HUNDREDS trooped to the recently opened Rio de Oro Boulevard to attend Tuesday’s launching of the annual Higalaay Festival, signaling nearly a month’s worth of activities that culminate on Aug. 28, the city fiesta.
As city councilors and organizers of the festival’s 19 core events took turns presenting their activities to the public, Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Rolando Uy cited the city’s patron saint St. Augustine, and the Rio de Oro Boulevard as symbols and examples representing the city’s ideals and capacity to endure and prosper amid life’s challenges.
“Our patron saint St. Augustine embodied the virtues (of generosity, friendship, and a willingness and capacity) to help and serve others as well as to work and effect positive change…May we as a people emulate and embody these virtues not only as we celebrate our annual fiesta but in the days ahead,” Mayor Uy said in Visayan in his message during the festival launching program.
Uy said the choice of Rio de Oro Boulevard as the launching venue is significant given the city’s experience during the 2011 Sendong tragedy.
Tropical Storm Sendong (international name Washi) claimed more than 1,000 lives in the city alone. The boulevard which opened in May formed part of a flood control project funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
“This edifice signifies our capacity to recover and to rebuild stronger from whatever tragedies and trials that we experienced and overcome…it shows that we can rebuild our relations with each other as a local government, as a community, and as a people,” Uy said in Visayan.
Tuesday’s launching of the annual Higalaay Festival featured a lineup of the festival’s 19 core events ranging from the fluvial procession and street dancing competition and crowd drawers like the Miss Cagayan de Oro pageant to sports events like the international Dragon Boat race, and Premier Volleyball League (PVL) tour and exhibition match.
Organizers also held an onstage demonstration of the ‘Nine Steps’ to be adopted by street dance groups that embodies Cagayan de Oro City’s spiritual, social, and cultural heritage.
The launching ended with the mayor and city officials pressing the ceremonial button to officially declare the festival’s opening punctuated by a fireworks display. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)
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