MAPANDAN, Pangasinan-This town wants to establish its name in Philippine map from the plant that gave its identity which is pandan (screw pine).

And it does so by holding the Pandan Festival, now on its fourth
year, on April 8.

Mayor Ferdinand Calimlim said this year becomes more exciting as
they will showcase a different kind of cooking exotic foods lice field mice, crickets, grasshoppers, snake, frogs, bats, or what-have-you-depending on their availability, using pandan leaves.

Intertwined with songs and dances to reminisce the rich arts and
culture of the town, Calimlim said people will be reminded about traditions, beliefs, and practices of the old folks which are still being followed like in courtship, marriages, birth, baptism, among others.

This town will turn 104 years old when it celebrates its town fiesta from April 3 to 9 and Calimlim said every year they present new concept using pandan. “We’re trying to remind people of how things were before,” he said.

With the theme” Baley Kon Mapandan, Inar arok Anggad Kapigan (My town Mapandan, I will love forever),” Calimlim said the food festival dubbed as “Hapag Pandan” will use pandan through a cooking competition for main dish like pork, beef, chicken, secondary food group like frogs, field mice, grasshoppers, etc., desserts and drinks.

Screw pines which used to abound here are characterized by perfect spiral arrangement of their long, sword-shaped leaves and for their fruit which resembles pineapples. From paper to nets, fiber for ropes, baskets, mats, and hats, pandan is very useful to people and its leaves are put in some food to make them more delicious.

Schoolchildren will also display their dancing prowess in street
dancing and cultural presentation as they will be clad in pandan-inspired costumes and other indigenous materials like coconut shells, charcoal, twigs, dried leaves, scrap iron, plastic, glass, candy wrappers, softdrinks straw, softdrinks crown, tetra packs, among others.

To reminisce the past, contestants will also depict during their
cultural presentation customs and beliefs of Mapandanians like during wedding, courtship, pregnancy, giving birth, entertaining guests, building a house, adolescence, giving of names to children, family life, among others, all through songs and dances.

Ten of the 15 barangays here are expected to join.

“We want to establish our own identity through pandan,” Calimlim said.

He added that since the holding of Pandan Festival three years
already, the town has achieved recognition as it is now included in the Department of Tourism’s EZ Map 2005 edition among the tourism activities nationwide.

To sustain the pandan industry here, Calimlim said he gave funding to groups that will plant pandan. The local government will buy the plants and have them planted along the roads.

In the past, people indiscriminately cut the plant but now they have realized that it has many uses, Calimlim said.

A place here was also named Pandan Avenue where the participants will also do their presentation.