Sunday, May 7, 2023

Big Bizs Pay for These Bands, Actors

By Mortz Ortigoza

Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez told this writer that countless bands and actors like the casts of television series Voltez V, Sam Concepcion, DJ Inna Gita, Ely Buendia of the famed Eraserheads, Bloomfields, Sponge Cola, Five Play, Ralp Mariano and the Band, Chewthecud, Headrush Band, Dogz Insekto Pares, Gigi de Lana and the GG Vibes, and others graced the street party without a single cent being spent by the public coffer to entertain the ecstatic masses until the wee hour in the eight stages as they were sponsored by the business sector.
This plethora of bands and actors could shame the numbers of similar personalities being shown by other major festivities' entities in other parts of the country.


It was not surprising to show case for gratis those celebrities because the family of the mayor owned the big retail stores’ CSI Group of Companies that operate in Northern Luzon. CSI is the version of Gaisano Malls in the Visayas and Mindano.
She told this newspaper that sponsors generously offer to her the names of actors and the bands she wanted to grace the street party.
"Iyong mga lumang banda hindi na namin pinili," she quipped.
Each of some of these bands cost more than a million pesos to play for several songs in the night of the Bangus Festival held at the De Venecia Highway Extension in Dagupan City last April 30.
An executive assistant of the Office of the Mayor in the nearby Calasiao town told this writer that before they signed the proverbial dotted line of the contract, they have to agree to pay P370, 000 for several songs of warbling by the Callalily Band for their fiesta this year.
When asked how much Parokya ni Edgar cost for a night of concert, the retort: P2.5 million.

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