Bigger and more exciting Talong Festival

By Eva C. Visperas

Mention talong (eggplant) and Villasis town in the eastern part of Pangasinan easily comes to mind. That’s the fruit of the town’s successful first Talong Festival last year.

Next year, local folks will experience a mini Rio De Janeiro Street dancing when the town holds a bigger, more exciting and more splendid second Talong Festival in mid-January.

Mayor Nonato Abrenica said he traveled to Rio de Janeiro earlier to have a personal experience of  the great thematic festival where people from different corners of the world, clad in colorful costumes, dance with joy and freedom to the gaily tune of samba beat and drums. The Brazilian festival has become a gigantic tourist attraction.

Abrenica said elementary and high school students will be wearing unique costumes coupled with the parade of floats adorned with talong, the main crop of this town, for the grand street dancing to make the town’s celebration of its 200th year foundation next year more memorable.

“We want something different for our street dancing and we will adopt a samba song patterned after the Rio de Janeiro Festival,” Abrenica added.

Another highlight of the town fiesta celebration will be the formal inauguration of the new, imposing and attractive P13 million worth municipal hall funded mainly from the proceeds of their Miss Villasis popularity contest in 2004 up to 2006.  This is something other towns and cities should emulate.

I’m excited to cover this event. The participants are reportedly agog and excited rehearsing their special numbers, I was told. And bigger prizes starting from a minimum of P50,000 are at stake for the winner. This will still be increased, according to the mayor, up to P100,000 if expected pledges and solicitations  from donors  materialize.  All participating groups have already been given P10,000 each as incentive to cover costs of their costumes.

“This will surely make us different. We want to gain prominence and we are slowly achieving our goal,” Abrenica said.

Aside from the street dancing competition noon of Jan. 19 to be participated in by at least 100 students per contingent from seven high school groups and another four in the elementary, there will also be a Talong Cookfest and a Talong Grill plus concert and Street Party in the afternoon of the same day.

Some people know Villasis as the town with the “biggest waiting shed” because they mistake the Bagsakan Market as a waiting shed. Whew! But soon the town will have one more distinct characteristic that commuters will easily remember. It has a bright yellow town hall that looks like a shopping mall! Someone said it looks like an aquarium with the glass doors and windows all around, obviously suggesting total transparency. That’s very good.

So, about one month from now, Villasis will again be the center of attraction for this festival.  Indeed, who wouldn’t notice Villasis today? It’s certainly no longer KSP (Kulang sa Pansin) for the town like it used to.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/business-log/)

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