Saturday, February 24, 2007 Over 1T cops, volunteers mobilized for flowerfest parades
MORE THAN 1,000 uniformed personnel and civilian volunteers have been tapped to provide security for Saturday’s grand street-dancing and Sunday’s floral float parades.
The PNP deployed some 700 officers who would man the city’s central business district (CBD), including major thoroughfares, to ensure peace and order as the two major events take place.
Senior Superintendent Moises Guevarra, Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) director, said the Police Regional Office (PRO) in the Cordillera and the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) have deployed 250 uniformed and non-uniformed personnel to augment the 450 field personnel of the BCPO, to man traffic routes and provide security to parade spectators.
"They will be deployed within the CBD (to man) traffic (routes) and for police visibility," Guevarra told Sun.Star.
Aside from the PNP personnel, a total of 820 individuals, either from non-government organizations, radio communication groups and other sectors volunteered their services for the two-day major affairs, according to Guevarra.
Meanwhile, the BCPO Traffic Management Branch (TMB) would close major roads and other secondary arteries that would be affected by the parade route, said Inspector Samuel Bumangil, BCPO-TMB chief.
These roads, however, would be closed at the start of each parade and would be opened to traffic as soon as these are finished, Bumangil clarified.
The grand street-dancing parade will start at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, to be joined in by 36 participating groups from the different schools, private companies as well as other organizations and institutions.
From the Baguio Convention Center and Session Road Extension, the designated assembly areas, participants would march down Session Road towards Magsaysay Avenue, take a U-turn at the Y-shaped overpass back to the Maharlika Livelihood Complex, go through Harrison Road and Jose Abad Santos Drive and then head towards the Baguio Athletic Bowl.
The floral float parade will also start at 8:30 a.m. Sunday following the same route as the street-dancing parade. Around 30 floats are expected to roll down the city’s main streets.
The street-dancing and floral float parades are the major crowd-drawing events of the annual Baguio Flower Festival. (JC)
