Davao City (7 Feb.) -- Bearing flowers of bright lavender hues that stay vivid long before they wither, Vanda GMA is attracting a lot of orchid growers here and abroad.

The vanda sanderiana hybrid was named after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for its qualities of brightness and endurance.

Charita Puentispina, founding chairperson of the Floriculture Industry of Davao, Inc. (FIDI), crossbred Vanda GMA from numerous species of waling-waling some years back in the 1990s.

Puentispina, who owns and operates the Malagos Garden Resort, said the orchid's scientific name is . Deborah Achtenberg V. Pontip.

Five years after breeding, it produced bright colored flowers, coincidentally during the assumption of then vice president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in January 2001 as President.

"Kaya naisip ko, ahh, tatawagin ko itong (So I thought of naming it) Vanda GMA," Puentispina said. "It has the qualities of the President (GMA). Strong, matingkad ang kulay (bright-colored), a survivor. Idikit mo lang sa isang puno ang waling-waling, mabubuhay 'yan sya (Set it on any tree and it will survive)," she said.

"Waling-waling is also well-traveled. Foreigners first took note of it before Filipinos begun to propagate it in the 1980s," she added.

Puentispina houses the mother Vanda GMA at the Malagos Garden Resort in her gazebo which she keeps private.

The media were allowed to come in late last month to interview Presidential Evangelina Lourdes "Luli" Arroyo who visited the resort as one of the resource speakers of the Mindanao Youth Summit.

Vanda GMA has become one of the highlights of every floriculture exhibit Puentispina stages.

After joining last year's floriculture exhibit in Singapore, Puentispina is set to join the Philippine Floriculture Breeder Society in an exhibit this coming March in Taiwan.

Puentispina is also looking forward to the National Floriculture Congress in Davao this year as a good venue to promote Vanda GMA and other new flower varieties she has grown.

It demands a lot of hard work but the Puentispina family is committed to stay ahead in the floriculture industry.

The family sees bright prospects in floriculture, given the growing export market. "We also have brisk local market for flowers and foliage," Puentispina said.

Puentispina has more than 300 employees, directly and indirectly involved in her floriculture business which she said is enjoying a health 30 -percent growth in sales and in production.

She has turned over the management of her floriculture business to her son, Angel Puentispina, who has maintained the Japan market she developed.

Puentispina's investment in floriculture started as a mere hobby in 1976. She then went into commercial production a year after having an idea that orchid flowers would make it big in the export market.

She then expanded her business into a garden resort in the early 1990s, hoping to help advance the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) tourism linkage.

But the resort suffered losses with the all-out Mindanao war declared by the Estrada administration in 2000 and the deadly Davao bombings last year.

"But we're much okay now," she said.

The resort is again receiving a number of visitors especially during weekends when school children and high school students from Davao and neighboring areas are coming to watch the "Bird Show."