Thursday, December 08, 2005
Bishop named as head of flowerfest interim body
By Ernie N. Olson Jr.
PENDING the final decision of the Baguio City Council on the proposed Panagbenga ad hoc committee, Mayor Braulio Yaranon Wednesday issued another administrative order (AO) designating Bishop Carlito Cenzon as chair of an interim executive committee.
In issuing AO 285-05, the mayor said that because of the urgent need to protect public welfare and interest to proceed with the preparations needed for the staging of the 11th Panagbenga, "this order is effective immediately and supersedes all other previous orders or parts inconsistent with this (latest AO)."
Yaranon added this is also "in the light of the impasse brought about by the position of the BFF Foundation to take over the lead role in the staging of the festival, based on the City Council's overriding of (my) veto of Resolution 294-05 and the contrary positions made out for the (Association) that prepared and staged the 2005 Panagbenga based on the contention that the overriding vote was done arbitrarily, capriciously, whimsically and unreasonably by sheer force of numbers without resolving the grounds raised in the veto, hence is illegal per se."
It would be "unfair and unjust to throw out the 2005 BPFFA, when in truth it took over the festival management and successfully staged the 2005 Panagbenga with the participation and cooperation of the entire Baguio community, with participants from the Cordilleras, the Ilocos, Pangasinan, Dagupan City, including other regions of Central Luzon, Southern Luzon, Bicol, Visayas and Mindanao, as well as local organizations of foreign groups, after the (former) BFFFI chairman quit in December 2004 and opened up the Adivay festival in La Trinidad, Benguet, coinciding with the Panagbenga festival in Baguio," he stressed.
The mayor named Cenzon as interim committee chair "considering that Panagbenga has been institutionalized by City Ordinance 44-97 as a major city tourism activity, and that the festival pertains in ownership to the Baguio community."
"(This is) considering further that Panagbenga and other institutionalized tourism events and activities should be totally shielded from personal, political or other divisive controversy," Yaranon said.
Cenzon was tasked to designate and appoint members of the interim executive committee, as well as their respective working bodies from different sectors of the Baguio community to stage, operate and manage the 2006 Panagbenga.
Among the stakeholders in this annual event, Yaranon pointed out, are "the people, the children, the youth, every man and woman, the senior citizens, the tradesmen, businessmen, professionals, artists, working class, the underprivileged, the masa, the barangays, and all government and non-government organizations, the schools, colleges and universities, teachers, professors and students."
(December 8, 2005 issue)
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