Iloilo City to become sister cities with German city

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The State of Bavaria in southeastern Germany eyes to become sister cities with a highly urbanized city in the Visayas, Iloilo City.

Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog is enthusiastic on the offer of the German couple who are residents of Aschaffenburg, Bavaria and good friends and partners of Bavaria Mayor Klaus Herzog.

A highly industrialized city, Bavaria is known as a center of clean solar technology and other heavy equipment and only home of BMW cars in the world.

Import export consultant Heinz Dieter Bender and his wife Socorro Cansancio Bender paid a courtesy call at the city mayor’s office on Monday, October 15 to exchange ideas on the proposed sisterhood agreement.

Mrs. Bender, now a German nationality, traced her roots to the Cansancio family in Leon, Iloilo and still maintains a family house in the Iloilo municipality. They were married for the past 32 years and have 3 adult children working in Germany.

Bender and his wife are general manager and chief executive officer respectively of YelloBill 168 eK based in Germany and involved in exports of solar electricity materials and heavy equipment. Currently, their main export is in Iraq with Sheik Khrebett as their main costumer of solar electricity equipment and materials.

Mabilog said he is interested to connect with a German city and Iloilo as the first Philippine city to have a sisterhood agreement with a Euro city. He said there are many Ilonggas married to Germans and raising their families in several cities of Germany.

Bender assured he will do everything to cement the sisterhood agreement before December this year. He said they live near the city hall of Aschaffenburg, Bavaria and Mayor Herzog there is their personal family friend.

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