“Nurturing People’s Health for Development” which means “bikas di Pug-awan, kawwanan ta sumyaan” in the local dialect, is the theme for this year’s celebration of Gagayam Festival” of the municipality of Sabangan, Mountain Province to be held on March 23 to March 25.
According to Mayor Venancio Emingga Lipawen, the theme was coined from the World’s Commission on Culture and Development statement that ‘Culture is the fountain of our progress and creativity and must be carefully nurtured to grow and develop.”
A young lawyer practicing in Baguio who hails from this town, Atty Romeo Fagsao Buslayan, is the selected guest speaker to inspire the youth, Lipawen added.
According to Ms. Sharon Samidan, the Senior Administrative Officer and the Committee Chairman on Program, the festival will start with a civic parade with a streetdancing contest participated in by the different barangays where they will be judged based on performance and skillfulness, costumes, arrangement, props and participation. In the participation category, street-dancers must be limited only to bonafide residents of the barangay and must be heterogeneous. Samidan clarified.
Another most awaited event on the opening day is the traditional presentation of the municipal local government employees. Their presentation for this year is the Cha Cha on Rocks with all employees participating in line with their agreement that those who will not participate will contribute his/her one day salary to the employees’ Christmas party fund.
The second day will see the choreographed cultural presentations where each barangay will present the different customs and traditions of Sabangan, followed by indigenous games. Contestants are to wear their native attires. The most unique is the contest on “penpenek” named after a locally-made wooden short barrel gun-like gadget called “penpenek” in the dialect and used for catching fish in the river. The contest gauges how fast the contestant lock and load then shoot fish in the span of time of 30 minutes along the stretch of the chilly Chico River from barangay Lagan to Barangay Losad. The contestants will have to survey their own respective fishing areas. Contestants will be from both the high school and elementary levels.
The Indigenous Literary Musical Contest has been scheduled on the afternoon of the second day to beat the boring hot afternoon followed by the battle of the gongs. The musical will see renditions on uggayam and dad-dad-at, both are like story-telling narratives or delivering speeches in rhythmic tunes. The Mayor of Baguio is a well acknowledged expert on these.
On the third and final day will be the inter-barangay Games and the search of Binibining Sabangan in the evening. Agro-industrial Fair is will run during the three days.
By Gabriel Moguet