Festivals like Lang-ay, a matter of timing and people

HAPPY WEEKEND

Gina Dizon

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- Any festival is considered successful when people are around to watch shows, attend events and buy goods. It is collectively planned considering availability of participants and attending public most especially. This adds relevance to activities and information on the event.

And so the Mountain Province Lang-ay Festival was held April 10 to 30 separated from the holding of the Foundation Day of the province held April 7.

Various activities were lined up during the 20 day Lang-ay event to include the cultural expositions held April 20-24 where municipal delegates were witness to their own performances with unsatisfactory public presence held April 20-24.

This was noticed when I passed by the Multipurpose Hall on April 24 to see the Paracelis delegation performing among themselves and watching their own performance. I came to know other municipalities had the same non-festive frustrating experience with no satisfactory attending public to watch their show with two town performances scheduled per day on said week.

A friend said Mountain Province is not like Baguio where  almost any day draws people to watch a show. Baguio holds its month-long Panagbenga festival with a variety of events starting February.

Municipalities in the province are located an hour distance drive away to the capital town of Bontoc with eastern barangays having  two to eight travel hours before reaching the main town. This means going to the capital town is a valuable day for intentions to be done within a limited time at a certain given day to consider expense and work left at home.

To be going to Bontoc just to watch a cultural exposition of two municipalities for a day and the next four days would be an impractical thing to do.

It seems those from Bontoc are the ones expected to watch the event but of course barangay constituents from Bontoc too are located an hour drive from the main town except those from the central zone. But of course they too have their own preoccupations and work to do on   regular weekdays. And for the province where an estimated 80% of the populace as farmers, people are busy working on fields or attending to other matters.

Mountain Province is basically an agricultural town unlike Baguio where the major source of income is entrepreneurship to add to those office based.

The second week of April signals the time when rains come and people start cleaning their fields and planting corn and legume seeds. With livelihood and field work more of a priority than attending events makes events not enticing enough for work to be sacrificed to watch a show.   

It is a respite that the street dancing and cultural presentations were held April 25.  It had been a successful event that the streets were swarming with the attending public from the different municipalities of the province who came in droves to attend the much loved and attended event.

There is a season for everything and the street dancing and cultural presentations were scheduled on April 25.  Whatever day the street dancing event could have been scheduled could have shown that people could have given up what they were regularly doing to attend an event where the ten municipalities perform and show their distinct cultural dances to the delight of the crowd.

A friend said a onetime cultural event where the 10 municipalities come together would be perfect. I agree with her. The onetime event within certain period of time is cultural. Just like begnas or a babayas or wedding celebration where people come together and enjoy each other’s company dancing and being with each other on a given significant occasion. Babayas is culturally scheduled May and December.    

Again, timing is important to consider being together.

While the nine towns of the province were enjoying the provincial scenario, it is was an unfortunate event that one cannot attend as it is their annual festival day.

Natonin is part of Mountain Province. Its absence was felt during street dancing and cultural presentations on April 25 which date also coincides with their annual Sas-aliwa festival.

The theme of the Lang-ay One People,One Heritage, One Direction towards Cultural Integrity missed the presence of one vital and important part of the oneness of what the theme  expressed -- the supposed presence of Natonin during  a most participated street dancing event.

Towns have their own similar festivals  which equally draws people and decreases attendance to a neighboring festival held on same dates.

The Sagada booth I came to see was abandoned as early as the 16th of April and the agro booth owner-entrepreneurs having attended the Hungduan festival scheduled April 18 to 25 to sell their wares.

The Hungduan event must have been more enticing that the Sagada agro booth folded up and carried their wares to sell at the Hungduan festival.  Banaue’sImbayah Festival falls on the last week of April by the way.

And so I came to know the Lang-ay days except the much attended April 25 street dancing day did not see much people milling around to make the 20 day event festive for people to come together and buy what is displayed.

It must have been reason Sagada booth holders cut their display days during the Lang-ay event and went instead to a more entrepreneurial opportunity obviously as I find no other convincing reason otherwise.

If there are not much people, there is less sales. I asked some  trade fair booth entrepreneurs how their sales were and one said she was only able to sell 240 pesos for  day and worse for the other booth holders as one sold only P120 a day. This was April 24.

I consoled the vendor from Baguio saying there will be more people tomorrow for sure because it’s the street\ dancing day on the 25th.

I went back on the last day of the festival April 30 to ask her sales and didn’t find her with her booth already folded up.

It’s reassuring to note from Ifugao and Bontoc entrepreneurs selling woven products who were still present during the last day on April 30 that they had promising sales. Their sales as compared to the previous years when the event was held first week of April, surpassed previous year’s sales.

“With the long 20 day festival we incurred more expenses,” one said.

Comments from booth holders and the public bared one week-long festival was good enough.

And so with the above, either the Lang-ay festival shall revert on the first week April as previously held and have the last day with or separated from the Foundation day on April 7, or begin the celebration  after April 7 but before the 2nd week of April when festivals from other neighboring towns and provinces are held and when rains come and farm work gets busy.