Pahiyas Festival 2008 ( Lucban, Quezon)

photographed by : Eman Rubio

I missed this year's Pahiyas Festival in Lucban, Quezon and my mind is out last week and didn't know that I already missed it, just reminded myself when my friend Eman Rubio sent an album of photos of the festival which he took at their place in Lucban, it was nice and great to see the people crowding up the festival and saw some big changes in the festival.

read my story and photos below after the link

During my youngling years, we used to celebrate it in our home province of Sampaloc, Quezon. Me and my cousins and some other friends troop down the city and after the mass, the patron saint of the festival San Isidro de Labrador will have a procession around the town and then people in their houses with decors of food and agricultural crops will throw away their goodies to the public, and they share it that way and it was fun. I remember we carry a big empty sack and big "bayong" just to store all those goodies. I grabbed lots of foods like suman, breads, cookies, candies and some fruits like banana, papaya, some veggies too.

It was funny that whenever there's a house that has a good item in display in their decor, we await infront and wait till the procession of San Isidro pass by, then we raise our hands and wait for the drop of goodies. Some are "banig", "salakot", wooven items and others are shirt. There was a time that they're gonna throw a pineapple and coconut ahhahaha. When I saw that, I moved away and didn't try to attempt to catch it. You can imagine the crowd of people in competition of grabbing the items...it was fun..

Pahiyas Festival in Lucban and Sampaloc are the same, it is a festival and honor to the saint San Isidro and also in thanksgiving for having a good harvest for the year, because as they say the Pahiyas Festival is the year ender for town fiestas.

I think the festival in our town province of Sampaloc is no longer active, because people now go and celebrate it in Lucban, Quezon, which we can see that it was advertised and promoted every year, I remember even variety shows go there and celebrate it on national TV. It is a fun event for me and its another wait for me for another year to attend the festival.

If I am correct, my last pahiyas festival was in 1996. And I'll wait again for next year and will prepare for it. You can read more about the festival at http://www.pahiyasfestival.com/


with permission to post
and photographed by : Eman Rubio (Lucban, Quezon)

more photos in my album at Pahiyas Festival 2008 ( Lucban, Quezon)