Monday, November 21, 2011

Higante's Festival Angono







Higantes Festival, also known as the Feast of San Clemente, is celebrated every November 23 in the town of Angono, Rizal. This is a major festival in honor of San Clemente, the patron saint of fishermen. His image is carried by male devotees during a procession accompanied by "pahadores" (devotees dressed in colorful local costumes or fishermen's clothes, wearing wooden shoes and carrying boat paddles, fish nets, traps, etc.) and "higantes" (paper-mâché giants measuring 10-12 feet in height and 4-5 feet in diameter). This street event ends in a procession to Laguna de Bay until the image is brought back to its sanctuary.

The “higante” tradition began last century, when Angono was a Spanish hacienda. The hacienda owners concerned about costs prohibited all celebrations except for one annual fiesta. The townspeople concerned about enjoyment decided to make the best of a bad situation. Using an art form brought from Mexico by Spanish priests, they created larger-than-life caricatures of their Spanish landlords. In typical Filipino fashion, the fiesta become in equal parts, a stunning spectacle and a tricky inside joke. There too was a story that a French man happened to pass by this coastal town of Laguna de Bay as he cruised from Manila Bay. Captivated by the town being divided by a river, he predicted that someday giants would come out and become famous. True to his words, Angono can show off of two national artists - Carlos "Botong" Francisco in the field of visual arts and Professor Lucio D. San Pedro in the field of music. There are other Angono sons and daughters who are becoming big or giants on their chosen field of endeavor. Paper mache making is an art that is known back during the Spanish Era. The head of the giants is fashioned from a mold made of clay, which is dried under the heat of the sun.

With the advent of modernization and technology clay is changed to plaster of Paris and resin. The mold is then pasted with lots of newspapers then split into the middle and sun-dried, after which it is then pasted with the brown paper (the slit being covered) then sun-dried again and painted. The body is made of bamboo, but other materials like yantok (rattan) and thin iron bars can also be used. Yards are yards of clothing materials and accessories complete the costume of the "Higantes". Before, Angono town fiesta features a "Mag-anak" (family) Higantes consists of three figures, the father, the mother and the son. In 1987, Mr. Perdigon Vocalan visualized the idea of having a Higante Festival wherein all the barangays in Angono(13 of them) are to be represented by two to four Higantes symbolizing the industry or the personality of the barangay. This idea materialized with the funding given by the Dept. of Tourism and Provincial Tourism Office thus in a year after a seminar and a workshop in Higante Making , the fiesta was flooded with thirty-nine different Higantes. In that year too, there was a contest among the Higantes, thus one can see them a Higante with a duck on its head and another one a basketful of duck eggs representing a barangay that known for its fried itik and balut-making.



Angono lies to the east of Pasig City. Take the Angono-bound buses at the Shaw Boulevard terminal in Pasig. Travel time is 45 minutes but can stretch to over an hour, as traffic tends to be heavy.


Located in the nearby province of Rizal, Angono has always been known as a haven for artists. Renowned Filipino painters and sculptors like Nemiranda and Jose V. Blanco trace their roots to this town. A Street near the old church is, in fact, lined with the wall paintings of Carlos "Botong" Francisco, National Artist for Painting. There are also a number of galleries where one can view and purchase their work, as well as those made by their talented protégées.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

A Child's Dream




A Child's Dream

If were to knock on the enwinding doors
What kind of the future is waiting for us?
Someday,like gears turning
It will be like everything overlaps


Dear God if you exist,I want you to listen to me
I can't send away these days and moments we can't repeat
So just for a while longer I what to be child,
Hiding behind in this world and dreaming

This day disappears within dusk
But what does it leave behind?

The night sky doesn't seem so bad
With shinning stars against the background

If it could only be a little bit longer right now
I could have these many days close

My faint thoughts when you were entranced by my hair
And your footsteps were getting closer and closer,

With two destinies that aspire together,
The goodness of victory is death or life









Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Thougth Of The day BUTTERFLY


BUTTERFLY

A girl found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.

So the girl decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The girl continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the girl, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us.

We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!

I asked for Strength.........

And God gave me Difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for Wisdom.........

And God gave me Problems to solve.

I asked for Prosperity.........

And God gave me Brain and Brawn to work.

I asked for Courage.........

And God gave me Danger to overcome.

I asked for Love.........

And God gave me Troubled people to help.

I asked for Favors.........

And God gave me Opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted ........

I received everything I needed!

Guys always trust in God …….


Friday, October 21, 2011

Thougth Of The day FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE

FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE




  • Love starts with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a tear.

  • · Don't cry over anyone who won't cry over you.

  • · Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to forget.

  • · You can only go as far as you push.

  • · Actions speak louder than words.

  • · The hardest thing to do is watch the one you love, love somebody else.

  • · Don't let the past hold you back; you're missing the good stuff.

  • · Life's short. If you don't look around once in a while, you might miss it.

  • · A best friend is like a four leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.

  • · If you think that the world means nothing, think again. You might mean the world to someone else.

  • · When it hurts to look back, and you're scared to look ahead, you can look beside you and your best friend will be there

  • · True friendship never ends.

  • · Friends are forever.

  • · Good friends are like stars....You don't always see them, but you know they are always there.

  • · Don't frown. You never know who is falling in love with your smile.

  • · What do you do when the only person who can make you stop crying is the person who made you cry?

  • · NOBODY IS PERFECT UNTIL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH THEM. (Isn't that the truth?)

  • · Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.

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