Cantilan Town Fiesta

campus image: born to move

Depending on how you look at things, the recent town fiesta was either a success or another waste of resources. This has always been a problem for me: How do you measure the success of our town fiesta? Is it the number of stores that opened to sell varied items from pirated VCD's to ukay-ukay or is it the success of the different activities lined up by the LGU? Or is it simply the fact that we were able to get thru another fiesta without any serious incident happening? Or are you of that belief that our fiesta is plainly a celebration of our Blessed Mother's Assumption to Heaven?I had the chance of walking around the vicinity of the public market to look at what the temporary stores have to offer to the public for consumption. I saw different items being hawked on temporary tents that can be easily folded up and transferred to the next town fiesta. It is amazing to see the entrepreneurial abilities of our fellow Filipinos to sell whatever the public wants but it also poses a question for me: How far can these people take their entrepreneurial abilities? Is this all they are going to do for the rest of their lives or is this just a temporary station in their lives? I cannot imagine myself doing what these transient businesses do. They are like the gypsies of Europe, nomadic and never in one place. The term gypsy, however, is also associated with crime such as theft, as stereotypical as this may sound. Wherever they go, the incidence of crime goes up. But is it true in their case? Only our police department will know the answer to this. What I saw though in the public market and the town plaza is enough to make you wonder if the LGU is exercising their regulatory powers to control these transient businesses. If they can impose fees for permanent businesses from sanitation fees to fire prevention fees, what do they impose on these temporary businesses that may prevent potential problems from occuring if they are allowed to do business here?The first thing that came to my mind as I was walking thru the areas mentioned was the issue of sanitation. Where did these people dump their waste? With all those tents sprouting in the vicinity of the public market, was this not a public health issue that the LGU needs to seriously look into? I personally saw and smelled waste of different kinds, from the benign to the obscene. I could see plastic and all kinds of trash scattered all over the place and the putrid smell of human waste greeted me as I entered the place where the carnival was. I also saw in the public plaza clothes hanging from the trees surrounding the place. Was this not a public nuisance of the highest order? Have we regressed to being a third-rate town that we allowed this to happen? Why did our local government officials allow this to happen? Are we just content to say that they are there temporarily and that this is part of the celebration of the town fiesta? Can't we do something to change this practice? And who says celebrating the day of the Assumption is an excuse for this type of public spectacle?If this how we measure success of the town fiesta, then we might as well change the meaning of the word success which according to the online version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary means "favorable or desired outcome".I cannot pass judgment on the "success" of the different activities lined up by the LGU except for the event on the 14th of August which I was able to attend, the so-called Live Band Concert. It was lively, with the party-goers going at it until the wee hours of the morning. The gym, however, was a mess after the concert with puke, or as they call it in local parlance "bahug sa iro", all over the place. Overall, the "live-band concert" was a success if you go by the definition of the word in the sense that the desired outcome, which I believe was to have a good time, was achieved. Carnivals and all kinds of different activities form part and parcel of a town fiesta celebration but the activities surrounding the fiesta should be organized around the theme of the fiesta. The judgment of the overall success will have to be gauged against the overall theme of the town fiesta. Did it achieve the desired outcome of the theme? I guess only the organizers will know once they sit down and assess the results, if they ever do that, and your guess is as good as mine.