LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The municipal government is lining up some five events for this year’s Strawberry festival as part of the ongoing efforts to gradually and safely revive the heavily impacted local economy following the decrease in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases over the past several weeks.
Mayor Romeo K. Salda pointed out that the municipal government will have to be decisive in starting economic recovery measures to address the enormous effect of the pandemic on the people’s lives over the past 2 years.
He disclosed that among the limited activities allowed by the municipal government include the conduct of the traditional strawberry lane at the municipal park, the ritual, thanksgiving mass, online band competition, and the shortcake baking competition among bakers in the municipality where part of the strawberry shortcakes that will be produced will be sold to the public.
The municipal chief executive admitted that the cancellation of the town’s premier crowd drawing event over the past 2 years had heavily impacted the livelihood of the hundreds of strawberry farmers and other businesses in the municipality.
However, Mayor Salda pointed out that the safe revival of the economy should start somewhere, especially with the significant decline on COVID-19 cases, and the conduct of the limited activities for this year’s Strawberry festival is seen as the best opportunity to jumpstart controlled economic activities to allow part of the population to recover their economic activities.
According to him, the municipal inter-agency task force for the management of emerging infectious diseases will strictly implement the prevailing minimum public health standards depending on the alert level status of Benguet by the time of the Strawberry festival by the third week of March.
The mayor claimed that in the strawberry lane, local entrepreneurs will display and sell their strawberry-inspired products for promotion.
Salda stipulated that the town’s strawberry production had been heavily impacted by the pandemic over the past 2 years thus the municipal government and concerned stakeholders are finding ways by which to gradually and safely revive the heavily impacted local economy because the COVID-19 situation is now improving and that the prevailing scenario is good to slowly start moving to a better normal.
The conduct of the annual Strawberry festival had been the town’s major crowd drawing event and it gained global recognition for its Largest Strawberry Shortcake that had been included in the Guinness Book of world Records in 2004.
