Sagada Etag fest set with events, featured products

By Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- The 9th Etag Festival will be held in this tourist town next week with uplifting display of the locals’ best products including coffee Arabica, woven goods, processed food, wines, pottery, recycled items, organic vegetables, heirloom rice, fruits and ‘etag’ at the municipality’s frontage dubbed Etag festival Emporium.

Mountain Province Rep. Maximo Dalog Jr will be the guest speaker during the twin celebration of the 9th Etag Festival and Feast of the presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the temple and Purification of the blessed Virgin Mary from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2. 

The Sangguniang Bayan in 2011 then enacted the town’s Etag Festival identifying ‘etag’ as a way of life of the people and promoting local products finds meaning in this year’s 9th Etag Festival.   

‘Etag’ refers to the cultural salted and smoked pork with an aromatic smell best served with chicken meat in a delicacy called ‘pinikpikan’.

While ‘etag’ is used for ritual purposes during naming of a child or during agricultural feasts such as ‘begnas’, etag is now a food product sold in stores and cooked as part of meals in restaurants.

Etag delicacies such as etag spaghetti and etag burgers are looked forward to in the upcoming town festival in the Etag cook fest challenge to be observed on the 2nd day of the event.

Another town product is the famous Sagada coffee Arabica.

Coffee Arabica is grown by a number of coffee farmers belonging to Sagada Arabica Coffee Growers and Processors Organization (SACGPO). Coffee beans are processed into roasted coffee ready to be brewed into aromatic beverage.

Sagada won top winning awards in two recent international coffee competitions in France in 2017 by Bana's Cafe and SDG Coffee in Italy in 2019.

Another noted product in Sagada are its woven items sold in town and nearby places of Bontoc and Baguio.

Pioneered by the 1970’s Sagada Weaving are intricately woven bags and more bags of different designs worked on by nearly a hundred weavers and the products sold by nearly 30 individual entrepreneur firms in the town’s souvenir shops.

Processed foods of jams and jellies as well are done by private entrepreneurs including Masferre’s and Gabay’s.

Wines are a come-on with the product popularized by Gabay and Pitik fruit wines.

Pottery has long been promoted by Danonoy potters including Siegrid Bangyay-Rogers, Lope Bosaing and Tessie Baldo. Sagada potters had long been exhibiting their creations in Baguio and Manila.  

Organic vegetables- lettuce, pechay, celery among others - are a regular sight during Saturday market promoted by Binaod, an organization of organic farmers.

Food is a many splendored thing with these to be sold at the municipal frontage.

A civic parade to be participated by schools, organizations, private and public institutions shall be observed from sitio Daoangan to the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin (CSMV) for the ecumenical service. This shall be followed by the opening program with the town’s constituents and government officials and Representative Maximo Dialog Jr as the guest speaker.

Ground demonstrations by elementary and high school students follow at the softball ground.

Search for the best recycled waste bins shall be done at the municipal plaza in observance of the town’s drive for a clean and green town.

The conduct of Miss Sagada at St Mary’ School gymnasium follow evening on the first day of the town fiesta.

Concerts fill the air with the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Philippines (EDNP) clergy on January 31 at the CSMV  and a battle of the bands participated by the town’s youth and adult bands on the last day of the event on February 2 including a concert by Fr. Marcs Castaneda.

The usual street dancing shall be held on the cultural day on Feb. 1 with cultural presentations and indigenous games including ‘depap di beteg’.

The bible quiz bee shall be held at CSMV and the anticipated tug of war on the last day of the event. Ballgames shall go as usual while dry good sales are up at the Mission Compound during the four-day event.