BAGUIO CITY – This year’s Strawberry Festival Grand Parade amazed residents and visitors alike with the most awaited Drum and Lyre performance, Street Dance, Cultural presentation, and Small Float parade reflecting not only the valley’s title of being the country’s Strawberry capital but also their rich cultural identity.
Most of the audience eagerly waited for the parade participants near the McDonald’s Area, where the focal presentation would be judged. The parade’s starting point was from KM. 6 towards the Municipal Grounds, with performances from three Street Dance performers, six Drum and Lyre, nine cultural presentations, and 15 small floats, with Team Lakay joining Barangay Balili.
The different barangay of La Trinidad participated in the float parade consisting of two categories– the Pro-environment category with eight participants, wherein the floats exhibited the municipality’s dedication to effective solid waste management, which includes recycling and ecological conservation, and the Valley of Colors category with 6 competing participants, wherein the floats exhibited the valley’s pride- dubbed as the cut-flower capital of the North for being the major source of cut flowers and ornamental flowers in the country. Holding the title as the Grand Slam Champion, Barangay Balili participated as a non-competing float after winning for two consecutive years (2019 and 2023).
The floats for the Pro-environment category used at least 50% recycled materials donated by their residents in compliance with the contest’s criteria. Out of the eight participating barangays, Barangay Lubas emerged as the Champion, followed by Barangay Poblacion as the first runner-up, while Barangay Shilan and Barangay Puguis both placed second.
The champion float of Barangay Lubas portrays how, as ‘one town,’ the people and different entrepreneurs of La Trinidad produce strawberries and innovate their strawberries as their ‘one product,’ hence the one town, one product. Their float is primarily composed of different recycled materials such as slippers, plastic bottles, umbrellas, buttons, and bamboo donated by the Lubas residents. These recycled materials, along with indigenous materials, were skillfully crafted by the united barangay workforce to create their float which also highlights the pro-environment efforts of their barangay.
Meanwhile, for the Valley of Colors category, as the criteria states, the floats utilized at least 75% of flowers, plants, vegetation, and other indigenous materials from their own barangays. Barangay Bineng came out as the champion out of the six participating barangays, followed by Barangay Beckel as the first runner-up, while Barangay Bahong placed second.
Barangay Bineng’s winning float reflects the barangay’s perseverance in preserving the environment, evidently with the use of natural plants such as cut flowers, which is also the barangay’s main product, rice that also shows the barangay producing rice for consumption and commercial use. The float also showed some of the indigenous materials of the community.
Another awaited result during the Grand Parade was the Drum and Lyre contest, participated by the town’s different elementary schools. Lubas Elementary School was announced as the champion, followed by La Trinidad Central School as first-runner up, and Puguis Elementary School as the second-runner up. In no particular order, the Rising Stars Award was awarded to Buyagan Elementary School, Immaculate Heart of Mary School, and Pico Elementary School.
All of the strawberry-themed contests and presentations with the participants’ colorful costumes, creative props, and native attire materialized this year’s theme–Strawberry Capital of the Philippines (Sirum ni Duting) that showed how La Trinidad remains to be the undisputed Strawberry capital of the country. The grand parade also flaunted the rich cultural heritage of La Trinidad, with their cultural identity intact amidst modernity and progress.
After the grand parade, La Trinidad Mayor Romeo K. Salda expressed his hopes, “We hope and pray that we are able to sustain La Trinidad, the Strawberry Capital of the Philippines. And we need the active participation of all the strawberry farmers and stakeholders in the municipality of La Trinidad.” By Peachy Clarisse Tillay
