03 Jul 2009
City councilors vow to make Sangyaw Festival more impressive
by APRIL ROSE Q. UYKIENG

TACLOBAN CITY - With the success of the Sangyaw festival, majority members of the city council are pushing for a more impressive Sangyaw Festival in next year's fiesta celebrations in order to promote tourism to the international level and have more visitors coming in and joining the festival.

Councilor Jerry "Sambo" Yaokasin said that an amount of P5 million was recently allocated for this year's Sangyaw festival which aims to promote tourism in the city.

"We are promoting tourism to Tacloban and pushing the economic status of the city. We are hoping that Tacloban will be known not only nationally but also internationally,"Yaokasin said.

"It is a conservative budget. But hopefully by next year the budget will be more than 5 million. It's an annual budget and the city has funds for it coming from the Tourism Program. It's money well spent," Yaokasin added.

Yaokasin also said "there is a breakdown report that the City Tourism Council already submitted. It is shown there down to the last centavo is accounted for."

This report on Sangyaw's funding was supported by Councilor Bianco Mate and Councilor Cristeta Pedrosa.

"The 5 million budget is a conservative amount. That amount is the liquidation of the previous year. However, the city is already a highly urbanized city so we can afford to have a higher amount for the next year's festival," Councilor Mate said.

In another development, the issue on garbage that were scattered around the city on the day of the Kasadyaan Festival parade, Councilor Mate said, "Actually, what happened was that the garbage trucks were blocked by the PNP personnel to enter the city. That was the reason why the garbage were not collected on that day and on time. There is a schedule for garbage collection around the city."

Councilor Rufino Pacanan suggested that garbage should be taken out by the establishments at night, and be collected by garbage collectors during the night time. So it will not cause traffic jam.

The city councilors want to have unity with the Provincial officials for the next year's celebration of Sangyaw.

"We are open to unifying the two festivals. It would be good to have one big festival rather than have two and be in bad terms with the other," this from Councilor Cristina Romualdez.

"Para naman ito sa celebration ng Sto. Niño festivity hindi naman ito para sa amin lang. This is for all Taclobanons to enjoy and who wants to celebrate the fiesta," she said.

Councilor Robert Hernandez thanked the people who made those comments regarding the Sangyaw Festival. "Nagpapasalamat ako han mga tawo nga nagbabatikos ha amon, para upayon pa namon it amon trabaho ngan pa-uru-upayon pa it sunod nga Sangyaw Festival. There is room for improvement that the city and the city councilors can do for the next Sangyaw Festival celebration," he said.


Source:
http://leytesamardaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7600&Itemid=233