By Glazyl Y. Masculino and Dolly Yasa
BACOLOD City – The two male teenagers who went viral on social media for allegedly dancing indecently during the 46th Dinagsa Festival in Cadiz City, Negros Occidental over the weekend, personally apologized to Mayor Salvador Escalante Jr. Monday.
The minors aged 16 and 17, both residents of Silay City met the mayor and the police at the City Hall after they were sent by Silay City Mayor Mark Golez.
In a joint public apology statement, the minors, whose names were withheld, said that they apologize for their inappropriate actions last Saturday during the “Lamhitanay sa Dalan” as part of the festivity.
“We agree with the clamours that our acts were not in line with the spirit considering further that it was in honor of the patron saint Sr. Sto. Niño de Cadiz,” they both said.
“We were merely carried away by the joyous celebration and it was not our intention to destroy the celebration. Unfortunately, we did not realize at the time that we were being irresponsible, foolish, and immature,” they said.
Despite the city’s accommodation, we failed to respect their event. We sincerely apologize to everyone including the organizers and employees who toiled hard for months preparing for the fiesta, they said.
“We have learned our lesson and we pledge that the same incident will not happen anymore, not only here in Cadiz City, but in other cities as well. Further, we wish that this will put an end to this incident and that we will no longer post anything with regards thereto on any social media platform.”
Also, the two teenagers each paid the P3,000 fine for violating a city ordinance pertaining to indecency.
Escalante said he appreciated the efforts of the two minors for coming out in the open and for facing the consequences of their actions.
Escalante said it only shows that they still need to do more preparations to prevent it from happening again.
Escalante said the festivity evolves but they will be inculcating more on promoting the religious aspect of the celebration.
In a statement, he said that while Cadiz City observes tolerance and diversity, such, however, should not go beyond the bounds of good taste, decency, and accepted norms of public conduct.
We would like to remind the public that display of obscene messages on placards, lewd acts, and the likes are certainly unacceptable and have corresponding punitive measures, he added.
He also appealed to netizens to help them identify those individuals who were holding placards with indecent messages during the festivity.
Some photos of these individuals were posted on Facebook over the weekend which garnered mixed reactions from netizens, somehow putting the city and the festivity in a bad light.
“We need each and every Negrosanon to help us identify and remind them of their obligation or they will be facing a civil case,” Escalante said.
He also said that he respects the LGBT as he cited the organization of Tribu Bading in the city composed of the LGBT community in Cadiz.
