A committee to draft a dreamer's card!
After Sinulog, then what? I mean, of course, the Sinulog being the social culmination of a religious celebration of the feast of Sto. Niño. It has become a lavish extravaganza of an indisputably worldwide attention.
While this year, Cebu City is lucky to host the International Eucharistic Congress and lengthen the time of the convergence of people in our city, after the Sinulog there are no looming large scale activities that can keep drawing visitors to Cebu City. There is therefore a need for our government leaders and the private sector to sit down, form a committee of some kind and map a series of activities, monthly, if I may suggest, for the entire year to make our city the center of upbeat and growth. For the absence of a better phrase, let me call this as my dreamer's card.
For their template, they need to consider that the success of Sinulog is because it does not stand as a lone fair. Rather, it is the cap of more than a week of celebration. The first day of the novena of the Catholic Church begins the trek of people to our city where there are such cultural activities as the Cebu Pop and the Miss Cebu City pageant leading to the procession, a day before the now world-famous mardi gras. Whatever monthly program they hatch, therefore, it should not just be a one-day affair.
There are months where certain occasions that are celebrated regularly and can serve as the focal point of any festivities. Following the month of January, for example, the city celebrates its charter day. No city mayor will ever fail to reckon the day we have become a city. It is his moral obligation to make sure that we remember the day we were chartered with relevant celebration.
Many times in the past, we honored citizens, families, business organizations on top of appreciating hard working personnel. Our charter day is on the 24th day of February. The week leading to it, there may be daily activities participated by barangays. Cebu City has 80 barangays. If they are clustered into groups of 10 villages each, and each cluster is given a day to host a kind of program of their own choice, we can have eight days of assorted activities leading to whatever kind of celebration is prepared for the charter day.
In May, Cebu City's celebration of the Santa Cruzan is always a sight to behold. But, I note that the participants in this function draw their right to such affair from their affluent bloodline and mighty heritage. Necessarily, elegantly clad ladies and gentlemen in their sartorial best come the limited enclave of the rich and the powerful. Of course, it has to be so. These are held in five star hotels where the bills are beyond the capacity of the ordinary citizens.
It is a pity that a great many of our brothers do not have the opportunity to witness such a unique extravaganza. When there is a committee tasked to mark the calendar of festivities, it should preserve the cultural nobility of the Santa Cruzan but make it visible to the world. Who knows, by tracing the origins of the merriment, we can tap the centers of European and South American civilizations where this kind of festivity started and when shown in our city, open it to the awe of everyone.
In October, we, the senior citizens mark our day. I hate to see my kindred relish our activity in few hours of an October day. Why not concoct programs to be held within a week? There are many among us who are still great orators, suave dancers and singers. Why not assign a day for a competition among us to deliver great orations, another day when we strut the dance floors and still another evening for singing contests? Then make all the winners display their talents on an evening for the senior citizens.
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