Travel and Places Wednesday: Oroquieta City, Philippines ~ SCRATCH e-PAD!

From a humble beginning of just being a place for stray animals along the river bank tipping the eastern side of Iligan bay comes a 3rd class city once held by Filipinos Guerrillas as the countries seat of power during the Japanese occupation and now the Capital City of Misamis Occidental, Oroquieta City. The name was derive from Oro which means "gold" in Spanish and "quita" or "kita" which means "to find" in the local dialect as early inhabitants then had found gold along the river.

The city was a small thriving center with fishing, farming and livestock raising as it main source of livelihood, furthermore it is being shrouded by few commercial establishments, restaurants, banks among others. Their were even no big hotels nor malls around the cityscape, just decent pension houses and small shopping centers just enough to accommodate its small populace. If it wouldn't be for the capitol, this place wouldn't have been visited because it has no tourist spots to offer. Bringing the capitol here is a business strategy to boast its economic status rather than bringing it closer to majority of its constituents as it wasn't even geographically viable.

Anyways, I have a short stop in the place a week ago, dissing from an invitation from a good friend and here are a few snaps of the city's landmarks.

On the far left is the provincial capitol, not very much of a typical huge structure, probably the smallest capitol building I saw so far. Image in the left is the City Hall, again not that enormous, just fit to the city's capacity.

The city's center of religious practice, the Oroquieta City Cathedral situated at the center block. It is surrounded by the most prominent structures like the City Hall, recreation parks and the city public market.

A glimpse on the recreational park of the city. This is adjacent to the Cathedral which serves as meeting place, a playground among others. A full basketball court is build within the park as well as boulevard facing Iligan Bay.

Boulevard 101, a kilometer stretch from the city hall down to the sea port, perfect place to jog around early morning or due dusk. Its safe rather having the main city police station on the middle corner of the stretch.

Life in this small city is plain and simple and everyone seemed to live their life happily and with contentment. A thriving city cannot be measured by the number of people buzzling around or by the number of malls erected, what matters is, the spirit that thrives within each and every citizen of this place, the spirit of abundance and serenity.