Pols dodge posters ban, flood Iloilo City with ‘greetings’
Rumored presidentiables have found a way to skirt around the unwritten rule against political posturing during the Dinagyang Festival.
The City’s downtown district is awash with posters and streamers of national figures rumored to be eyeing the presidency in 2010, and all say the same thing: greetings and expression of solidarity as Iloilo celebrates the Dinagyang Festival this week.
Competing for the already crowded ad space in strategic points in the city proper alongside big corporate sponsors are the streamers of Senators Mar Roxas, Richard Gordon and Francis Escudero; Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Bayani Fernando and some local officials.
By far, Roxas, an Ilonggo senator from Roxas City in Capiz, seems to have the most number of streamers hung along major streets in the city proper.
He has at least one for every performance area. Aside from a huge horizontal tarpaulin streamer draping the entire façade of an antique house beside the San Jose church across the Plaza Libertad, Roxas has several smaller streamers in Plazoleta Gay, the Central Market facing the stage, and along JM Basa all the way to Iznart Street, up to the steel perimeter fence of the Provincial Capitol.
A beaming Roxas occupies almost a third of the face of the streamers. In the middle are his greetings ‘Happy Dinagyang Festival’ and ‘Viva Sr. Sto. Niño.’ To the right of the streamers are the ‘Mr. Palengke’ logo. Surprisingly, there is not an image of the Sto. Niño, for whose honor the Dinagyang Festival is celebrated, in Roxas’ streamers.
Not to be outdone, Gordon had streamers too, but along Ledesma Street, also a parade route for the competing tribes and a major thoroughfare.
At the bottom of the vertical ‘WOW Philippines’ streamers, which were fastened to the streetlamp posts in the island, shows a smiling Gordon on the left, and Mayor Jerry Treñas to the right. Gordon’s streamers carry no greetings, but promote the tourism industry.
Like that of Roxas, there isn’t an image of the child Jesus, but only the silhouette of a native tribesman.
Fernando, for his part, had at least two streamers hung along the railings of the overpass near the Provincial Capitol and another along Gen. Luna Street, greeting the Ilonggos on the occasion of the Dinagyang.
The streamers show a slight smile cracking Fernando’s otherwise stern-looking image projected by his arms crossed at the chest.
Fernando’s streamers are more patriotic for on the bottom part were the Philippine flag. Beside Fernando’s streamers are those of a smiling Iloilo City Rep. Raul Gonzalez Jr.
Escudero’s streamer was the simplest. A small yellow streamer was hung at the perimeter fence of the Capitol, just beside the Bonifacio Drive gate. It carried no picture of the senator nor of Sto. Niño and the message was short: ‘Welcome.’ To maintain the religiosity of the Dinagyang, Treñas said there should be no political speeches nor any form of political posturing especially during the highlights of the Festival, when over a million revelers throng the downtown for the Ati tribes competition.
There should be, he stressed, no streamers of politicians along the five judging areas and parade routes.
Well aware of the lengths politicians go to be prominent, the three-termer mayor said that politicians should take their cue from the religiosity of the annual festival in honor of the Sto. Niño and refrain from using the occasion for political purposes.
“I think they already understand what they ought not to do during the Dinagyang,” the mayor said of politicians visiting the city for the highlights of the festival on January 24 and 25.