FILE PHOTO: One of the dancers during the Pintados-Kasadyaan Festival on June 27, 2012. INQUIRER/VICENTE S. LABRO
MANILA, Philippines — Barangays (villages) in Tacloban City are being reminded anew that social gatherings remain prohibited amid the current fiesta season in the locality.
“Piyesta ng Tacloban City is on June 30. So, we’re really discouraging itong mga social gatherings, parties, whether reunions, lahat ‘yan talagang dini-discourage namin and we’re monitoring it,” Mayor Alfred Romualdez said during the Laging Handa briefing on Tuesday.
(Tacloban City’s fiesta is on June 30. So, we’re really discouraging these social gatherings, parties, whether reunions, all of these are really discouraged and we’re monitoring it.)
The city capital of Leyte is known to hold large outdoor festivals and street gatherings in celebration of the feast day of Señor Santo Niño de Tacloban. The June 30 event is held annually.
The province of Leyte also conducts the Pintados-Kasadyaan Festival of Festivals in Tacloban City around the last week of June.
“Lalo na dito sa Visayas, pagka-Mayo tsaka June ay lahat ng barangay dito halos, we have 138 barangays, may piyesta lahat ‘yan basta Mayo atsaka June,” the mayor noted.
(Especially here in the Visayas, around May and June, almost all of the villages here, we have 138 villages, have festivals in May and June.)
The city chief executive earlier issued an executive order banning all forms of “in-person” gatherings within his jursidiction amid a spike in COVID-19 cases.
Violators of the said order will be fined P20,000 to P50,000 and jailed for not more than six months as provided under the “Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act.”
“Classification namin is MGCQ technically, but we are following the GCQ guidelines because kelangan na we have to act fast so ‘yun ang ginagawa namin ngayon,” Romualdez added.
(Our classification is technically MGCQ, but we are following GCQ guidelines because we need to have to act fast, so that is what we are doing.)
As of June 14, Tacloban City has recorded a total of 3,348 COVID-19 infections with 410 active cases, 2,877 recoveries, and 61 deaths.
–Faith Yuen Wei Ragasa, Inquirer trainee
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