Shane Su­perville

The an­nu­al Tu­na­puna Day mil­i­tary pa­rade went ahead on Sun­day with­out a for­ma­tion from the TTPS, but Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Josi­ah Austin said he was grate­ful for Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s sup­port in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the cel­e­bra­tions.

The third an­nu­al pa­rade be­gan just af­ter 11 a.m. at Con­stan­tine Park, Ma­coya. For­ma­tions from the TT Cadet Force, the Air Scouts, the T&T Fire Ser­vice and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean March­ing Band were present.

Speak­ing at an af­ter-pa­rade re­cep­tion, Austin said the TTPS opt­ed not to par­tic­i­pate as there was no com­man­der to lead the for­ma­tion. He not­ed that Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro as­signed the TTPS March­ing Band to the event.

"Ide­al­ly when we first asked we were told that there was a pass­ing out cer­e­mo­ny com­ing up and as such they had to ma­neu­ver things and I know they did as best as they could to en­sure we have some rep­re­sen­ta­tion here to­day but un­for­tu­nate­ly there were no com­man­ders so the band and the de­tach­ment couldn't car­ry on, but we are thank­ful for them at least show­ing up and they've shown up all the years pri­or and to be fair we were the on­ly re­al mil­i­tary pa­rade in the coun­try for the year so we were thank­ful for what was pre­sent­ed here to­day."

Austin said the pa­rade has grown in pop­u­lar­i­ty and at­trac­tions since its in­cep­tion, re­flect­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co re­gion. A na­tive of Trinci­ty, he said the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion con­tin­ues to ful­fil its man­date through co­op­er­a­tion with gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers.