Mayor rides on Valentine’s Day fever, tells workers to wear their hearts’ colors
ILIGAN CITY—People saw red, literally, at the city hall of Oroquieta, Misamis Occidental when the mayor lifted the requirement for employees to wear uniform and allowed them to instead wear clothes in colors that would show their love life.
Mayor Lemuel Meyrick Acosta, admitting it was a gimmick, issued the memo suspending the requirement to wear uniforms to ride on the celebration of Valentine’s Day.
In the memo, issued last Feb. 4 and filled with drawings of hearts in different colors, the mayor assigned red as the color to wear for those in love or in happy relationships; blue for singles; yellow for those in complicated relationships; black for those with no love life; pink for those who are dating and white for those with failed relationships.
The memo took effect on Feb. 12 and would be in effect until Feb. 14.
Acosta said in a phone interview that he just wanted to make Valentine’s Day celebration fun for employees.
He said he thought of the gimmick “for a change.”
“This is just for fun anyway and we are doing it while serving our constituents,” said the mayor, who has been married for 12 years and has a five-year-old son.
“Everyone was excited,” said the mayor who assured constituents he would wear red until Feb. 14.
He said people wanted to know employees’ love life through the color of clothes they would wear.
“As expected there was lots of teasing and it was fun,” said the mayor. The gimmick, he said, “allows us to see that love makes life so colorful.”
“But employees wearing red dominate here,” Acosta said.
