Celebrating the Rich Culture in the Midst of Pandemic

 Binatbatan is about celebrating and giving honor to the abel iloco industry. This festival “Binatbatan” is from the Iloko term batbatin which means separating cotton balls from the seeds of the local fruit tree kapas sanglay. It was celebrated during the first week of the month of the May. It was started in 1993 by the Save Vigan Ancestral Homes Association, Inc. (SVAHAI). 

 For this year we were not able to celebrate the Binatbatan festival in usual way that we do because of the COVID19 Pandemic and mass gatherings are prohibited to control the spread of the virus. We all know that in this kind occasion there are a lot of activities to celebrate the event like street dancing, showdown competition were they use abel as their costumes. There’s a lot of people and foreign tourists who are coming and visiting to participate and explore the celebration of the festival. But for now that there is a pandemic we need to secure our safety and follow health protocols. Nonetheless, the Binatbatan Festival is still one of the most important occasion that we Ilocanos are worth celebrating.

 This COVID-19 virus has a big impact in our life and all over the world but we all know that this is not the end of everything, that all of this will be going back to normal. What we need to do is to be responsible enough on our safety and on our health, we need to cooperate and participate in every protocol to help lessen the spread of virus. We need to widen our understanding in everything because this is what we can only do. All of this will be fine we only need to trust God.

REFERENCE/S:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://eazytraveler.net/2012/05/viva-vigan-binatbatan-festival-of-the-arts-2012/&ved=2ahUKEwjJ8IbNp5LxAhXEP3AKHRcoBXMQFjAQegQIERAC&usg=AOvVaw31hrzDdJID6djCzGuL7Dp6

PHOTO RETRIEVED IN:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/blrapadas/5841713238