Wednesday, March 05, 2008 Village chiefs say they were ignored at flowerfest By Rimaliza Opiña
THE officers of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) complained their being sidelined from the 2008 Panagbenga by the City Government.
"What really our role," Barangay Lourdes Extension chairman and Public Relations Officer Benjamin Macadangdang said during the City Council's citizen's forum last Tuesday.
Macadangdang said they asked permission from Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. to allow them to hold a fund raising activity at the Malcolm Square, but were disallowed on the basis that no trade fairs are allowed there. A few days after, Globe Telecom and the Baguio Boys Club were permitted to set up their booths.
ABC vice president and Barangay Old Lucban chairwoman Eva Marie Fianza said it is unfair to forbid them from holding a trade fair at Malcolm Square, when another group identified as a major sponsor of the Panagbenga was favored.
If city officials are banking on the prohibition on the conduct of trade fairs, officers of the ABC said this should apply to all including Globe and the Baguio Boys Club.
Speaking for the Hotels and Restaurants Association of Baguio (Hrab), organizer of the Panagbenga, Councilor Perlita Chan-Rondez revealed an officer of the ABC, Barangay Malcolm Square chairman William Domogen, was accused of collecting P10,000 each from those who set-up stalls in the area.
"You should come to the council with clean hands," Rondez said and advised the ABC that if they intend to hold activities at Malcolm Square, they should write the council and seek their endorsement.
She added that Globe and the Baguio Boys Club merely conducted promotional activities not a trade fair, which the ABC intended to do.
The Trade Fair Ordinance mandates fair organizers or participants to get the approval of the council first before holding their business.
Domogen denied the allegation and said Hrab should produce evidence of his alleged collections.
Meanwhile, the council formed an ad hoc committee to collate complaints brought to them regarding the recently concluded Panagbenga.
These complaints will be used as basis for an investigation by Hrab and for the ad hoc committee to make a post assessment of the affair.
The committee is composed by all members of the council.
