“Nurturing People’s Health for Development” which is stated in the local dialect as “bikas di Pug-awan, kawwanan ta sumyaan” is the theme for this year’s 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.
According to Ms. Sharon Samidan, the Senior Admin Officer and the Committee Chairman on Program, the festival will start with a parade with street dancing with barangay participants which will be judged based on their performance and skill, costume, arrangement, props and participation. In the participation category, street-dancers must be limited only to bonafide residents of the barangays and must be heterogenous, Samidan clarified.
Another event in the opening day will be the traditional presentation of the municipal local government employees who have been practicing everyday like how PMA cadets practice their famous silent drill. Their presentation for this year is the “cha cha on rocks” which they have agreed upon as early as the first week of January. All employees are participating because they have a gentleman’s agreement that those who will not participate will contribute his/her one day salary to the employees’ Christmas party fund.
On the second day will be the choreographed cultural presentation 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” (locally made wooden short barrel gun-like gadget called “penpenek” in the dialect, paired with water goggles, used by the locals to catch fish in the river.) Contestants are from the high school and elementary levels. The contest will gauge how fast the contestants to lock, load, and shoot fish in 30 minutes along the stretch of the chilly Chico River from barangay Lagan to barangay Losad. It will be the initiative of the contestants to survey their respective fishing areas. In case of a tie, there will be an overtime of 10 minutes.
The indigenous literary musical contest was tactically scheduled for the afternoon of the second day to beat the sweltering afternoon blues followed by the battle of the gongs. Then the rendition of contestants of uggayam and dad-dad-at. The mayor of Baguio is well acknowledged as an expert in these and this is even believed to be one of his plus factors on why he is unbeaten in politics.
The third and final day will be for inter-barangay games and the search for Binibining Sabangan in the evening. The Agro-industrial Fair will be from day one to day three..**gabriel moguet
