De­spite a rainy day in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, scores of peo­ple showed up at the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion’s For the Love of Lib­er­ty in­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tion at Man­dela Park.

Chil­dren could be seen walk­ing with snow cones in hand, while oth­ers played. The day start­ed with a Kids Fun Day at 10 am, fol­lowed by a Pic­nic in the Park from mid­day.

Five steel bands from around the cap­i­tal en­ter­tained pa­trons with pop­u­lar songs. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed, the sounds of the steel­pan from St Mar­garet’s Boys School in Bel­mont could be heard.

From 6 pm yes­ter­day, pan took over Ari­api­ta Av­enue to close out the day’s events.

The unique cel­e­bra­tion came af­ter the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced on Au­gust 15 the can­cel­la­tion of the mil­i­tary pa­rade, cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns amid the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

How­ev­er, Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne said that host­ing an in­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tion was im­por­tant to him. He said, “We thought that it was im­por­tant to en­sure that the chil­dren of Port-of-Spain had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate in­de­pen­dence.”

“So to­day we have boun­cy cas­tles, we have car­toon char­ac­ters, we have chap­lain ride, we have all kinds of snacks, so they have a full day of ac­tiv­i­ty. We have about five school or­ches­tras that are per­form­ing, and the Scout As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is out sup­port­ing us as well, help­ing us man­age the space.”

Al­leyne said the event cost the cap­i­tal city around $120,000. How­ev­er, he al­so ad­dressed crit­i­cism that some Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-led cor­po­ra­tions have faced for such ex­pen­di­ture. He ex­plained, “We got a sig­nif­i­cant amount of sup­port from cor­po­rate T&T based here in the city.

“We would not have been able to do it with­out their sup­port, and I mean a sig­nif­i­cant amount of sup­port. We were able to man­age the rest of the ex­pen­di­ture from the May­or’s Fund. We have the avail­abil­i­ty to do that just for dif­fer­ent fes­ti­vals that hap­pen in the city, so we’re look­ing at maybe just about $100,000 or $120,000 is what we would have spent. We thought that that ex­pen­di­ture was worth it for the chil­dren of Port-of-Spain.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who at­tend­ed the event, said the cost was not just an ex­pen­di­ture but an in­vest­ment.

In mid-Au­gust, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty an­nounced that the can­cel­la­tion of the pa­rade came af­ter “care­ful de­lib­er­a­tion and in­tel­li­gence” aris­ing out of the SoE.

Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein sub­se­quent­ly said the Gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed against stag­ing the event be­cause it was de­ter­mined that hav­ing so many high-rank­ing state of­fi­cials in one place was a ma­jor se­cu­ri­ty risk.

The de­ci­sion drew mixed re­ac­tions from the pub­lic, with some agree­ing with it while oth­ers crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s stance.