Photos of San Isidro, courtesy of Jayson Maceo
The Sunday Times Magazine, 21 May 1972, pp. 26-27
Sincerity Flamboyance, Festivity.
Nowhere else in the world, perhaps, is as much tribte and
homage given to the food god than in the coconut-producing towns of Quezon
province,
Perhaps it had to do with the utter dependence of the
crop on the whims of nature; perhaps it can be explained through the people’s
love for ritual and spectacle. Whatever the reasons, the fifteenth of May each
year is a special day dedicated to San Isidro, patron saint of the farmers.
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| In Sariaya, boys clamber up abamboo pole to try to topple it. |
For weeks before this day, all regular work stops and the
entire towns busy themselves in preparing the buntings and delicacies that will
hamg from wondows and bamboo poles around the town.
Although each town celebrates the feast in its own way
with even urbanized Lucena paying lip service with a few street decorations,
the towns of Lukban and Sariaya, are the perennial competitors in the art of
celebrating San Isidro.
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| The street is a mad sceneof happy grabbing and elbowing. |
Lukban, with its candy-colored kipings in fancy shapes,
its fruits and baskets, its entire window facades in a riot of colors. Sariaya,
with its bamboo poles festooned with goodies which are torn down as the
venerable San isidro passes by in the procession in the early evening; less
colorful, less party-pretty, bit more exuberant and spontaneous.
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| A satisfied grin on his face, Sariaya well-wisher walks away with his prized possessions. |
And, as always, in keeping with the tradition of prayers
for food and a good harvest, no visitor is allowed to go home empty. Food is
literally pushed down one’s throat; it is an insult to decline. Houses are
opened up to entire strangers; and as the Alcalas of Sariaya have found out, no
one has really been proven to be the loser by such a reckless gesture.
Thanks
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