THIS IS WHAT BULIHAN FESTIVAL IS MADE OF..
April 24-26, 2015 was a busy day for Sampaloc, Quezon, a small town in Quezon Province, right after Lucban and before Mauban, Quezon. The town recently concluded its annual Bulihan Festival and the Feast of San Vicente Ferrer, it’s a newly formed festival that will introduce the town and its product to the world. Its weird that our town stopped celebrating our own feast of San Isidro, back in the 90’s, we do have this festival before it was known as Pahiyas,
I’m not sure what’s the history but I know that its more popularly known only Lucban. I’m glad that Sampaloc, Quezon took some time to organize its own, from the old San Isidro, then followed by another fest for 2 years, and now on its 5th year , the Bulihan Festival now is going strong.
Also in my other side of my own history, Sampaloc, Quezon is the town where my mom Dulce was born and raised in this town together with her 10 siblings. I also stayed here during my toddler years (late 70s) wherein my Grand Mother (Epang Deasis who was married to Enrico Deasis Sr a former Chief of Police in Sampaloc, Quezon) took care of me. I visited our province during my elementary years during summer break and semestral break is observed through out my school years,
I’ve seen the town evolves as years passes by, but then I missed 9 years of it during my senior high school years and early college years, but its not too late, I went back here again to absorb what is left, a more improved and developed version, because cable tv and the fastest mobile internet connection is now present (thanks to Globe Telecom), the town looks modern, but the old tradition, heritage and culture is still observed no matter what updated technology or infrastructure is built for the town’s convenience.
Back to Bulihan Festival, the town of Sampaloc, Quezon features the colorful walls of some homes that are decorated with products and objects made from buli or buri, a kind of leaf of a palm tree that can be used to create hats, mats, banig, sambalilo and many more.
Last year 2014 was my first time to watch and cover the Bulihan Festival. I just can’t believe that I already missed the first 3 years, but that’s okay, I’m glad that the town folks got lots of effort to pull another successful festival every year. Kudos to the town folks and their local government for creating the Bulihan Festival.
For this year, I invited my wife and son to come and join with me for the Bulihan Festival, its their first time to travel going here in Sampaloc, Quezon, and I am so proud to show to them my roots and also how awesome the town of Sampaloc.
I showed to them all the places I’ve been to, like where I stay, play and even dream of an adventure of climbing the Sierra Madre mountains, I also introduced them to my relatives, neighbors and also childhood friends.
Its funny that every time I show to them a place from my child hood days, expect lots of throwback moments coming in to my head like it happened yesterday ahahaha
I told my wife Lace, that the travel is much faster if we take the Sta. Cruz, Laguna route. Yup its fast..and I’m glad we took that route or else we might miss the last Sampaloc jeepney ride in Lucban, Quezon.
Here’s what Bulihan Festival in Sampaloc, Quezon is made of..
THE FOOD
Bulihan Festival is all about food…food..and lots of beer drinking session. It’s a town custom tradition to celebrate the grand feast of the patron saint and the festival with lots of food and alcohol.
At my cousin Mylin’s home, she treated us with lots of local food from Sampaloc.
above is the Sinampalukan or Dinuguang lamang loob
Embutido, Hardinera and some pastels are the festival food offered and served here in Sampaloc, Quezon.
Hindi ako nagsasawa sa mga putahe dito. always the best food
PHP 5 sweet snow ball
yeah, you can still buy food with a PHP 5 coins, here in Sampaloc, Quezon everything is cheap. From a PHP 15 Halo Halo, to a PHP 10 pancit hab hab.
Street food is also the best here!!
BULIHAN FESTIVAL HOUSE DÉCOR CONTEST
And here’s the house with buri decors for the Bulihan Festival, its an annual contest per selected baranggay.
1st place winner can bag a PHP25,000 cash prize, 2nd place winner for PHP 20,000 and consolation prize winner can receive at least PHP 2,000.
Here’s the 1st place winner!!!
House is located at the Ilaya
Walls and roof of the house are heavily decorated with colorful buri leaves
Some Buri decors at day time
Its better to view and have photo op with the buri décor houses, because the décor owners put up some lights and effects to give awesome eye candy.
PROGRAM SA PLAZA
After we ate our dinner and finished checking out the night glow of the Bulihan Festival entries, we went here at the town plaza to watch the dance contest and jazz dance performance.
My son Ashton was amazed when he saw the Sampaloc All Stars dance routine. Its very entertaining and the group is in sync with each other.
After watching the program we went back my aunt’s home and took a night rest. Because we need more energy for the next day, which is the main feast and festival.
MARCHING BAND PARADE
The next morning, we saw the street parade started at around 9am, here we saw my niece Samantha, performing her majorette duty.
I’m glad that we went out as soon as we heard the sirens and marching band music.
Higante or giants, a mascot or puppet made from paper mache were seen walking after the end of the parade.
Colorful gowns and dresses made from buri were presented during the street parade
Here we saw some beauty pageant contestant wearing their own design of a buri dress.
The reigning queen of the year for the 5th Bulihan Festival.
She’s so pretty in person
STREET DANCE PARADE
The parade wont be complete without the mardi gras style of street dance parade.
I salute to the majorette leader
it’s a tough job to smile always and project with the performance
The parade ended when we spotted the kids marching with a dance and aslo the municipal officials
PHOTO OPS
Photo op opportunities are hard to miss when you are here at the grand Bulihan Fest
If you are in Sampaloc, Quezon, expect lots of photo op set up around the town
BULIHAN BOOTHS AND MINI MARKET
I’m happy that they have more booths for this year.
Here we bought some small purse, coin bags and some sambalilos
This is the main town source of livelihood. Buri craft, they can make all kinds of things made from this buri leaves.
Price of these coin purses or wallets are at the range of PHP 30-50
But I bought a sambalilo straw hat and it priced at PHP75
not bad!
DISCO
In every fiesta or festival they always set up a disco event every night of the feast. Here you can see my wife and kid dancing with the colorful strobe lights at the basketball park.
FIESTA SA ILOG
Usually the fiesta of ilog starts on the next day, but for us, we can’t wait… ahhahah
We went here in the Maapon River in Kakati, Sampaloc, Quezon to have some our advance river feast.
My wife and son are so excited when they see the clean and cold water of the Maapon River.
Bulihan Festival never ends here.
Because the fun, feast and festival continues on the next day even if its Monday, the town folks of Sampaloc, Quezon will never stop partying even they ran out of food to share and beer to drink.
It’s a truly festive year again in Sampaloc, Quezon.
thanks for reading and I hope to see you again next year!
#BulihanFestival
#SampalocQuezon
