Bogo City Employees Chorale - History

The Bogo City Employees Chorale, one of the famous choir group in cebu composed of purely government employees.
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During the time when Hon. Dodong Pedroza was still a municipal councilor of then "Municipality of Bogo" (Tining Martinez was the mayor at that time), he organized a choir group of municipal employees.  The group's name was "BMEU CHOIR", named after the Bogo Municipal Employees Union.  The group performed in countless memorable occasions.  Honorable Pedroza himself was the choir trainer with the late "Eddie Riveral" and Mr. Rizalino "Rey" Ygot as his guitarists. During this time, the city councilor (Dodong) was too busy performing his duties and responsibilities being an elected official that he cannot spend enough time to practice the group. And so the choir only make their practice a day before every performance. Despite this, because of Honorable Pedroza's mastery and experience in music, specifically in choir training, the choir still performed well in numerous occasions.
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It was after the 2007 election when Mayor Junie Martinez won against Dr. Hortelano as Mayor of Bogo that the choir group was given more attention. On July 02, 2007, the first day of Mayor Junie's reign as the new Mayor. He delivered his speech right in front of the employees during the flag ceremony. With him were  Vice Mayor Santiago Sevilla and all newly elected Councilors (they also delivered their speeches). Mayor Junie said a lot changes will be implemented in his new administration.  The way things were done specially the delivery of basic services must be improved which he specifically mentioned about  "reorganizing the choir."

And so right after the flag ceremony, the new mayor called up  Mr. Dante Mayor to his office and instructed him to reorganize the choir.  And to make the story short, from then on, the Bogo City Employees Chorale was born.  During various occassion sthe choir performed well with the leadership of the new organizer which also served as trainor and organist.
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In the early 2008, or around the late 2007, Dante Mayor sought the help of Mr. Slavsky Ybañez, a well-known Musician in Bogo to improved the choral group. He is a  graduate  of Bachelor in Music from Colegio dela Inmaculada Concepcion, Cebu City.  He was then connected with DepEd Division of Cebu at that time.  Mr. Ybañez never hesitated to share his God-given talent and profession.  Despite the busy schedules, he still finds time to be with the choral group and give some finishing touches, techniques, and even teach  them with well-known Visayan songs. It was during the creation of the interim DepEd Division of City of Bogo that Mr. Slavsky Ybanez started to spend more  time with the choral group (he is now assigned in Bogo).
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Mr. Slavsky Ybanez now holds the baton of the choir with Dante Mayor. But of course, it's still Mayor Junie who inspired the group and make the selection of songs.  Cebuano Music is the first love of Mayor Junie, and first love never dies.
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The choir's first performance outside Bogo was during the wedding of Mayor Tining  Martinez and Ms. Jen Rodriguez, read more-see pix...
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