‘Creative City’ tag ‘a challenge’ for Cebu.

CEBU, Philippines —  Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella said that being part of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Creative Cities Network encourages the city to perform better to provide more creative projects.

In spite of the recognition, Labella said the city should work harder to garner more achievements on the creative side.

"Let us be more aggressive in making Cebu City a creative city. We will not be complacent," said Labella.

He said his dream for the city is to be also recognized as the "garden city in the Philippines."

He hopes to achieve such, once the planting of the three million trees, one of his administration's thrust, in the city will be realized.

Meanwhile, Vice Mayor Michael Rama, Committee on Tourism chairman, said that the city will continue to strive to produce more creative Cebuanos who can contribute for the success of the city's projects in the future.

"Because there are many creative people. We are inherently creative. That is what we have," said Rama.

He said that the Cebu City Sports Complex should have a room where creative children can go to mold their craft, grow as an artist, and soon contribute to national and international projects just like world-renowned industrial designer Kenneth Cobonpue.

"You can just discover the creativity of the kids. As they grow, they will improve and expand and they will become national and international (artists)," said Rama.

Labella also vowed to have more projects for the city.

He said that the tremendous increase of the amount of tax collected which has reached over P7 billion as of the moment and the bigger Internal Revenue Allotment the city will get due to the Mandanas case will be of great contribution for the realization of the city government's projects in the future.

UNESCO has recently included Cebu City in their roster of Creative Cities as a “Creative City for Design”.

The development sets Cebu as the second city in the Philippines to be part of the global network after Baguio, which earned its “Creative City for Craft” status in 2017.  GAN (FREEMAN)