Will there be Dinagyang 2010?
It’s already mid-September but we haven’t heard about the preparations for the Dinagyang Festival next year. In previous years, preparation for the Dinagyang Festival start as early as March or barely two months after the holding of the festival. In fact, by the month of September we can already see posters as well as pamphlets bearing the Dinagyang Festival schedule. By this month Dinagyang tribes would have already started practicing their performances. It could be that the reason why we haven’t heard much about Dinagyang is that our officials are already busy positioning themselves for the May 2010 elections. But Dinagyang Festival is being handled by the Iloilo Dinagyang Foundation Inc. (IDFI) which is composed of individuals from the private sector. Maybe City Tourism Officer Ben Jimena can explain why there is no movement yet for next year’s Dinagyang Festival.
Jed meets Erap
Vice Mayor Jed Mabilog met with Pres. Erap last Sunday. Insiders said there was serious talk between the two – apparently concerning politics. In fact, there are rumors that Vice Mayor Jed and his group have already signed up with Pres. Erap’s PMP or Partido ng Masang Pilipino.
‘No segregation, No collection’
City Mayor Jerry Treñas again ordered the implementation of the “no segregation no collection” policy on wastes by October 15. Well, we hope that there will be improvement on compliance this time since the last time the policy was implemented it was merely ignored by the city residents. We have observed that the previous implementation of the “no segregation no collection” policy was useless because the garbage collectors mix up the garbage when they place it in the dilapidated garbage trucks. In other words even if the garbage was segregated at source still it gets mix up when it reaches the Calajunan dumpsite. Fortunately, there is a lot of scavengers at the Calajunan dumpsite who segregates the garbage, of course, for their own benefit.