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By Ramon Dacawi, Correspondent
BAGUIO CITY: This summer capital will not treat
even Manny Pacquiao to a motorcade.
“Well, Manny should rather walk to keep
fit,” Baguio Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. said. He had just ordered
a ban on convoys of wailing and headlight-flashing vehicles up here
in the country’s summer capital.
Taking a cue from a provision of the Civil Code
against splurging during critical times, Bautista this week
suspended issuance of permits for motorcades along Baguio’s
roller-coaster roads.
In an administrative order, the mayor told the
Baguio police to deny outright applications for motorcades in the
face of the rising costs of petroleum products and basic
commodities, such as rice.
He cited Article 25 of the Civil Code (Republic
Act 386) that bars “thoughtless extravagance in expenses for
pleasure or display during a period of acute public want or
emergency.”
With the escalating costs of basic consumer
items, Bautista said, there exists “acute public want,” thereby
“making expenses for promotion of business and/or special
activities through the holding of motorcades fall under the category
of ‘thoughtless extravagance in expenses for pleasure’.”
The mayor’s order came a day after
representatives of various government offices aboard about 20
vehicles with their flashers and sirens on swept through the
city’s central business area to launch activities marking the 22nd
founding anniversary of the Cordillera Administrative Region.
The founding anniversary will have the theme
“Walk, Cordillera, Walk,” with organizers hoping other areas in
the Cordillera will take to walking as a means to help conserve
fuel.
Banning motorcades, the mayor said, will also
“encourage a healthier, cost-efficient and environmental-friendly
way of promoting businesses and events by walking.”
The administrative region, composed of Baguio
and the provinces of Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga and
Mountain Province, was established on July 15, 1986, through
Administrative Order 220 signed by then-President Corazon Aquino.
Two days after the mayor’s order, surviving
Filipino veterans of World War II, of foreign wars and of the United
States Navy walked with city officials, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
on Friday to lay wreaths on some of the city’s historical
landmarks in observance of Philippine-American Friendship Day, July
4.
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