Tarlac 2012 festival emphasizes city's herritage

To further promote this city's heritage, for this year, the city's festival theme will focus on its customs.

"Dubbed as 'Sigla't Saya, Sama-Sama kahit Magkakaiba,' this festival will remind our people of the significance of the unyielding collaboration carried by our forefathers who despite their differences, still worked harmoniously and turned the impossible into achievable," said Tarlac City Mayor Ace Manalang.

The province is known to have a mixture of Ilocano and Kapampangan settlers, making cultural differences.

The festival includes a trade fair, food festival, cooking contest, beauty pageant, Addessa Paligsawit 2012 (singing contest), piyesta pancitan, amateur boxing competition, street dancing competition for both elementary and high-school students, 'Balikbayan' night, grand ballroom dancing and grand aerial fireworks display.

For this year, this city carries the theme "First Melting Pot of Central Luzon," which is a metaphor of a clay pot which was used to melt different elements to produce commonality.

According to historians, this community was first dwelled by the families of the two leaders from Bacolor, Pampanga which eventually joined by other settlers from Zambales, Bataan, Pangasinan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and other parts of the country.

Given the differences, these settlers were able to start a community and learned to value solidarity by setting aside each cultural diversity.

"This innate quality is what we need to preserve and practice because by virtue and solidarity, we can all move faster to reach our common goal," Manalang concluded. - PIA — ARA