Mandaue City is turning 57, and for the first time, pickleball gets to be part of the party.
The sport debuts in the city’s annual employees’ sports festival this August, joining basketball, volleyball, and badminton as part of a month-long celebration built around the theme “Mandaue at 57: Unity in Motion.” It’s a small addition on paper, but it says something about how far pickleball has traveled locally—from a sport the City Council was recently asked to fold into school and grassroots programs, to one now sharing a stage with the city’s more established team sports.
The lineup, unveiled at a media launch on Wednesday, stretches well beyond the courts. City Administrator Atty. Gonzalo Malig-on Jr. tied the “Motion” theme directly back to Mayor Thadeo “Jonkie” Ouano’s recurring branding around unity—the Unity Run, the Unity Cup—framing this year’s addition as proof that the message is meant to be acted on, not just repeated.
A Sports Festival With a New Shape
Pickleball’s debut comes alongside a structural change to how the employees’ games are run. Mandaue Sports Commission officer-in-charge Mary Joy Tabal-Jimenez said participants will now compete in mixed clusters rather than the old inter-department format, a shift designed to get employees from different city offices actually mixing rather than sticking to their usual departmental silos.
The sports slate sits inside a much bigger calendar. The One-Stop Serbisyo Caravan, a 5.7-kilometre Unity Run, the Mandaue Charter Push Bike Race, and the Charter BXC Race round out the athletic side, while the cultural program brings in the DepEd Dance Palabas, the Liga Charter Beats 2026 battle of the bands, an Employees’ Talent Night, the Lantugi Cebuano freestyle rap and spoken word competition, and a food park built around global cuisine. Taxpayers’ Night returns 26 August to recognise the city’s business partners, and the celebration closes out with the Mandaue City Paralympic Invitational Tournament on 11 and 12 September 2026.
The Headline Moment
The month’s centerpiece, though, has nothing to do with sport. Ouano delivers his first State of the City Address on 28 August, followed by Charter Day itself on 30 August—a date that also brings the Charter Day PNight, Adlaw sa Pasalamat, and a Charter Day Concert Night headlined by Silent Sanctuary.
None of it comes cheap. Kristian Marc Cabahug, executive director of the Mandaue Investment Promotions Tourism Action Center, confirmed the city has set aside ₱23 million for this year’s celebration, up from ₱20 million last year, with the increase driven largely by the added cost of staging the mayor’s first SOCA.
City employees stand to benefit from the occasion too. The Mandaue City Council has approved, on first reading, an additional two-month honorarium as a Charter Day bonus for job order and other non-regular staff, while regular employees are set to receive the third tranche of their updated salary schedule under Executive Order No. 64, in line with a Department of Budget and Management circular issued in July.
Between a new sport on the roster, a reshuffled competition format, and a mayor stepping up to deliver his first address to the city, Mandaue’s 57th Charter Anniversary is shaping up to be busier than the one before it.
