In Glan, Sarangani Province, they have a high regard for the coconut. The coconut after all is a major source of livelihood in this area of Southern Mindanao. It is the reverence they hold for the coconut that they celebrate the Lubi Lubi sa Glan Festival every 8th of October.
Lubi lubi is a native name for the coconut. They celebrate its benefits and multiple uses by a dance festival. Grooving their feet to the rythm of drums.
They also give reverence not only to the lubi lubi but to their patron saint, Sta. Catalina de Alexandria
What I love about this festival is the painted faces and bodies of the participants. You can see a variety of painted faces and colorful costumes here. Often, I marvel at the intricacies of each costume's detail.
Truly they go all the way when it comes to the Lubi lubi festival. And then it also helps that the prize money here is a whopping one hundred thousand pesos for the lucky winner! :) At least it only shows that the local government here give importance and therefore really alot budget to this festival.
Glan offers not only its pristine beaches but a wealth of culture and the arts.
Given that this festival has already been on for 12 years, we wondered why it was not well documented. Why do I think that? I tried googling it and I only came up with LGU published posts. So I wondered, why do photographers (and bloggers alike) seem to shy away from attending this festival when the street dancing was one of the most colorful we've ever been to. And then the 3 photo hobbyists from the camera club who came all the way to Glan had to stop shooting since the place intended for photographers were suddenly blocked by people from Glan themselves. Blocking their view therefore preventing them from taking any more photos. :) Poor crowd control? Maybe.
So sad, when photographers (and bloggers alike) should have been their partners in promoting this event. They are also like tourists so to speak. If people here, start being really friendly to tourists (well, bloggers and photo hobbyists included) maybe more people would start enjoying this festival along with the locals.. --just my two cents worth on this, no offense meant. :)
4 comments:
mmm...yep agree...Crowd control was a bit of a failure....but overall the festival was TRULY FESTIVE and Colorful.
Very Creative with their costumes particularly choices of colors and ingenuity of using raw material obtained from Coconut itself...
Other side of the story lang din is the accumulated trash from all who went to watch the spectacle (like plastic wrappers, cups etc etc,,,from the turo-turo vendors during the event).
But surely, LGU has done something about it...
thanks for the comment sir Ronald :)
actually, i was discussing this with blogger friends at an event last night, and the feedback is that the people there are not friendly to outsiders, reason why they didnt repeat the experience of attending the festival :) hopefully they do something about educating the locals there. kasi sayang ang opportunity to attract tourists.
Stunning photos Lynette. Pa-repost =)
surness.. thanks for visiting our blog again!
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