BINMALEY–The Sigay Festival here will definitely return next year after the success of its launching celebration from January 22 to February 2, the town’s fiesta and 421st founding anniversary.

Marissa Cerezo, wife of Binmaley Mayor Lorenzo Cerezo and chairman of the festival executive committee, said Sigay Festival proved to be a hit considering the thousands of residents and guests who came and watched the events.

She said balikbayans expressed their delightful experiences and promised to return for festival next year.

Mrs. Cerezo said the local government aims to make the Sigay Festival a permanent event in Binmaley to continuously promote the town as the seafood capital of Northern Luzon and make it a part of the country’s tourism map.

Binmaley is a first class town located between Dagupan City, Pangasinan’s commercial center, and Lingayen, the capital town.

The three local government units share the same body of water, the Dagupan-Binmaley-Lingayen River that empties into the Lingayen Gulf.

Councilor Jose Carrera said Binmaley would like to lay claim to “Sigay”, a word which denotes fish harvest.

The word is also a combination of the Pangasinan words silew (light) and gayaga (happiness), which the festival seeks to bring to the people of the town and their guests, he added.

For his part, Mayor Cerezo, only in his first term of office, said 70 percent of the town’s total land area is devoted to aqua-culture, making Binmaley really the seafood capital of the north.

SEAFOOD BOUNTY

At least 6,138 hectares of land in Binmaley are being used as fishponds for bangus (milkfish), malaga (siganid), shrimps, crabs and other fish species.

The town has already put a stop to the use of fish pens along the rivers to keep the rivers habitable.

From its fishponds alone, the town produces 5,800 metric tons of fish monthly, more than Dagupan’s production of 1,800 metric tons from fishponds and another 3,000 metric tons from fish pens.

She added that given time, the Sigay Festival will outdo some of the most popular festivals in the country.

“In our lst Sigay Festival, we tried to improve on the style and choreography of the bigger Dinagyang and Sinulog festivals,” she said.

3-IN-1

The street-dancing event, chaired by Councilor Edgar Mamenta, coincided with the Feast of the Lady of Purificacion, the patroness of Binmaley.

“It was a three-in one affair,” said Mrs. Cerezo, “since the town celebrated not only the Sigay Festival but also the founding anniversary of the town and the feast of the people’s patroness saints.”

The Sigay Festival started January 26 with a fluvial parade along Binmaley’s rivers which were recently cleaned from unsightly fish contraptions with the help of the province’s Task Force Kalikasan.

Mayor Cerezo thanked Governor Amado Espino Jr. who mobilized the resources of the provincial government to clean the town’s river system and uses it as a showcase in Pangasinan.–LM

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