TANAUAN, Leyte, Aug. 15 -- Nearly four years after super
typhoon "Yolanda" flattened this town, residents here depicted their
stories of resilience through "Pasaka Festival", an annual ritual
dance competition.
Thousands of residents here
gathered at the plaza Monday afternoon to be entertained by the performances of
dancers in colorful costumes moved to the rhythm of festival beats.
The local government held
the main event at the town plaza, the same place where about 900 out of 1,252
typhoon casualties were buried after the November 8, 2013 catastrophe. Just a
stone's throw away is a memorial wall carved with names of typhoon victims.
Rehabilitation of the town
plaza was recently completed. It was primarily funded through a PHP30-million
donation from Injap Group of Companies headed by Ferdinand J. Sia, founder of
Mang Inasal.
“By restoring the plaza and
making it better, people will start to forget sad memories. If the plaza is
okay, it will snowball other development projects,” Sia said in an earlier
interview.
"Pasaka Festival"
is part of the town’s fiesta. "Pasaka" is a local term for "to
call progress, good health, and a bounty of fortune in the coming years.”
The highlight of this
year’s "Pasaka Festival" is the ritual dance competition of different
stories interpreted by the participating schools in town.
Each contingent performed
their dances, telling stories on how locals worked together to rebuild their
lives shattered by killer winds and giant waves that flattened coastal
communities.
Tanauan Mayor Pelagio
Tecson said the local government had been preparing for the festival in the
past three months, involving council members, department heads, school
officials, and local businessmen.
"We celebrate this
year's 'Pasaka Festival' because it represents the unity of the people of
Tanauan, our collaboration, and resiliency. It's a story of the values of
Tanauan that has been the driving force in our recovery since the destruction
of super typhoon Yolanda," Tecson said.
Picked as this year’s grand
champion was the Tanauan National High School, the biggest secondary school in
town.
Their dancers portrayed as
Tribu “Karasikas” a combination of local term which means bamboo sounds. The
group bagged six other major awards.
"It is a story about
the process of how to make bamboo crafts like furniture sets, lamp shades, and
others," said Dieldon Casilan, the group’s chreographer .
Processing bamboos into marketable
products is one of the first livelihood programs revived after the 2013
disaster.
The town is one of the
badly hit areas by the monster typhoon, leaving a trail of destruction worth
PHP91.41 billion. At least 1,207 people were killed by big waves and 45 by
killer winds.
The second class town,
located 18 kilometers north of Tacloban, has been tagged as model of
post-disaster recovery in central Philippines for being the first to get back
on its feet. (SQM/With reports by Patricia Salvo, Madelene Perez & Reynadel
Costillas, OJTs/PNA)
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