‘Fests of the North’, city’s ‘grandest’

By Gerry Garcia

THE “Festivals of the North”, virtually a grand cultural event into which the Dagupan Bangus Festival, under the leadership of the city’s first lady vice mayor ever, Belen Fernandez, has expanded were overwhelmingly impressive in the number of crowds and commuters drawn on one hand and participants in the street dance competition on the other. Actually and publicity wise, the Festivals of the North outshined the city’s last fiesta celebration, including all the other previous fiestas.

Participants in the dance competition included: 1) the Mapandan street dancers 2) the Agoo (La Union) street dancers 3) dancers from Laoag City 4) competitors from San Fernando City  5) dancers from Infanta and Villasis (Pangasinan) and participants from San Carlos City.

For the tremendous success earned by the “Festivals of the North” our Mayor Al Fernandez was elusive in recommending Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez again to chair the next “Dagupan Bangus Festival in the coming year.

The festivals’ financial and crowd-drawing success could also be seen as an end-result of the US-bound trips lunched jointly by City Hall’s two leading Fernandezes and their staff to drum up support for the Bangus Festival from US-based Dagupeños.

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Rerouting of road traffic during the festival days has not hampered the enthusiasm of car-riding shoppers for spree at the city’s 3 large shopping malls, the NEPO on Arellano-Bani, the CSI-Square in downtown Dagupan andthe CSI Warehouse in Lucao.

Parking space lack has not been a limiting problem for NEPO -Arellano and CSI- Warehouse in Lucao. The sprawling grounds on which 2 malls stand allowed establishment of ample parking systems.

Car parking, however at the CSI Square in downtown Dagupan was and still is a problem. The parking area is just a short stretch in front of the mall, accommodating cars of both genuine and non-genuine CSI shoppers.

Patronizers of CSI Square in downtown Dagupan are not mostly car-riding, they are generally the common tao, passenger jeepney and bus riders who are let off simply and conveniently at the shopping center, after all they have no cars to park. Crowds and shoppers flocking to the center are so multitudinous that a pedestrian foot-bridge had to be built spanning the broad width of AB Fernandez Ave.

(Readers may reach columnist at sundaypunch2@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/here-and-there/  For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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