MORE NEWS, PANGASINAN

Town set to get corn grill Guinness
By Ding V. Micua

STO. TOMAS, Pangasinan -- The people of this town are confident that they have established a new world record to be included in the Guinness Book when they put up a close to five-km corn barbecue here on Feb. 10. Some 20,000 people, including vacationing overseas Filipinos, lined up the whole stretch from the boundaries of Sto. Tomas with Rosales and Sto. Tomas with Alcala to witness the feat that will erase the existing world record of two kilometers put up last year by Hermocillo, Mexico.

"We are confident that based on account by the documentation team, we had broken the existing world record," said jubilant Mayor Vivien Villar, wife of Undersecretary Antonio Villar Jr., chief of the Presidential Anti- Smuggling Group. Vice Mayor Timeoteo Villar, chairman of the committee on the corn barbecue event, said the documentation of the whole activity will be submitted soon to the Guinness Corp.

The mayor and vice mayor thanked the people of Sto. Tomas, including their guests for their support for the activity that took them more than one year to prepare. The "Longest Corn Barbecue" event was the top feature of the festival that highlighted the town’s 10-day centennial celebration from Feb. 1 to 10. Rep. Mark Cojuangco (5th district) and Provincial Board Member Chu Carancho joined Mayor Villar in lighting the fire that signaled the opening of the activity.

Martin Valera, regional director of the Department of Tourism, hailed the unity and sacrifice of the people of Sto. Tomas so their town would have a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Put up by the people of Sto. Tomas was a corn barbecue measuring 4,938 meters but only 4,800 meters were actually utilized for the activity as organizers ran out of corn ears. Nevertheless, the organizers said world record was already in the bag for the town.

The activity promoted corn, the town’s chief agricultural crop, which is planted in the town’s more than 400 hectares of land. There were 2,024 grill units used, all made of indigenous materials. Each grill unit was used to roast 60 ears of corn at one time or a total of 121,444 ears. Roasting was done three times, so more than 300,000 corn ears were used in the activity.

There were 800 sacks of charcoal spread in all these grill units and poured with 1,050 liters of kerosene to make them burn easily. Aside from this, organizers also poured firecracker powders in the charcoal so when lighted, the first grill exploded. Well-rehearsed and well-executed up to the last detail, there were 7,000 grillers, including the supervisors. Each of them wore green shirt and brown apron.