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.
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DAGUPAN CITY–In the wake of massive street protest to mark the 20th anniversary of Edsa People Power revolution on Feb. 24 to press President Gloria Arroyo to resign, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said if any national upheaval eventually comes, the administration is simply asking for it.

Cruz said in a statement that "To allege that it is but a purely political move is delusion. To claim that it is simply an ideological plot is futile".

He said the present administration is courting danger. It continues to sing the economic gains of the country while more and more people become hungry, he said.

He added that it loudly boasts of a rosy vision for the nation yet more and more Filipinos leave the country for a better living abroad. There is either no work available her and now, or the available work is not worth taking, Cruz noted.

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BINMALEY, Pangasinan–Townsfolk here are all agog as this town, known as the Fish Bowl of Pangasinan, will take the center stage when it stages the first-ever Sugpo and Malaga Festival on Feb. 2 as part of its 416th town fiesta celebration.

Sugpo (prawns) and malaga (siganid) are considered as the “hidden wealth” of this old and quiet town.

It will not just be purely fun and excitement when this big day comes as proceeds for this activity will be used for a noble purpose.

Municipal Administrator Josefina Victorio told this writer who also hails from this municipality that this historic affair also aims to inform Pangasinenses and everyone that the municipality produces the best and the greatest volume of (tiger) prawns in the province.

Municipal Councilor Leo Urmaza chairs the sugpo festival committee and the event is highlighted by a dinner-for-a-cause with sugpo locally known as bingalo as the main course cooked in different ways , as well as malaga (siganid) which is another top product of the town and other side dishes.

Incidentally, it was Urmaza's late father, former Councilor Marciano Urmaza Sr, who started the malaga culture here. This earned for the elder Urmaza to be cited as the Most Outstanding Fishfarmer from the national government then.

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DAGUPAN CITY— Where did General Douglas MacArthur and his forces really make their historic landing in Pangasinan?

Sixty one years after MacArthur and his allied forces landed in Lingayen Gulf on Jan. 9, 1945 during the World War II to liberate the country from Japanese forces, Mayor Benjamin Lim wants to know the truth behind the real place as to where the landing was exactly made: Was it in Lingayen or in Dagupan City.

Lim echoed this query again during the commemoration of the Jan. 9 Lingayen Gulf landings last Friday here where former President Fidel Ramos, Philippine Veterans Ba nk officials and war veterans were in attendance.

Lim said he wants to request the veterans and historians to help them “because Dagupeños have a secret evidence, two pictures where MacArthur landed in this part of Pangasinan”.

The first photo showed MacArthur walking along then Torres Bugallon now known as A.B Fernandez and the other taken at the Home Economics Building of West Central Elementary School where the general was giving instructions to his troop, according to Lim.

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