(Bannered by a depicted bundle of harvested rice stalks with panicles laden with goldenhued grains, San Jose City firms-up its title as Nueva Ecija’s Christmas Capital. The design is made more colorful by a play of colored Christmas decor lights strategically set-up on the compound of the city coupled with the smaller panicle and grains design installed on lamp post on the the three-kilometer stretch of the Maharlika Highway traversing the city’s poblacion. Photo by Elmo Roque)
SAN JOSE CITY – A businesswoman’s “balik-pabor sa publiko” (returned favor to the public) largesse – that of providing several thousand sets of crafted Christmas lighting décor – is making this city elegantly aglow every night for 58 nights firming up this city’s title as “Christmas Capital of Nueva Ecija”.
The Christmas lights decors are installed on the lamp posts at the middle of the Maharlika Highway that stretches to three kilometers and on specially designed structures on the city hall compound and public market area here.
The lights were switched on last November 10 and will be on till the end of the holiday season which, per Catholic religion calendar, is on January 6, observed as the Feast of the Epiphany.
The lighting ceremony in front of the city hall here was held 46 days before the beginning of the usual Christmas holiday which is marked by a nine-day “Simbang Gabi” starting December 16.
Thousands of residents and visitors massed in front of the city hall Saturday night and jubilantly joined mayor Mario “Kokoy” Salvador in the countdown for the switch-on. They simultaneously erupted in glee as the lights went on. They unanimously commented that this year’s decors were more elaborate compared to last year’s set-up.
Salvador, in an interview, revealed that his wife, Virginia Gripal-Salvador, whom he named as the city’s honorary chairperson of the committee on beautifi cation and cleanliness, thought of the idea of providing the decors.
His wife manages their family’s palay-buying and milling distribution enterprise. He said he had distanced himself from the operation of their business since he was elected mayor during the 2016 elections.
“Actually, many of the sets (of decors) were used during the holiday season for our compound’s Christmas decoration in the past,” Salvador said. “Since the area covered now is bigger, the crafting of the decorative lighting sets multiplied five times more,” he added.
The family’s enterprise is one of the biggest among the 30 such rice-buying, milling and selling enterprises concentrated in the city’s designated economic zone here.
During the past years, thousands of people gathered nightly at the Gripal-Salvador compound to enjoy the beautifully laid-out Christmas décor. The free public showing of movie films also attracted many visitors and enterprising tiangge-tiangge and eateries entrepreneurs.
This year’s set-up of Christmas décor, whose crafting started last July, has a predominant design of palay panicles laden with golden-hued grains. Estimates said it cost at least P5 million.
“It symbolizes our main agricultural crop here and that of Nueva Ecija,” Salvador said.
Nueva Ecija, with about 190,000 hectares of land used for rice production during the main season and at least 120,000-ha during the dry season, is the undisputed premiere rice-producing province in the country.
The elaborate set-up of the décor on the city hall compound – bannered by a huge bundle of symbolic palay panicle and grains – is, based on unanimous comments, “like a fairy tale location with a maze of blue-colored Christmas lights, trees appearing like snow-covered, domes with multi-colored lights, a dancing fountain that changes its color, and a tall Christmas tree with off -and-on lights.
Salvador announced in his short talk that last October, he received a trophy in Cagayan de Oro in behalf of the city for being declared as one of the top five cities or towns with outstanding “Liwanag sa Pasko” set-up. The award, he said, was given by the Tourism Officers Association composed of the tourism officers of the different provinces, cities and towns in the country.
As an aside, he also announced that the city was bestowed the “Seal of Good Local Governance” (SGLG) given by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). It was one among 263 local government units (LGU) which successfully hurdled the criteria on seven governance areas of financial administration, disaster preparedness, social protection, peace and order; business-friendliness and competitiveness, environmental management, and tourism, culture and the arts.
He added that the office of the Department of Tourism in Region III declared this city as the “Christmas Capital of Nueva Ecija” last year and was also granted that title by the Nueva Ecija provincial board.
Corollary to the switch on ceremony last Saturday, a “night market”, with at least 600 stalls, around the city hall and market area was also opened.
“Nightly movie film showing will also be held for public viewing” the mayor said.
The city allotted only P700,000 for Christmas décor and for electricity bill. “Bahala na” was the mayor’s answer when asked where to get additional funds. He is known here as an official with no qualms of digging in his own pocket.
