La Trinidad, Benguet – The executive committee of the town’s annual Strawberry Festival voted to totally cancel the conduct of the municipal government’s crowd drawing event in the light of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 scare.
Mayor Romeo K. Salda convened the Strawberry Festival Executive Committee to deliberate on whether to cancel or postpone the conduct of the festival after attending the meeting called for by President Rodrigo Duterte for the issuance of the necessary marching orders for them to be able to effectively and efficiently handle the prevailing situation in their areas of jurisdiction.
“ We subjected the proposals whether to cancel or postpone this year’s Strawberry Festival to a vote and the proposal to cancel goet most of the votes of the members of the executive committee that is why we have no recourse but to cancel this year’s festival activities that had been prepared,” Mayor Salda stressed.
The local chief executive explained that the decision to cancel all the activities lined up for this year’s edition of the Strawberry festival was due to the fact that there will be no more supply of strawberry when the events will be conducted, thus, the same would defeat the purpose of having the crowd drawing event.
He added that what will likely push through will be the town’s founding anniversary on June 16, 2020 wherein whatever fitting activities that could be accommodated will be the ones that will be included in the line up of events for the upcoming celebration.
According to him, it is so unfortunate that the town’s crowd drawing event will be cancelled for this year because of the COVID 2019 scare but residents and tourists should understand the predicament of health and local officials on the matter as they do not want to contribute to the panic that had already been created by the confusing news on the matter over the past several weeks coupled with the presence of persons under investigation in the different parts of the region.
Among the activities lined up for this year’s edition of the Strawberry Festival include the conduct of the public bidding for the trade fair that will be conducted during the duration of the festival, the streetdancing and float parades, the put up of the strawberry lane in the municipal park, the conduct of the scheduled concerts and the main program.
Mayor Salda stated that the abundant supply of strawberry might be available up to April or May this year and that the proposed postponement of the activities for the festival might extend up to June that is why it will be useless to push through with the events once there will be no available supply of strawberry which is the major attraction for the festival.
The town’s Strawberry festival has been one of the major crowd drawing events in the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) area which compliments the conduct of the Panagbenga or the Baguio flower festival in nearby Baguio city considering that the festival is being conducted right after the flower festival shall have commenced.
La Trinidad remains to be the major producer of strawberry that is circulated in the different parts of the country and serves as the town’s one town, one product considering the numerous by products that are produced from the same.
By HENT