Roots
Changing face of the fiesta
By Marifi Jara
Fiesta celebrations are rooted in the Spanish legacy of commemorating Catholic saints, with each town or locality being assigned one who stands as the patron of the community. But beginning in the last decade or so, we have seen and are seeing a character change in these celebrations with a shift in focus towards the other facets of our culture.
From a mainly religious festivity, the face of the fiesta is evolving into something that exemplifies the spirit of the people, their history and their way of life apart from their religion.
Pangasinan is actually a forerunner in celebrating a non-religious-based fiesta with it’s Pistay Dayat (the festival of the sea), which has long been observed every 1st of May, particularly in towns lying on the lovely Lingayen Gulf along the western coast.
Lingayen, the provincial capital, leads in the festivities, but the other coastal towns further south such as Bolinao and those leading up north all the way to San Fabian also hold some special activities. Some landlocked towns actually also join in the celebration by holding their own Pistay Dayat of sorts in rivers or other inland waters.
Sadly, though, the Pistay Dayat has not been fully capitalized on by the provincial government by developing creative and unique activities coupled by a more extensive promotional campaign.
The extravagant celebrations of Kadayawan in Davao and Panagbenga in Baguio are good examples. These have become two of the country’s most popular annual events, both of which are observed in honor of the cities’ respective foremost icons –Mt. Apo, durian and the waling-waling orchid for Davao (hence Kadayawan was originally dubbed Apo Duwaling) and flowers for Baguio (Panagbenga loosely means bloom time in a Mt. Province dialect).
In recent years, particular towns have actually overtaken the province as a whole in similar endeavours, including Dagupan’s Bangus Festival and of late Villasis’ Talong Festival, Alaminos’ Longanisa Festival which coincides with their March 19 town fiesta in honor of St. Joseph. Even the quiet town of Sto. Tomas has developed its Corn Harvest Festival to highlight their aim to become a major producer of the organic white corn variety.
I don’t mean to undervalue the significance of the Philippine’s Catholic tradition, but I think that these transformations in the fiesta are an important and delightful signal of our maturity as a people. More and more, we are learning to recognize and appreciate who we are in terms of our environment, our economy, and our culture as a distinct people.
The Pangasinan identity, or the Filipino identity for that matter, has been a long time coming. But it’s good to see that we’re slowly, slowly getting there.
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