Feast of San Isidro / Mayohan sa Tayabas

TAYABAS, QUEZON, MAY 17, 2007 (MALAYA) The ten-day Mayohan sa Tayabas festival, which celebrates the bountiful harvest of summer, culminates today (May 15) in Tayabas, Quezon.

The festivity, which centers on the Feast of San Isidro Labrador, (St. Isidore) patron saint of farmers, recaptures the town's unique heritage and community life.

The highlight of the May-time fest is the "hagisan ng suman" where revelers get free native cakes from every house.

There is also the traditional parade of "baliskog" (welcome arches made up of native materials) and "suman", as well as the colorful Santacruzan with participants garbed in buri-inspired apparel.

Other activities are trade trainings on business opportunities and basic entrepreneurship, livelihood trainings, an acoustic music night, theater and dance contest, budin plating and cake contest, agro-trade fair and other socio-civic events.

Also launched was the 1st Invitational Trail Dirt Bike Racing Competition to explore the town's scenic outdoors.

Situated 100 kilometers southeast of Manila, Tayabas is host to historic spots being the provincial capital during the Spanish era.

Among these are the century-old Basilica Minore of St. Michael the Archangel, which reputedly has the longest church aisle in the country; the Casa de Comunidad, a museum and cultural center, and stone bridges.

Tayabas Quezon rests at the foot of the mythical Mount Banahaw. It is home to Basilica Minor ni San Juan Miguel Arkangel, named as the second biggest and one of the most beautiful churches in the Philippines. Tayabas, Quezon is host to the "Mayohan sa Tayabas" one of the country's most celebrated harvest festivals.

Pasayahan sa Lucena

Another month of merry-making has just started and as this season offers a variety of outlandish spectacles and a vivid selection of eccentric ingenuity, Lucena City finds no reason not to proffer a different theme of fiesta. This time, Pasayahan sa Lucena commemorates a delicacy, the pancit chami. A product of natives’ interdependence with another culture, chami entices all spectators to taste an alternative feature of celebration, the Chinese-Filipino style.

Chinese lanterns glow at night as they attract everyone's sight.

This Chinese emblem appears to be the epithet to the event.

A delectable and mouth-watering Lucena cuisine, chami has put her to an annual dazzling gathering every traveler would wish to attend to. With its succulence, Lucena bolsters this dish as a true distinction, thus honors the culture this saucy-noodle cookery finds its origin. Lucena plus China? Voila! Pasahayahan sa Lu-china: Chamihan sa Mayo Po! was chosen to be this year's festivity banner.

The Chami savors to be the highlight of the Pasayahan 2008.

Pasayahan sa Lu-china? Okay, this theme really caught a mind. Well, who could think of an idea of making the whole vicinity an ambience to another community? The central avenue is now dressed with decorations uniquely Chinese, a long array of lanterns to identify what is to actually take place. On one side of the city-proper is a streamer inviting people to join the carnivale in search for the most palatable dish of chami. Take a look of the other corner and there drapes a banner calling all magchachami to go in with a kilometer of tables turned ‘street-kitchen’ to set up the longest pancit cooking event.

Participants to the street dancing showcase what they got.

A stretch of tables turned street-kitchen for the chami cooking contest.

But I heard, the carnivale takes merely a part of the aggregate presentation. More to perceive during the grand parade of floats dressed with strands of noodles delicately arranged to have shapes and designs of mottled perspectives. Street dancing groups, attuned with steps and instrumental music, are to allure audience with costumes crafted from indigenous materials fused with inter-cultural motifs.

Aside from those, the fiesta also gives a variety of chic and cheap choices of goods. In fact, an assortment of goods and items are at sale. At night, commodities fill up the stretch, time for a good buy and barter. On streets intersecting the main road are stalls and owners who had their prior agreement with the government to sell within the fest duration. Every side now gets a chance to give a pleasure of fashion from traditional to modern styles, wares and house utilities of different sort. Yet needless to say, food kiosks never let the event down, since they quench and satisfy all spectators’ thirst and hunger.

Of course, this celebration kicks-off to grace a spiritual tribute to the place’s patron saint, St. Ferdinand who finds his site of devotion in the heart Lucena.

A proud merriment and carnival, Lucenahins invite everyone to share with them the last fiesta for the month of May. Pasayahan stands by its name; surely every detail entails a worth-remembering scene.