By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
Heart, harvest and harmony. These three words are part of a catchy theme of the 2026 Strawberry Festival. Add the word limitless, which hints of immensity or enormity and you will be describing what La Trinidad is, or striving for, as a first class municipality.
That’s why the exact theme of the Festival is, “Limitless La Trinidad: Heart, Harvest and Harmony”.
The 2026 iteration of the Festival is the first under the helm of mayor Roderick Awingan. So what he did was just to implement what is intended by the relevant municipal ordinance. It was like a test run for him to see what could be done to enhance or improve it. Interestingly, this year’s event was noted to have the greatest participation of the community ever. Mayor Awingan considers this as a very good indication of the people’s increased willingness to contribute to the town’s progress.
It will not be far-fetched to expect an enhanced version of the Festival for 2027.
Many of the Festival’s completed activities as this piece is being written were well-received and participated in.
The civic parade on Mar 18 and the main program just after it was highlighted by the presence of the mayors of two sister cities of La Trinidad. Hagat, Guam mayor Kevin Susuico and Guaga, Pampanga mayor Anthony Joseph S. Torres.
In his short speech, Mayor Susuico talked about his wish that the bond between Hagat and L.T. will grow stronger and it will last long. He also mentioned about possible enhancement of such bond by cultural exchanges, etc. For his part, mayor Torres hailed, among others, the indomitable and bayanihan spirit of L.T. residents. Both were glad to be a part of the enjoyable Strawberry Festival.
As expected, the DRUM AND Lyre, street dancing and float parade, was a resounding highlight although it was staged almost at the middle of the month-long festivities. Overflowing spectators lined both sides of the two-kilometer parade route. One week later, the strawberry cookfest, the other high point of the festival took place. Visitors got a kick and really savored partaking of the cake made out of more than one ton of strawberry and churned out by at least 20 bakers.
New products had been displayed and being sold in the strawberry lane using the luscious fuit: liquor, tart, pastries, donuts, various coffee blends, shakes, strawberry cheese-turon, etc. Other novelty products not using strawberry were also on display.
The trade fair part of the festival exhibits only the usual items: clothes, footwear, kitchen utensils, food, souvenir items, and others. It would be nice to have a special nook for goods manufactured in the town, especially those originated by locals. This should promote their products and boost their businesses. That corner should be treated as a special consideration for the concerned MSMEs.
Mayor Awingan is very thankful to the community and the visitors for their cooperation and participation. He is enthusiastic in getting the festival to a higher level so more tourists will come. For this, he sees the community’s continuing cooperation and partnership in programs/activities as crucial. He sees the event as a foundation, a tool for unity and harmony that will ultimately redound to economic progress for the whole of the municipality.
The mayor believes that with unity and harmony our resilience will be enhanced enabling us to better overcome problems like the current oil crisis.
He shares that opening up the LGU to the people will make them come, participate, and contribute their share in development.
With the strawberry Festival as a jump off point, he laid out plans for big ticket projects for the municipality, amounting to about PhP790.0M. These were earlier presented to the CAR Regional Development Council currently chaired by Apayao Gov. Elias Bulut JR. These include the Renovation of the Halsema Highway especially within La Trinidad, Balili River PARK, Emergency Command Center, construction of an MSME building,, Flood control, Trading Post Improvement. The chairman assured mayor Awingan that he will present the proposal accordingly for deliberation.**
