http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/sports/11361-football-fiesta.htmlCheck out the11-11pages.blogspot.com for more pictures.
Fiesta
by rick olivares
When was the last time you attended a town fiesta? A honest-to-goodness fiesta in the province? Not the faux one in the metropolis with the buntings that make you think that there’s something going on when it’s only one of those endless bumper-to-bumper traffic snarls with the car horns beeping to a maddening beat.
I mean a real one where people still go from house to house to partake in meals and celebrate in the town square with song and dance numbers. Where everyone attends Holy Mass and the Church is jammed as if a Manny Pacquiao fight is on live viewing.
I just did and it was quite an experience.
I took the Philippine Airlines Flight PR 141 at 8:50am bound for Iloilo City last Friday to finish a documentary on football when I planed into the official start of the eight-day Patronal Town Fiesta of Barotac Nuevo.
I had not experienced a provincial fiesta since the golden summers of my youth while visiting my grandparents in Tarlac. My memories of that time though lovingly cherished have ebbed into the recesses of my mind. My pop on the other hand, says that it’s a sign of age.
Anyways… there was a wave of excitement that enveloped me during the ride from Santa Barbara to Barotac Nuevo that takes anywhere from 45 minutes to under an hour.
But before that, I made the side trip up north (another 45 minute-ride) to the town of Calinog. Once a hotbed of communist insurgency, when progress came to town along with cemented roads, streetlights, free enterprise, and the internet, the townsfolk picked up and dribbled a football. And now, the town is obsessed with the beautiful game and threatening to make the local football scene a three-way fight (the two other powers are Barotac Nuevo and Santa Barbara).
I came in search of answers as to why football thrives in a place that was once known for la paz batchoy, pancit molo, Spanish-era churches, and a spoken language that even in anger gives new meaning to “killing me softly.”
While football is actually popular around the Philippines, the fractious nature and warring factions of the national sports association has left the scene fragmented. Whatever popularity of the world game seems a pocket aberration in a country that brands basketball as its second official religion.
The ride to Calinog is through bridges that span both dry and slow-moving riverbeds and roads that alternate between paved and dirt ones that are sometimes lit by electricity.
But the real electricity is the centerpiece of the town and that is its football field. Located on opposite ends is the Church of the Immaculate Conception and the Calinog Elementary School. There’s a nearby tennis and basketball court and though there are games going on, I immediately noted that it’s two versus one in tennis while there were only eight people playing full court hoops. And that says a lot about what sport is king here.
The football field is eleven-a-side yet there are several dozens of people seated around the pitch, some waiting for a chance to get in the game while the others are content to watch and coach from the side. In the nearby garden, young kids start their own match.
The sport thrives not simply because it’s the only game in town (Iloilo City and its modern amenities is more than hour’s drive from here) but it’s used as a means to get a scholarship to college, to get a job, or move on to, or the Armed Forces where they can further their career and get paid at the same time.
With the city a long ways off, a treat is a cheeseburger or halo-halo at the nearby Food Mart or a soda and some snacks at the convenience store near the field that also serves as the local football club’s headquarters (the store is decked with trophies that one would think that these are the items on sale not the common goods).
Upon arrival at Barotac Nuevo, the nearby Aragrace Pension House located along the main thoroughfare of JT Bretana Road (it’s a hotel by just another name), is near full occupancy as townsfolk have rented rooms to rehearse for the town parade, the palabas, and a golden jubilee wedding.
The fiesta is in honor of its patron saint Anthony of Padua for whom the church is named after. The town plaza is the hub of this agricultural town. All the popular eateries and public services are located here. Since it’s fiesta time, a nearby empty lot is filled with carnival rides. Dozens of stalls have mushroomed around the plaza hawking ukay-ukay clothes, offering henna tattoos, toys, games, and fortune telling.
I sampled the street food – a slice of pizza (that brings to mind 3M Pizza only with more toppings) that fetched an amazing ten bucks. I’m used to eating my hotcakes with butter and Karo syrup but here it’s like a sandwich where between the two pieces of hotcake, margarine is spread then squirted with honey syrup. “Like a burrito ,” I exclaimed feeling like the village idiot.
When a major television network recently interviewed a local football official and asked what would best symbolize the town, he succinctly replied, “Oh, the Church and the football field beside it.”
The fiesta kicked off with a parade featuring a parade that featured floats, dance troupes, marching bands from civic groups, schools, military and para-military agencies, and church organizations from 22 of the 29 barangays that make up this municipality (seven barangays boycotted the celebration due to their disenchantment with the local officials).
But that didn’t stop several thousand people from lining alongside the roads and filling the plaza to co-celebrate. And for almost as long as the town’s history, the centerpiece of the celebration (outside the Mass of course) were the football matches. And as much as brightly colored garb was the fashion of the day, the staple of Barotac Nuevo wear are the football jerseys of clubs and countries from the world over.
At the head of the parade was its football team, the current Palarong Pambansa National Champions followed by dozens of floats and dance troupes that settled inside the football field where the program was held. The float carrying the Fiesta King and Queen and their royal entourage of princesses who were dressed in attire and headgear reminded me of Queen Amidala in the Star Wars prequels.
After the usual posturing by the local officials that took close to an hour, some kids were so impatient they began kicking around a football on the field and had to be chased off by fiesta marshals. The Pasundayag 2009,
an ethnic dance contest by six schools from the area was a showcase of the ingenuity and talent of the Barotacnons was next and a pageant that crowned the Ms. Tourism for 2009.
By Sunday, the anticipation for the football tournament had reached a fever pitch. In a nearby school there was a motocross competition but the Laos Lontok (a football league for the 40 years of age and above) opened the morning festivities followed by an open football tournament.
Said one local counselor here, “In Barotac Nuevo, the fiesta is a huge event. You can do without the carnival or the dance contest but there always has to be a football tournament. Football is our way of life here.”
Fiesta enjoyed.
No comments:
Post a Comment