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Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Tomas four-day holiday plan set aside
Declaring a holiday in Cebu City in time for the Asean summit in December is not a priority for the national organizing committee at this time, according to its secretary general.
While they respect the ideas and proposals of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, Asean National Organizing Committee Secretary General Marciano Paynor said there are more pressing matters that they need to attend to.
Osmeña had said that he would ask President Arroyo to declare in her Cebu visit yesterday the holidays for the Asean summit.
But Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said this was not discussed yesterday. Bunye also stressed that debates on the holidays is a minor one compared to the bigger matter of hosting a successful international event.
Too soon
“I believe that in the proper time, we can count on the officials and residents of Cebu to rally behind the president in putting our best foot forward in welcoming the heads of state,” he said.
Paynor said that it is too soon to be worrying whether there should be a holiday for the duration of the four-day Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit.
“We have a lot of ideas and a lot of consensus that we have to arrive at but this will come much later on. There are so many hypothetical scenarios but right now, we will focus first on the bigger aspects of the preparations,” he told Sun.Star Cebu yesterday.
As the Asean host country for this year, Paynor said that the Philippines also has to organize the meetings of other Asean bodies, which will be held in other key cities and provinces in the country.
Aside from the meetings of heads of state of the Asean-member countries from Dec. 11 to 14, the national organizing committee also has to prepare for 100 other meetings of the various Asean bodies.
Manageable
Osmeña wants Arroyo to immediately declare a holiday so the people will be encouraged to leave Cebu City for a short vacation during the summit.
This, Osmeña said, would make the city more manageable especially in the areas of peace and order and traffic management.
Paynor suggested that while the holidays have not been declared yet, the national and local organizing committees should work in ensuring peace and order and traffic flow in the venues of the summit.
“Let’s work on that, especially since the traffic here is not ideal,” he said during an interview at the Shangri-la Mactan Island Resort yesterday.
Bunye also said yesterday that the plans of the different local government units concerned regarding preparations for the summit are “in step with what the President has in mind.”
The press secretary is certain that whatever arguments or debates that continue right now about the preparations will be resolved before the activity, considered a showcase not only for the Philippines but for Cebu as well.
“It goes without saying that peace and order is one of the ingredients of a successful summit, but I’m sure the local government units and National Government agencies tasked on this will be able to keep this problem down,” he said. (LCR/JPM)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (March 15, 2006 issue)
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