MANKAYAN, Benguet – The municipal government and stakeholders agreed to reset the town fiesta earlier scheduled March 9-15, 2020 to April 20-26, 2020 in the light of the prevailing Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 scare and the recent advisory from concerned government agencies on the conduct of crowd drawing events in the different parts of the country.
Mayor Frenzel Ayong said the decision to reset the town fiesta to a later date was reached after his meeting with members of the municipal council, department heads of the local government, barangay officials, representatives from the education department, community leaders, among others, where a consensus was reached to move back the earlier scheduled festivities.
Mankayan celebrates its town fiesta every second week of March but for this year, the festivities lined up for the week-long celebration will have to be reset to April 20-26, 2020 to allow the prevailing COVID scare to wane.
“We reached a collective decision to reset the activities prepared for our town fiesta to allow us the time to assess the situation of the COVID scare that continuous to prevail in our country. We hope the situation will start to stabilize in the next few weeks so we can plan our future strategies,” Mayor Ayong stressed.
The municipal chief executive explained the need for the municipality to sustain the celebration of its town fiesta to remind both the residents and visitors of its rich history and inculcate to the youth the origin of the locality, being one of the major mining towns of the province.
Part of the initial activities lined up by the municipal government for this year’s town fiesta is the signing of the memorandum of agreement for the establishment of the sisterhood relationship between Mankayan and Pugo town in La Union as local officials of the latter municipality are expected to visit the mineral-rich locality for the twinning agreement ceremonies.
Earlier, the municipal council passed a resolution seeking for the establishment of a sisterhood relationship with Pugo town in La Union which was reciprocated by a similar resolution from the Pugo municipal council that accepted the proposed twinning relationship between the two municipalities.
Ayong urged residents and prospective visitors to support the prepared activities for the week-long town fiesta despite its being rescheduled to ensure the success of the event lined up by the working committees.
He stated the working committees will be coming out with the final schedule of activities for the town fiesta so that the appropriate invitations will already be given out to the prospective invitees who will be gracing the activities for the fiesta.
Mankayan is one of the five first class municipalities in the province and one of the three municipalities that rely on mining as its primary source of income with substantial support from the agriculture sector.
By Hent
