By Neil Bravo
Published in Edge Davao on August 6, 2012

The King of Festivals just gave birth to the King of Food Baskets.  

A giant food basket was the centerpiece attraction in the opening ceremonies on Friday of the Kadayawan Festival and it looks like it's going to be the trending topinc of this year's festival.  

Reason? The food basket could yet be the biggest ever created in the country.  

"Unofficially, it is.  We made some verification and so far this could be the biggest," said acting City Agriculturist Leo Avila.  

The food basket, filled with assorted fruits and vegetables grown in abundance in Davao, measures six feet high and has a 16-foot circumference.  The basket contained an estimated weight of five metric tons which took five days to fill completely with three hauling trucks from the city government alternately fetching the fruits from their sources, the farthest of which came from Paquibato and Marilog.  

Private fruit exporting companies and growers also pitched in their contribution to the giant basket which had assorted varieties of durain, banana, rambutan, mango, coconut, lanzones, melon, pineapple, and vegetables.  

According to Avila, the world record for the biggest fruit basket is 70-foot high ironically in Saudi Arabia, a known fruit importer.  

The giant basket, a brainchild of Kadayawan organizer Duaw Davao Festival Foundation, was unveiled during the opening of the 27^th edition of the Kadayawan, one of the country's premier tourism events.  

Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio presided over the unveiling of the basket along with city government officials including deputy mayors and city councilors, representatives from the civic society, religious and academe.  She passed on the fruits to the stream of officials, cascading to the crowds who packed the People's Park Great Lawn to witness the colorful opening rites.  

The basket took almost an hour to empty.  Avila estimated the cost of the the fruits at P100,000.