Bacolod City has won coveted Anvil Awards for the Masskara Festival, Insumix Feeding Program and the One-Stop-Shop Tax Revenue Collection System

These three Anvil Awards for excellence in institutional and corporate programs were bestowed on city officials by the Public Relations Society of the Philippines or (PRSP).

The city officials received the awards during the 41st Anvil Awards held at the Mabuhay Palace of Manila Hotel on April 7,2006.

The Anvil Awards is the Oscar awards for public relations in the Philippines.

Bacolod City Mayor Evelio R. Leonardia, Teresa Galon of Insumix, Eli Tajanlangit of the Masskara Festival and Ardis Jaculina of the OneStop-Shop of the city’s Business and Licensing Division received the awards.

"This is a very inspiring moment because Anvil is very prestigious and it further validated the other recognitions the city has earned when the Asia Institute of Management or AIM awarded Bacolod City as one of the Top 5 Most Competitive Mid-sized Cities in the Philippines in February this year," Leonardia said.

Bacolod City won the Anvil Award of Excellence for International & Corporate Programs in the Category of Public Affairs and Communication for its Indigenous Supplementary Mixture Feeding Program or the Insumix Program. The program was initiated during the first term of Mayor Evelio R. Leonardia in 1995. It succeeded in improving the nutritional status of undernourished school children through supplementary feeding.

PRSP’s ANVIL Awards also cited Bacolod for its successful celebration of its Masskara Festival in 2005. The Masskara Festival, a front act for the opening ceremonies of the 23rd SEA Games held in Bacolod last November 2005, became much more than the usual fiesta activity. PRSP said the involvement of Bacolod’s artists turned Masskara 2005 into an arts festival that strengthened the position of the city in the tourism map.

"It really is very assuring when people or organizations who are apolitical, objective or independent are the ones giving us the recognition," Leonardia added.

Bacolod’s initiative to drastically improve the tax revenue collection of the city earned its merit as the Anvil’s Awardee for Excellence for Institutional and Corporate Program’s Community Relations’s Category. Mayor Leonardia has pioneered a scheme which shortened the 16-stop process to only three. Through the One-StopShop or Tax Revenue and Collection System, Bacolod City upgraded its system in processing and issuance of business permits. PRSP cited Bacolod City for its simple yet effective information slips to the public. These slips contained instructions on what to do and where to go for certain services.