Although the annual Lunar New Year festival in this city has been cancelled this year, the local Filipino-Chinese community said “the spirit of the BacoLaodiat Festival is still very much alive”.
With the muted festivities nationwide amid the Covid-19 pandemic, organizers and officials of BacoLaodiat Inc. as well as the city government decided to forego or suspend the festival’s 16th edition supposed to culminate on Friday.
In a statement, Oddette Ong-Gomez, chair of BacoLaodiat Festival, said that the “modest yet meaningful display of lotuses highlighted by the zodiac animal Ox as centerpiece” at the Government Center grounds shows that the festival’s spirit remains alive.
This, even without the clanging sounds of the gongs, the glitter of the fireworks displays, and the spectacle of dragon and lion dances, she added.
Ong-Gomez said that “like the lotuses which grow in muddy water and are able to rise above the mud and bloom with remarkable beauty, we are one with Bacolodnons in praying that we will all rise from the adversities brought by the Covid-19 pandemic”.
She also said that “may the lanterns represent the light at the end of the tunnel that we all aspire for to reach and come out victorious in this global fight.”
“As we remain sensitive to the call of the times, like the Ox, may we also remain strong in our faith that all our hard work this New Year will be rewarded with luck and prosperity in the coming years,” Ong-Gomez said, adding that they look forward to the celebration of the “next Covid-free, brighter and bigger BacoLaodiat Festival”.
Before midnight on Wednesday, Mayor Evelio Leonardia issued Executive Order 04, series of 2021, suspending the public celebration of the BacoLaodiat Festival and all revelries or activities related to the Chinese New Year to observe and comply with the health and safety protocols to stem the spread of Covid-19 infections.
Leonardia also directed the Business Permits and Licensing Office not to issue any business permit or license to operate any form of activities or events in connection with the BacoLaodiat Festival.
Any permit or license that may have already been issued or granted prior to EO 04-2021 is deemed revoked or cancelled, he added.
In February last year, Bacolod proceeded with celebration of the 15th BacoLaodiat Festival amid the threat of the novel coronavirus, but the pandemic resulted in lesser crowds, which the mayor himself had acknowledged.
The festival’s name, BacoLaodiat, was coined from “Baco” for Bacolod and “Lao Diat”, which is a Fookien word for celebration.
(Nanette Guadalquiver via Philippine News Agency (PNA), photo courtesy of PNA)