Dagupan to celebrate 68th Charter anniversary on June 20
- Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?nid=2&rid=773671
- Wednesday, June 17, 2015
- (PNA), SCS/LVM/LVMICUA/RMA
DAGUPAN CITY, June 17 (PNA) -- Former Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Undersecretary Dante M. Velasco, now a public relations practitioner and also educator, will be the guest of honor and speaker during a commemorative program marking the 68th year of cityhood of Dagupan on June 20 at CSI City Mall Atrium.
Velasco, a native of Dagupan and an alumnus of the Dagupan City High School, was invited by an executive committee for the 68th Dagupan cityhood, called here as "Agew na Dagupan."
Mayor Belen Fernandez will lead the celebration which will start with a civic parade from Guilig St. to the city plaza on June 18, causing the rerouting of traffic in downtown Dagupan.
Fernandez was the first elected lady mayor of Dagupan since it became a city on June 20, 1947. Rosalinda de Venecia was the first appointed lady mayor after the 1986 Edsa Revolution.
Of all the past mayors who served the city, it was Mayor Fernandez who made the difference with her program, "Balon Dagupan" (New Dagupan) that brought city hall to the doorsteps of the people in the villages.
The celebration will bring fond memories of the past when Dagupan was yet a municipality of Pangasinan till its conversion into a chartered and independent component city, the only one in Region 1.
A mecca of trade and commerce as well as of higher education, Dagupan was converted into a chartered city through a legislative measure sponsored in Congress by the late Speaker Eugenio Perez Sr., congressman of the then second district of Pangasinan.
The late Speaker Perez is a revered hero in Dagupan, being instrumental in the construction of the second major thoroughfare in the city, the Perez Boulevard, and the then Perez Market, in the south side of the boulevard.