Bacolod City has “postponed indefinitely” the public celebration of its 83rd Charter Day set today.

Mayor Evelio Leonardia said in a statement that because of the present number of COVID-19 cases in the city, the city officials have decided to postpone the celebration “until better times come.”

He said the decision was upon the recommendation of the Bacolod Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) chaired by Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran and the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) led by executive director and City Administrator Em Ang.

“The postponement of our celebration is indefinite until better times come. We hope for the understanding of our people as this is a move to contain COVID-19,” the mayor said.

He added that the city had made early planning and preparations for the public celebration of the 83rd Charter Day, as practiced and mandated by City Ordinance No. 616 entitled “Mga Adlaw Sang Paghanduraw.”

“In anticipation, we had already invited Presidential Legal Adviser Secretary Salvador Panelo to be our honored guest and speaker. However, because of our present COVID-19 figures, we made another assessment of the situation. Our IATF and EOC have recommended that it is best that we postpone the event until better times come,” Leonardia added.

“We thank Secretary Panelo for also graciously accepting our decision to postpone the event,” he said. “We wish to assure our fellow Bacolodnons that we will continue to give due honor and respect to the observance of that historic day of June 18, 1938 when President Manuel L. Quezon signed Commonwealth Act 326 which created the City of Bacolod. We believe that singular event was a major factor that catapulted Bacolod to where it is today.”

This would have been the third year that the city will be celebrating its Charter Day on June 18, after it had celebrated the occasion every October 19 in the past 80 years.

Bacolod held its first June 18 Charter Day anniversary celebration in 2019, after President Duterte signed Republic Act 11146 or the new “Bacolod City Charter Day Act,” that also declared June 18 of every year as a special non-working holiday in the city.

The Charter Day celebration is one of the major activities of the “Mga Adlaw Sang Paghanduraw,” the city’s annual commemoration of history, art and culture, from June 12 to 20 as provided for in City Ordinance No. 616./WDJ