoro’s own identity.
Tubbataha is also part of the Tubbataha National Marine Park, which was established on August 11, 1988 and was declared a “World Heritage Site” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in December 1993.  The marine park  is under protective management by the Department of National  Defense (DND) and under the technical supervision by the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) and Department of Environment and  Natural Resources (DENR).
Some members of the social network group, however, believe Marinduqueños should not be threatened by the Centuriones of Mindoro. “The vow (of the Morions) can be done anywhere—the originality should not be a debate here,” said Russel David.
 
What should be done is to improve the political and tourism problems in Marinduque, he said. “We are a small province, and yet we are divided in some issues. People get confused.”
Meanwhile, “The Canyons” made it to the CNN’s list for being a “first-rate dive site.”
Danilo Mandia, a Marinduqueño who works as a dubbing director at ABS-CBN, said stakeholders should go back to the roots of the tradition to preserve and promote the Moriones.
 
“Moriones is street theater. It is now a lost art. We should bring back the essence of Moriones before when the masked penitents ruled our streets. It was the reason tourists came here in droves then,” he said.
“Schools of spotted and ribbon sweetlips, shiny trevallies and weird-looking batfish make up the scene at this first-rate dive site. There’s also an explosion of coral and plant life including beautiful delicate gorgonian sea fans and hollow barrel sponges; look inside for critters lurking within,” the website said .
 
The Canyons was  rated as a five-star diving site and located at the northeast of Escarceo Point, some five- minute boat ride  from Brgy. Sabang.
 
With a depth of up to 30 meters or about 95 feet to a maximum of 200 feet, The Canyons’ area was designated as a “Man and Biosphere Reserve” of  UNESCO  in 1973.


==[[:Category:Marinduque, Philippines Photo Gallery|Marinduque, Philippines Photo Gallery]]==
==[[:Category:Marinduque, Philippines Photo Gallery|Marinduque, Philippines Photo Gallery]]==
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