Higante Festival
1-17-2002
Kalibo, Aklan
The town of Malinao participated in the Higante contest in Kalibo yesterday. I have declared a holiday for the day and almost all employees joined the group. Maybe over a hundred people. All in black shirts. Magana. We may make this a yearly affair. Our entry is the higante of Maniwangtiwang. Ours is the only one using indigenous material as dress. Leaves of yung ginagawa na bulador na brown ang color. Hindi ko na alam ang tawag. Anyway the list of winners will be known in Sunday yet.
This morning there is a delegation of barangay council from Marikina Heights. They came to the office. There were twelve of them who visited the office.
Tomorrow we will have our own ati-atihan. There would be many groups. I gave 1,000 pesos to each barangay for them to have seed money for their participation. Our plan is to have the groups march around the plaza only not parade the whole town. Paikot-ikot lang sa plaza. This is the first time that we will do this. Because dati after the parade around town the participants are tired and they stop. I hope the shorter route will give the participants and the onlookers a better venue to enjoy the celebration.
Malinao Ati-atihan
1-18-2002
We are going to have our ati-ati this afternoon. There are many groups participating. Mainly because I gave an incentive of 1,000 pesos per barrio. I am just continuing what Malinao has done in the previous years. But I think that this kind of celebration is too loose. I mean sabog. Yung bang walang theme. Maybe it is better to have some kind of uniting factor. Some kind of experience that are closely identified with the history, tradition or everyday existence of Malinaonon. As of now this celebration does not in anyway reflect what we have in Malinao. Parang ginagaya lang yung Kalibo. We better think of something for the future celebration of the Ati-atihan here.
