![\"2014](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Liberation-parade-pix.jpg\")
<\/a>Gov. Eloy S. Inos said the parade and July 4th celebration is all about freedom and honor. He also believes the tribute to past mayors of Saipan is a great way to hold the \u201creunion of honor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother significant part of this celebration is that Mayor Marian Dlg. Tudela is the first-ever female mayor of Saipan and she joins us today to celebrate freedom and independence,\u201d Inos said.<\/p>\n
Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said that postponing the parade due to the bad weather was a good decision \u201cbecause the sun is out today.\u201d He noted that the tribute to the former mayors and former Liberation Day queens is one of the highlights of this year\u2019s parade.<\/p>\n
Sablan said he was chosen by the family to represent his grandfather, Gregorio San Nicolas Sablan, the first mayor of Saipan, in the parade.<\/p>\n
Over 30 groups, organizations, and government agencies participated in the parade, some of them featuring floats and mascots. <\/p>\n
The United Filipino Organizations\u2019 float was the sole entry in the float competition and automatically won, bringing home the $700 prize.<\/p>\n
Although many people enjoyed the parade, 50-year-old Chandran Kandiah who has watched the parade since the moment he stepped foot on Saipan in 1990, said he remembers the \u201cold days\u201d when the parade was a lot better.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe parade this year is good and I have been watching the Liberation Day parade for 20 years, but before the carnival and parade was much more exciting and now it is not so,\u201d Kandiah said.<\/p>\n
Another young community member, Jefferson Mateo, 16, said the parade and carnival used to be \u201cspirited.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it just feels like another event to go to when you have nothing to do on a Sunday,\u201d Mateo said.<\/p>\n
Rona Rojas also expressed concern that more community members used to join the parade in past years.<\/p>\n
Liberation Committee chair Vicente Camacho said that every year it is going to be different and that they had to postpone this year\u2019s parade due to the bad weather.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, the efforts that were put into this was very quick. A lot of things happened from the time when mayor Donald [Glenn P.] Flores passed,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going to make it better, how do we make it better? It needs a lot more effort for the government agencies to make it better and, like I said, this year is a little different,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Camacho also noted that the low budget given for this year\u2019s Liberation Day celebration played a factor.<\/p>\n
According to Liberation Committee member Terry Camacho, the budget fell a little short. They were supposed to be given about $8,000 but the committee only received a little over $5,000. <\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the episodes that we had to put up with and the passing of the mayor, we had to change things around, which is why we included the former mayor tributes,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n
One member of the Liberation Committee for entertainment noted that Japan\u2019s Domatsuri and Awaodori groups and a Korean group came to take part in the July 4 parade but then left on July 5.<\/p>\n
After the parade, the public was invited to attend a special ceremony at the Liberation Day festival grounds at the Garapan Fishing Base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A tropical storm scotched the planned parade on July 4 but that did not dampen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":40807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,4],"tags":[160,20,46,67],"class_list":["post-40806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-local-news","tag-beach-road","tag-budget","tag-ceremony","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}