Contingent from Talisay City in Cebu perform at Fuente Osmeña Circle area enroute to the final dancing stage at the Cebu City Sports Center during the Sinulog grand parade held on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019. |CDNDigital photo by Junjie Mendoza
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Establishments along the Sinulog 2020 grand parade route that will offer their comfort rooms for pilgrims or tourists to use may be able to collect P5 to P20 as service fee for the use of their facilities, according to a resolution approved by the Cebu City Council.
This is one of the earliest preparations of the Cebu City government for the annual Sinulog Festival, the grandest celebration in Cebu, to be celebrated in 2020 from January 9 to 19.
The annual festival in honor of the Señor Santo Niño culminates every third Sunday of January, the Feast Day of the Child Jesus, with dawn Mass at the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño followed by a mardi gras-like grand parade. Both the religious and the merry making aspects of the festival have been drawing millions of pilgrims and tourists to Cebu.
Councilor David Tumulak, the proponent of the Sinulog-related resolutions approved by the City Council on Tuesday, October 1, 2019, told CDN Digital in a phone interview on Saturday that the measure was just one of the details that they have to put in place within the next four months prior to the holding of the festival.
“We want to prepare as early as now because there are so many things to prepare, and we might as well already inform the establishments in downtown Cebu City of everything they can expect in January,” said Tumulak.
Tumulak, who was the deputy mayor for the Sinulog 2019 celebration during the term of former mayor Tomas Osmeña, said one of the most common problem he noticed that participants, spectators, pilgrims, and tourists faced during the Sinulog grand parade was the difficulty in finding comfort rooms to relieve themselves.
He said that although the city has been providing portable toilets (portalets) in strategic areas around the parade route and in Pilgrim City, where temporary shelters are set up for pilgrims who flock to the city during the Sinulog week, he knew that these had not been enough for the thousands of people expected to be on the streets of the city days prior to and during the Sinulog culminating events.
Establishments are encouraged to open their comfort room services to the public on those days, especially the establishments along the parade route on Osmeña Boulevard, D. Jakosalem Street, P. Burgos Street, Lapu-lapu Street, Zamora Street, and Magallanes Street.
P5 to P20 is the amount agreed by the Council to be a reasonable fee for the use of the toilet, said Tumulak.
Aside from toilets along the Sinulog parade route, the City Council has also approved the declaration of a “No Parking Zone” within 100 meters from the perimeter fences of the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño for the duration of the novena Masses and the Sinulog Festival from January 9 to 19.
Tumulak said this would ensure the safety of the crowds attending the hourly novena Masses at the Basilica.
Finally, the Council also urged the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO), and the Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (CDRRMO) to submit to the city council a copy of their safety and security plans for the Sinulog Festival on or before December 13, 2019 before getting the mayor’s permit to execute the plans.
Tumulak said these preparations could help ease the work of the Sinulog Foundation Incorporated, which is the main organizer of the festival.
He said the city aims to have a grander festival for 2020, and to do this, the preparations must be intensive. /elb