BAGUIO City Mayor Mauricio Domogan is skipping the State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Manila to lead the celebration of sisterhood ties with California.

Sister city ties between Vallejo, California and Baguio will mark its 25th anniversary with a program set on July 23 at the City Hall grounds, the same date of the SONA of President Rodrigo Duterte.

A renewal of ties will highlight the coming of a 46-member delegation from Vallejo to be accommodated by the city from the 21st to the 26th of July.

Domogan said the city has learned a lot from Vallejo and values the partnership.

Decades of exchange programs between the two cities have marked the partnership for 25 years with cultural, social, educational exchanges and economic goals realized through the years.

The Vallejo Sister Cities Association traces the start of the sisterhood ties as early as 1989 with members of Vallejo’s active Philippine-American Community beginning formal requests for the formation of a sister city.

The idea was presented to the Sister City Commission by Dinah Villanueva and, over a period of several years, under the Chairmanships of Raymond Bell, Lynn Teifert, and Joel Harter, commissioners worked to select an appropriate city and develop the needed support from its leaders and citizens.

Eduardo Yra was among the many locals suggesting the City of Baguio which was familiar to many locals who knew the area from visits while serving in the military.

On April 18, 1990, Mayor Jaime Bugnosen and the Baguio City Council authorized negotiations with Vallejo. Those negotiations stalled shortly thereafter when, on July 16, an earthquake struck Baguio and local officials turned their attention to recovery efforts.