To promote and revive the traditional culture of Buguias, students from different schools showcase cultural dance dramas and festival dances during the 5th Albubo Festival held at Loo, Buguias on March 7.
One of the highlights of Albubo Festival is the cultural dance drama and festival dance competition that depicts the legends, folklores, and accounts within the communities of Benguet through dance, songs, chants, music, and attire that aims to preserve the customs of the people in Buguias and revive their culture that was lost.
As the competition concluded, Catlubong National High School bagged the championship for both competitions and was awarded with a total of 24,000 pesos cash and 300,000 worth of pet projects.
Divina Calubandi, School Head of Catlubong National High School shared that the preparation for the competition has not been easy, so they were overwhelmed when the result was announced and it is a history for their school as it was the first time that they bagged major prizes in the Albubo Festival
“Sa preparation, we had been tapping the elders in our community so that they will be helping us in forming or in making our story line but actually they have many stories in our place and one of these is the Pistasan which we performed a while back na talagang nanalo so kung ano man ang napag-aralan namin dun sa elders namin we try to work it out with the teachers so that we will be having some improvements or how are we going to inculcate culture in the story that we have gathered from our elders “ Calubandi said.
Napoleon Mauricio Palasi, Indigenous Peoples’ Mandatory Representative (IPMR) of Buguias shared that he observed that the students participated not only for the prize but to empower the youths through their public exposure.
He also commended the performance of the students as it was well organized, however, Palasi shared that there are necessary changes and improvements that need to be done.
“The cultural music of Buguias was displaced and the dance music of some provinces were borrowed like Ifugao and Mountain Province and also the proper wearing of cultural attires “Palasi said.
Catlubong National High School will then represent the municipality of Buguias in the upcoming Adivay Festival. By Rhealyn Charwin
