Of birds and frogs

GOOD NEWS for the culture vultures: Candaba mayor vows support for revival of Ibon-Ebon Festival.

Wrote Joel P. Mapiles: Mayor Danilo “Boy” Baylon vowed to support the revival of the annual Ibon-Ebon Festival together with ex-Mayor Jerry Pelayo who initiated the event during the latter’s stint as town’s municipal chief executive.

 The mayor announced during the Grand Eye Ball of the members of Anak ng Candaba, now an NGO, who want to be of help to the municipality.

In fact, the Ibon-Ebon icon was unveiled at the boundary of the town in Pansol, Pasig adjacent to the municipality of Sta Ana.

It can be recalled that during the term of ex-Mayor Rene Maglanque, the festival’s budget was scrapped and purportedly ‘politicized’.

The Ibon-Ebon (Kapampangan for “Bird-Egg”), drawing from the town’s primary egg industry and the migratory birds drawn to its wetlands, served as signature festival during the three terms of Kuyang Jerry that put Candaba in the tourism map. Deeply lamented was its demise during the incumbency of Maglanque.

With its revival, the veil of mourning is now officially lifted.

Even as I rejoice with the people of Candaba over this happy development, I remember -- in grief – what the City of San Fernando has ceased to celebrate at  this time of the year: the once glorious now all forgotten Pyestang Tugak.

Birthed during the administration of Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez, buried right on the first term of Mayor Edwin Santiago, may well serve as its simple obit, belying the fullness of its meaning, the depth of its roots in the Fernandino life.  

Here’s Zona Libre’s take from October 2010.

The Great Leap

IN 1958, Mao Zedong launched a national program to modernize the Chinese economy with the express objective of rivaling that of the United States by 1988. It was called the Great Leap Forward.

Mao’s target fell short by 20 years, and China’s modernization and coming into its own as global economic megapower hardly attributed to him, but even considered as a repudiation of him: the credit readily bestowed on the liberalizing Deng Xiao-ping. The same Deng vilified in Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as a “capitalist roader.”

The Great Leap Backward, so was Mao’s program ridiculed, its centerpiece program of backyard steel industry with as many as 600,000 furnaces backfiring with sub-standard produce, and the corollary agricultural program ending in a massive failure that led to starvation causing the death of millions.

In 1959, the Great Helmsman himself acknowledged failure: “The chaos caused was on a grand scale, and I take responsibility. Comrades, you must analyse your own responsibility. If you have to fart, fart. You will feel much better for it.”

No farting now, but all croaking in the City of San Fernando with once Mao’s comrade-in-thought Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez declaring his domain’s own Great Leap Forward thus: "Kokak, kokak, Sisigpo la reng tugak, Kayantabe ya ing Syudad." Okay, that translates to “Ribbit, ribbit, the frogs are a-leaping, along with the city.”

For the strides, nay, the leaps and bounds with which the City of San Fernando managed to attain a level of socio-economic development that has yet to find parallel in any other metropolis in the country, the city appropriated for its symbol not the soaring eagle nor the roaring lion, but the lowly frog.

On one hand, it is a fitting representation of the humble beginnings and innate humility of the man who leads the city. The story of Mayor Oca finds parallelism to that fairy tale about the frog turning to a prince at the kiss of a princess: the plebeian Oca, aka Ka Jasmin, at destiny’s kiss transformed to congressman and then mayor, yet ever in love with his people.

On the other, it is a proper recognition of the critical role the frog plays in local history and culture.

So it is said that the pangs of starvation were never felt in Pampanga – not in the days of the Philippine Revolution and the War against Imperial America, not even during the Japanese Occupation – thanks to frogs, which along with the

kamaru (mole crickets) provided a staple, if protein rich, diet.

From ageing memory comes a ditty from our youth: ‘Kikildap, kikildap, sisigpo la ring tugak… (With the lightning, the frogs are leaping…)” thereby signaling the start of the frog-catching season.

And from pamate-danup (stop-gap to hunger), the lowly frog has found center place in the Kapampangan culinary culture with such delights as betute (stuffed frogs), tinola (broth of frog with green papaya and pepper leaves), among others.

And so these heady days of October, the frog is most honored in the City of San Fernando with its own three-day festival – Pyestang Tugak – complete with street-dancing and free-dance competitions, frog-mascot contests, frog races and the lundag-tugak show-jumping.

On this the sixth year of the festival, a "frog chorale" contest will be staged at SM City Pampanga. Participants will perform any song they wish but have to replace the lyrics with croaks of "kokak."

A regular feature in the fest, paduasan tugak, catching frogs with rod and line will be held at the wet grasslands behind the Heroes Hall. The winner determined by the largest frog caught.

Capping the activities is the Kokak-tober Fest music jam in front of city hall.

The frog festival in a way serves as a fitting triumph – in the Roman tradition – for the city’s elevation to the 2010 Palladium Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame, the “gold standard of strategic performance” given to successful and high-performing private and public organizations all over the world.

Said Mayor Oca: “This prestigious award not only helps reaffirm the status of San Fernando as a world-class city, but also raises our nation’s pride by having globally recognized local government units.”

Making it to the hall of fame was no walk in the park, with Mayor Oca harnessing the resources of the city, mobilizing the citizenry and partnering with the private sector in applying the Performance Governance System of the Harvard-pioneered Balanced Scorecard management system to achieve and sustain breakthrough performance results.

Truly great leaps forward – on to progress – the frog, Mayor Oca, and the City of San Fernando have all made.

Go, croak.