Council to award former OPAV head Dino with ‘Order of Rajah Tupas’

Presidential Assistant to the Visayas Secretary Michael Dino. | CDN Digital file photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Council will confer the Order of Rajah Tupas Award to its first recipient, former head of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV) Sec. Michael Lloyd Dino, during the celebration of the city’s first Sanggunian Day in a hotel in Cebu City on Tuesday night, December 20, 2022.

Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia announced this during a media forum on Tuesday, December 20, 2022.

Garcia, who heads the 16th Cebu City Council and who authored the ordinance establishing and instituting the Order of Rajah Tupas Award, said that the award is the highest award given by the SP of the City of Cebu.

“And the highlight this evening, is an ordinance that I passed, wherein, we will also award the highest award that the Sanggunian can give to an individual, which we call the Rajah Tupas Award. It is given to an individual who has contributed immensely to the City of Cebu,” he told reporters.

Based on Garcia’s ordinance, the Order of Rajah Tupas Award was established and instituted to recognize individuals “whose deeds of service for the benefit of the city and community transcends thru adversity bringing forth new hope and light to Cebuanos inspiring others to serve.”

Aside from the Order of Rajah Tupas, the city council will also give recognition to former city vice mayors who are still living.

They include Jose Cuenco, Augusto Go, Alvin Garcia, Joy Young, incumbent city mayor Michael Rama, and Councilor Dondon Hontiveros.

Moreover, the city council will also honor about 40 former city councilors from the first city council until 2010.

Garcia said they are also planning on giving posthumous awards to the families of the late members of the previous city council in the following years.

It was the late mayor Edgardo Labella who authored an ordinance designating December 19 of each year as Sanggunian Day of the city. However, Garcia said such ordinance was not implemented until the current city council.

“Sanggunian Day is celebrated not only because, Sanggunian as an office and an edifice. It is also an institution whereby the Sanggunian forms or shapes Cebu City to what it is now through its resolutions and ordinances. So, I thought kinahanglan g’yod ni nato i-celebrate ang Sanggunian as an institution through the Sanggunian Day,” he said.

/bmjo

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