Growing Up in Pahiyas Festival in Lucban

Since we were kids, my cousins and I would go to Lucban for a summer vacation.  We would go there to experience the Pahiyas Festival in honor of San Isidro de Labrador for the good harvest of the whole town.   Every 15^th of May the creativity would differ from every household using colourful kipings or crispy rice, higantes, different fruits, vegetables, root crops and rice barn, woven hats and other native products from Lucban and even our famous longganisa.

      

I still remember how the Lucbanin (locals of Lucban) would prepare for the festival.  The process would  start by setting where the Festival would go. Or like my mother would ask “Daan ba sa atin?”  Which means if pahiyas would pass by in our street.

 It would take a month or so to prepare for the payas (much often used by Lucbanin) or design of the house.  

The kipings were prepared every day because it takes time for the leaves to dry.  And if you are going to make an ‘arangya’ or chandeliers of different colors, you need to make as much to form it.  I remember we made an arangya from the ceiling of the second floor down to the first floor of our house in Lucban.  There are other decorations that you could make using kiping like flowers, wall papers, and other artworks.

They also need to check if they will be harvesting enough be used as decorations.  And some also weave hats to be used or other native products.  Higantes or life sized  machete of the people and animals were also made depending on what the house thinks of as payas.

We also prepares food for the event like, kalderetang kalabaw, hardinera, embotido, pansit habhab o pansit lucban, longganisang lucban,  kesong puti, kinulob and other food for the visitors.  And other delicacies and breads like pinais, biko, suman, halayang ube, budin, broas, meringue, puto seko etc. 

On the 14^th of May, we would start decorating the front house.  (Before in the 80’s, I remember when I was a kid, we would set up during the dawn of the 15^th).  We will leave it to our older cousins and uncles to decorate the house in the morning of 15^th, while the girls would start roaming the streets of the festival to check the other decorations.  Between 11AM to 2PM, the judges would start checking the houses.

In the afternoon, we would wait for the parade of muses and escorts, carabaos, higantes and float of San Isidro Labrador.  Then we would also wait if we won any award.  Our house in Regidor wins most of the time.  We experienced 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, best in arangya, or any other consolation prizes.  That’s why it was a tradition to design our house beautifully. At night, there’s also a competition, the Pahiyas are set up with lights to give glow in the evening, especially the night tourists.