8th BacoLaodiat opens today
BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO

The 8th BacoLaodiat Festival opens at 4 p.m. today at the North Capitol Road in Bacolod City, with a cultural program and the ceremonial lighting of lanterns, zodiac animals and snake lanterns.

Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia and festival chairman Leonito Lopue will lead other officials at the opening rites of the Festival, which is the city’s own Chinese New Year celebration.

The Chopsticks Alley, a food walk and night market with colorful booths of delicious Chinese food, and souvenir arts and crafts, also opens today at 4 p.m.

Mass wedding on V-Day
BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO

The biggest mass wedding is expected to take place next week in Bacolod City on Valentine’s Day with 2,010 couples scheduled to exchange marriage vows at rites to be officiated by Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia at the Bacolod City Government Center grounds.

Leonardia said yesterday that the mass wedding is a tradition observed in Bacolod City every year.

He recalled that last year, Vice President Jejomar Binay came to Bacolod to attend the mass wedding, which was then the biggest with 775 couples.

The regular session of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Negros Occidental yesterday was adjourned after about 20 minutes because Board Member Salvador Escalante, chairperson of the SP Committee on Finance and Appropriations, asked for more time for his committee to deliberate on the 2013 budget of the province.

The SP had earlier referred back to the Finance Committee for deliberation, the proposed P2.02 billion budget with a vote of seven against five, that had already been discussed in a series of committee hearings in October last year, before it was submitted for floor deliberations by the SP.

Before the adjournment, Board Members Patrick Lacson, Manuel Frederick Ko and Renato Gustilo wanted to discuss other matters such as the granting of a permit for carnival operations behind the Capitol grounds.