The crowd from Lapu-Lapu City sat on pails that were handed to them shortly after they arrived at the Plaza Independencia, Friday dawn.
CDn photo/Junjie Mendoza
Free meals, water and T-shirts were among the items that were handed to participants of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino – Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) mass oath-taking held on Friday afternoon.
The delegation from Lapu-Lapu City carried plastic pails that contained their provisions while they roamed Plaza Independencia.
Others received sandwiches for their snacks and fans from the head of their delegation.
Noel (not his real name) said hundreds of Lapu-Lapu City residents gathered at the Hoopsdome in Barangay Gun-ob starting at midnight on Friday to prepare for their trip to Plaza Independencia.
Ceres buses started to ferry passengers to the PDP-Laban mass oath-taking venue starting at 4 a.m.
Each of the participants were given a pail containing their day’s provision by Lapu-Lapu City Hall employees, shortly after they disembarked from the buses which they boarded at around 6 a.m.
The pail that Noel received contained two bottled waters and his allocation for breakfast and lunch that were placed in separate plastic containers. His lunch consisted of rice, pork chop and sauteed vegetables.
Noel said his pail also had a white T-shirt with prints “Cebu loves PDP-Laban” printed on its front portion, and a face towel.
The blue-green pail which Noel received also came with a “DERETSO PDP-Laban” sticker.
Noel said he was uncertain what the word “Deretso” meant.
The group of Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza ran under “Team Deretso” in the 2016 election.
Mayor Radaza, who was among the local officials who took their oath before House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez at the Plaza Independencia, said a private donor paid for the 70 buses which they hired and the 6,000 pails which they gave out as tokens to those who joined their delegation.
“Wala gyud nay gasto gikan sa city government kay kahibalo mi nga dili gyud na pwede (The city government did not spend for any of those things because we know it’s not allowed),” she told Cebu Daily News.
She said that her private donor thought of giving out plastic pails because this can be used as container for their meals and improvised chairs that her 2,000 supporters can sit on. They can also use the pails as improvised drums for their cheers.
Noel told CDN that he joined the gathering at the Plaza Independencia to show his support for Mayor Radaza and President Rodrigo Duterte.
But he is happy that they were provided with meals, otherwise he could have already fainted from hunger.
CDN saw that members of the delegation from Toledo City in midwest Cebu were also provided with bottled waters and red T-shirts.
Participants from Tuburan town who arrived with Daphne Lagon were also given snacks, bottled waters and fans with PDP-Laban prints./With reports from Norman Mendoza
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