Dateline Batanes

Still in Batanes

It’s really hot in Batanes at the moment, although it rains in the evenings now and then.  We’re right in the middle of a whole-week celebration of the Batanes Foundation Day and the Batanes Provincial Athletic Meet.  All LGU officials in the six municipalities, together with the staff of national agencies in Batanes, are in Basco attending the event.  June 26^th, the Batanes Foundation Day, was a non-working holiday here.

We spent the whole morning of the 26th watching the cultural town parade (parade route around Basco, ending up at the Basco Oval for the mid-morning program at the Basco Ninoy Aquino Grandstand) where all towns and agencies of government participated.  Following this parade around Basco town, was a rather lengthy program where the Provincial Governor delivered his SOP message to the province.  

 

Senior Citizens of Basco join the cultural parade.

During the morning program, we were also treated to a mass performance (three generations of performers) of the Batanes War Dance called palo-palo, and a beautiful rendition by the Sabtang delegation of the Vakul Dance.  This dance, interestingly, is a rendition in dance form of specific uses of the vakul, such as one can use it to sweep the floor of a house or even an area on the ground along the sides of farm plots where said vakul may be laid down afterwards and on it a baby who had to be brought along to the farm because no one would take care of him/her at home.  The vakul serves as beddings for the baby. 

This year, three celebrations were observed: Batanes 230^th Foundation Day, 3^rd Ivatan Festival, Batanes Provincial Athletic Meet.  This was a week-long celebration.  We’d like to show some snippets of said celebration.

Of interest was also the Agri-Industrial Trade Fair where Ivatans exhibited their products, among which were the "pinaka" products, like pinaka-malaking hinog na papaya, pinakamalaking uvi, pinaka malaking pinya, pinaka. magandang, etc.  You would not miss the average size of the banana called "latundan: or nai-china among Ivatans.  Another banana closein appearance with the saba in the Luzon area, is called loria.

This is one of the biggest papaya fruit on exhibit during the agro-industrial trade fair in Basco.  I didn't bother to measure, but it was large.  Below, right, are samples of uvi and gabi tubers.

 

 The Ivatans call this "Loria" but it looks like "saba."  They use it in much the same way as saba.







To the right is a pix of Turdan, called
in Batanes as nai-china.

   

At the end of the day, HS students go around cleaning the Basco oval of trash.