Banana Festival

i like Bananas

The Booth with bananas

                In a tropical country like the Philippines, Bananas are abundant. Here in the province of Negros Occidental at the town of La Castellana, southeast of Bacolod, they have more than 20 varieties of bananas in various sizes and colors from brown, yellow, green and red. A banana is known as a tree but actually, this is a herbaceous plant with pseudo stems wrapped together forming like a trunk.

Best in Festival Costume

                    It was the day after Easter Sunday, we were up and about so early and went on a road trip for an hour and a half passing through sugarcane and rice fields along the towns of Murcia, Bago and La Carlota. The sun was up and was really hot, we were wearing our sunglasses and brought our shawls, this can be very useful when taking non air-con vehicles. The breath of fresh air early in the morning is what I really like when we travel, Mount Kanlaon was showing of on a bright sunny day.

The LGU Master Singers

                 At the town plaza, about thirteen floats decorated with banana leaves, banana trunk and leaf sheath plus lots of fruits looking so attractive. There were pretty ladies wearing costumes adorned with banana and other indigenous materials on each float, with their umbrellas under the scorching heat of the sun. There were booths adorned with bananas labeled where I counted 23 in one booth alone with names like propeta,, white cadiznon, kadisnon, mundo, white morado, giant sab-a, pakol,arnibal, kamindis, stampilko,matabia, the red one named milagrosa, tordan, todlo dato,taywan, singaporyan, solay bagyo, manilan-on, and bananas stuck beside each other known as dominos, sab-a, balangon , arnibal and many more. At the parade you would see the happy faces of residents from the different barangays and a marching band. Mayor Albert Nicor  and Congressman Alejandro Mirasol together with Vice Mayor Felix Feria IV and Board Member Alain S. Gatuslao graced the affair.

JDC at the Banana Festival

Lynette Cervantes

                 Tourism Officer Lynette Cervantes with the tourism staff assisted the Barangay affairs who organized the event. The program at the gymnasium started with the LGU Master Singers chorale and the La Castellana National High School rondalla plus a folk dance presentation and the presentation of the beautiful ladies in their festival costumes and the municipal scholars with three students who graduated as Cum Laude.

Banana Festival Queen

                The Banana Festival is an event recognizing the farmers and the abundant supply of banana in the municipality which is probably the only plant that has many uses from its leaves as umbrella, plate or wrapper, the fruit can be used for dessert mixed with other fruits as salad, or banana cake, banana split, banana cue and energy food, the sheaths when dried can be used to decorate a gown, shoes, even its trunk can be a life saver used as floater or a stand for barbecue.

Judges

with Congresssman Mirasol and Mayor Albert Nicor

the marching band

Best Float

               We were back early in the afternoon that same day after a sumptuous lunch with visitors and guests. DOT Assistant Secretary Art Boncato flew in for the tour arrangements in preparation for the APEC hosting at the end of April, we had a meeting with all DOT accredited tour guides and tour operators and with only less than 24 hours in the city we made sure he tasted cansi, guapple pie, pastries and good food with a tour of SMX, Silay, Bacolod including museums, checked our tourist buses and the Panaad Park.  Asec Boncato talked to us about the tours, made suggestions including hotel services which needs to be addressed before APEC event. He made mention that tourist establishments and services should be accredited with the Department of Tourism and meet the right standards as it is a law under RA9593 or the National Tourism Act.