Baybay City to mark 10th Charter Day celebration

BAYBAY CITY, Leyte, June 13 -- The city government here is preparing for the 10th Charter Day celebration as a city on June 16.

Baybay City Mayor Carmen Cari said on Tuesday this year’s celebration will be simple. One of the highlights is the inauguration of projects funded by the city government.

These projects are the PHP13 million Banahaw bridge that connects other interior villages in the city while the PHP10 million Buenavista bridge that leads to the material recovery facility of the city.

The bridge in Buenavista was a replacement to the old wooden bridge destroyed by super typhoon Yolanda in 2013, according to Cari.

A mass, blessings of the Veterans Park, and beauty pageant will mark the charter day celebration.

Cari said that since Baybay became a city, they have improved economically even after suffering brunt of Yolanda.

“We always work comfortably with the national government agencies and support their program that is why we survive any problem that we experience through the help of our government agencies,” Cari said.

Cari also thanked city residents for the support and trust they gave to the local government. “Their support are seen in the development that we sees now and enjoys as a city.” 

Baybay is one of the 16 towns that applied for cityhood status which was approved by the Senate in February 2007. But in November 2008, these areas lost their cityhood status after the Supreme Court granted a petition filed by the League of Cities of the Philippines, and declared unconstitutional the cityhood law.

On April 12, 2011, the Supreme Court, in an en banc ruling, affirmed the finality of the constitutionality of the 16 cityhood laws. 

Baybay is a component city of Leyte province with a population of 109,432 as of 2015 census. The city is a major port on the central west coast of Leyte, where ferries leave for Cebu and other islands. (Roel T. Amazona/PNA)