my pahiyas experience

I have been involve with the Lucban San Isidro Pahiyas Festival when I was still a little boy.  My parents, particularly my father, who started the festival, has countless things to do when May 15 gets near as he was one of the men behind many activities that spice up the Pahiyas, some or most of which were copied, grabbed by the Pahiyas Execom and still being practiced today.  And being the eldest, I am always with him wherever he goes, doing errands.

When I was in high school, we formed “Youth in Action”, a youth organization consisting of high school students and elementary pupils from the many different schools in Lucban.  Our group was formed to become an entry to the 1st Magnolia Youth Achievers Award, a competition of young people’s organization who could make a difference, an impact towards a positive change in the community through various projects and activities.  We won the third prize in the Southern Tagalog region.

One of our projects was the co-organization of the Pahiyas Festival.  As co-organizer, the Lucban municipal government has given the group all the hand in the planning, organization and execution of major events and activities leading to the celebration of the festival.  Our group was given a freehand to handle all the aspects of the festival with prior consultation and approval of the local government.

Being the group’s president, I was able to do many things for the festival, first hand and on my own – communicating and dealing with sponsors, collating other organization’s activities for the Pahiyas, attending meetings with the municipal committee on the Pahiyas and many other things that concerns the group and the festival.

As I grew up, many changes have occured, not just in my life but even to Lucban and in the celebration of the Pahiyas Festival where I am deeply rooted.  The Pahiyas was slowly becoming not a traditional and religious festivity anymore but more of a circus of commercialism.

These days, there’s no public area in Lucban that is clear of buntings, streamers and tarpulin banners of many major companies sponsoring the Pahiyas.  Even the highways outside of Lucban, where trees, farms and nature are a sight to behold, are obstructed with marketing paraphernalia of these companies, who are taking all the chances and opportunities they could get to recoup the huge amounts for sponsorship they have paid to the local government of Lucban, the committee organizing, or merely supervising the Pahiyas.

Large companies, the ones who usually become the major sponsor that pays about a million of sponsorship money, also steals the limelight during the festival day itself.  They bring in large contingents of performers and popular actors and actresses from Manila to woo the public into patronizing their products.  Tolerated by the municipal government, Lucbanin cultural groups like dancers, singers and rondalya ensemble are given only minutile chance of showing the talent, culture and tradition of Lucban that should be the only program being shown during the festival as a showcase of our town to the many local and foreign tourists attending the festival.

One of the many frustrations I had concerning the Pahiyas is the banning of the Pahiyas Execom of our higantes.  The higantes has long been a tradition, had been parading during the Pahiyas for about 2 decades, spanning 4 mayors at the helm and long been in the Pahiyas even before the current mayor and municipal councils and officers of Pahiyas Execom took control of all the affairs of the Pahiyas.  For more than 6 years now, the Execom has banned the participation of the higantes in the festival as I am considered a rebel, who fight against the present municipal administration.

Be it as it may, I just accept them as my fate and believes that there are better things waiting for me.  Anyway, there are laws for everybody and one thing that we can not get out, whatever our status in lives are,  is the law of karma, where one gets punished in one way or another for any misery and anguish he has caused to his fellow human being.

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