LAVISH QUEZON TOWN FIESTAS FOR SAN ISIDRO DE LABRADOR
Lucban, Quezon, May 26, 2003 -- (Tribune) When May 15 dawns bright but streaked by a brief rain cloud...when houses bear fruits and flowers and the sky rains with goodies, you will know St. Isidore the Laborer will go marching down the streets in three towns of Quezon province which honor the patron saint of farmers, popularly known in the Philippines as San Isidro Labrador. Legends say San Isidro, the 12th century devout day laborer, had angels ploughing his fields, miraculously causing water to spring from the earth. He is also credited with bringing back to life the dead daughter of his master. San Isidro died on May 15, 1130 and was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. He became the patron saint of agricultural workers, death of children, farmers, field hands, laborers, livestock, husbandmen, ranchers, rural communities and the city of Madrid (as well as other Spanish cities like Leon, Saragossa and Seville). Because the Philippines is an agricultural country, it was but apt that San Isidro Labrador was readily adapted as the patron saint of many towns. In Pulilan, Bulacan Province, San Isidro, Nueva Ecija Province and Angono, Rizal Province, their water buffaloes, the indispensable agricultural Filipino beast of burden, are scrubbed, bedecked and paraded on the streets. His feast day is also celebrated in Bilar, Trinidad and Tubigon, all in Bohol. But more known are the harvest festivals in the cluster of towns of Quezon province, including Lucban, Tayabas, Sariaya and Gumaca. Many agree that none are as thoroughly attractive and festive than the celebrations in Sariaya and Lucban. These we witnessed as the "Globe Telecom Press Caravan" wound our way southward from Manila, passing coconut groves and quiet towns, into the three adjacent towns strewn around the mystic Banahaw mountain. The most common characteristic of these fiestas is the ostentatious display and giving away of agricultural produce and other products. The practice stems from the belief that if you give away what you have, it will come back to you twofold. The fiestas are a way of thanking their patron saint for the bounty they have received, as well as a way of ensuring more plentiful future harvests. The decoration and sharing of crops are practiced by all the townfolk, rich and poor alike. Even the most modest hut emerges emblazoned with a lush array of colors and designs, like a peacock in a mating ritual. People who join in the parades are likewise costumed in fruits, vegetables and other native materials. Agawan We arrived in Sariaya on the 14th to see the preparations of the Agawan Festival. We could see that most people had started decorating their houses the day before. Among the three towns, Sariaya possesses the most number of ancestral mansions. On nearly every narrow street, we saw big old houses, august and beautiful, and ruins, which made us pensive of their past grandeur. The festival name, Agawan, is of recent development. It was the idea of Rev. Fr. Raul Enriquez, now the town's parish priest, president of its tourism council and the proponent of the town's grand quadricentennial celebration in 1999. The name describes the main feature of the fiesta procession. As the parade winds its way through the streets, people snatch the goodies and other produce hanging on the houses they pass by or on a pabitin, specially made for the parade. At the same time, people in the houses would throw food, fruits and money into the parade. Late in the afternoon, we saw people giving finishing touches to their decorated houses. Colorful buntal hats were festooned all over the façade of houses. String beans were draped on windows to make curtains. A lot of banana trees were used to adorn fences. But the main and most traditional element in the decoration was the bagakay, or young bamboo branches from which junk food, fruits, candies and money were hung for people to snatch up. People say no matter how high the bagakays are, they would bow when the image of San Isidro Labrador passes by, allowing people to grab the goodies. Mayohan The celebration in the next town of Tayabas was markedly less ostentatious, unassuming even. Mayohan in Tayabas actually lasts from May 11 to 18. But on the 15th the main celebration is held. There were no grand decorations here, just gatherings of family and friends, enjoying grand feasts at home, or in restaurants like Tayabas' renowned Kamayan sa Pakisdaan. The restaurant lies sprawled over a fish pond. Tables are set on huts floating on rafts. When we had lunch there, the restaurant was packed with Tayabasins treating their friends and visitors, as well as balikbayan family members for meals of grilled tanguigue, kare-kare, pork knuckles, seafood, sinigang na sugpo, ginataang tilapia and a host of others. In the afternoon, there was the parade. And like the Agawan, Tayabas has its Hagisan ng Suman, where people throw what else? the rice delicacy into the parading crowd. Pahiyas The most attractive and the most well-known of all San Isidro Labrador fiestas is, of course, Lucban's Pahiyas, which is held from May 11 to 15. On ordinary days, the town gives off an air of quaintness a placid old town with narrow streets and a sloping terrain, punctuated by a few ancestral houses and the old church. Small homes seem squeezed together on narrow concrete roads. But on the days approaching May 15, Lucban transmogrifies into a something like a big, bustling amusement park, where people walk around the town marveling at and taking photographs in front of the bedecked houses. Homeowners are accommodating when visitors want to go into their homes and up the second floor to get their photos taken leaning out of the embellished windows. Fruits, vegetables, grains and seeds were used in every imaginable way. Mongo beans were dyed and glued on walls to make wonderful mosaics. Palay or unhusked rice grains were also used. A house studded with thousands hanging red chilis. A giant pineapple made of little pineapples stood at a corner house. A hanging bridge made of abaca fibers was erected in front of a houses covered with abaca fibers and dried coconut leaves. One owner had an inventive way of simulating rain on his window, hanging a perforated bamboo pole across the lintel through which water trickled. Some did miniature landscape gardens in the little front space they had. Houses competed with the most eye-catching and original decorations. Indeed, making the Pahiyas (which means "to decorate") competitive in recent years has given people impetus to participate and create grander or more inventive designs. Of course, everywhere the fiesta's traditional decorating item reigned: The kiping! Kiping is rice wafer made by steaming brightly colored rice batter over fresh leaves and then drying them. One cannot call Pahiyas the Pahiyas without the kiping. At the recent celebration, kiping wafers were formed into gigantic flowers, hung over windows and eaves, or bunched up together into a cascading chandelier. After serving as décor, the kiping could be deep-fried and eaten like kropek. The town glowed even at night as the decorations were outfitted with lights. Indeed, no fiesta in the country can be more decorative than the Pahiyas! Centuries after St. Isidore the Laborer may have miraculously brought forth water from dry earth, Filipinos are causing houses and even people to bear fruit and flowers! (By Roel Hoang Manipon, Photo by Raymund Saldaña)