Makati cancels Christmas, New Year’s parties

MANILA, Philippines - The Makati City government is canceling Christmas parties in all its offices as well as the New Year’s Eve countdown street party to sympathize with the victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda, an official said yesterday.

“I hope our constituents and employees are one with us in our decision to cancel the said events. Everyone must understand that it is not fair to rejoice while many of our kababayans are still grieving and trying to cope with the grim aftermath of… Yolanda,” Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay said.

Makati has been holding the countdown since 2004 and it has become a major tourist attraction in the city with its impressive fireworks display and free concert of top bands along Ayala Avenue, at the heart of the city’s business district.

Binay said that prior to Yolanda, the countdown was cancelled thrice: in 2010, following an oil leak in Barangay Bangkal and a subsequent firecracker ban in three barangays within the danger zone; in 2009 to give assistance to victims of a fire in the city and the disasters wrought by Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng; and in 2005 to pave the way to aid poor residents at the height of the economic crisis.

Last Tuesday, the Makati City Council approved a P50-million allocation for relief assistance to various local government units devastated by the typhoon, many of which are sister-localities of Makati.

To date, relief operations are still going on at the Poblacion covered court, where some 54,000 packs of relief goods are ready for deployment to affected areas. Last Friday, a total of 13,200 relief packs were dispatched to Tacloban City for distribution to different localities of Leyte.