But Angeles City Mayor Francis Nepomuceno clarified yesterday that the holiday applies only to Pampanga’s 20 towns and one city, not to Angeles where this day will be observed just like any other working day.
“The decision does not mean that Angeles City is not one in observing Pampanga Day anniversary,” Nepomuceno said.
He said the decision to make Dec. 11 a regular working day favored “employers and workers in the city especially those working on a per day basis because Angeles City already had a special non-working holiday on December 08, 2008 in observance of the Angeles City foundation day”.
Nepomuceno also noted that a long Christmas season holiday faces employers and employees anyway.
He also noted that Angeles is politically independent from Pampanga as a chartered city founded on January 1, 1964 under Republic Act No. 3700.
“As a highly urbanized city, Angeles City’s existence, corporate and administrative entities is governed by its own specific charter in addition to the Local Government Code of 1991,” he noted. Angeles voters, therefore, do not vote for provincial officials.
During the term of his predecessor, now Pampanga 1st District Rep. Carmelo Lazatin, the city government also went on holiday every Dec. 11, amid historical data indicating that Angeles started as a mere barrio of San Fernando, the province’s present capital.
Meanwhile, Gov. Eddie Panlilio said that this year’s 437th anniversary of the founding of Pampanga will have as motto, “Musbung Ing Panyulung King Pisasanmetung (Progress arises from unity)”.
Photo and art exhibits have been put up at the capitol lobby here, amid an agro-industrial fair outside.
“The agro-industrial trade fair displays the resilience of the Kapampangan people through their craftsmanship and creativity in such enterprises as wood crafting, metal crafting, ceramics, lantern-making and food processing,” Panlilio’s information office said.
Pampanga Day or “Aldo ning Kapampangan” will culminate in the awarding rites for this year’s Most Outstanding Kapampangans on Dec. 11, the approximate date of the founding of the province. The commemoration was first declared an official non-working holiday during the incumbency of Gov. Estelito Mendoza who also commissioned the composition of an official Pampanga hymn which is sung during official functions of the provincial government up to the present.
