PUGO, La Union – People craving for various kinds of indigenous food are expected to flock to this lowland town on Saturday, January 20, 2018 to partake of the various dishes cooked in bamboo throughout the Tinungbo cookfest.
Vice Mayor Isidro Dacpano said the participants of the Tinungbo cookfest will come from the town’s 14 barangays who will display their varied dishes to be served to the public after the winners shall have been determined by the Board of Judges.
The traditional cookfest is one of the major highlights of the town’s 2nd Tinungbo festival that runs from December 11, 2017 to January 21, 2018.
Under the contest rules and regulations, each barangays will field five people who are experts in cooking food in bamboo nodes, including rice, meat, fish, vegetables and sticky rice simultaneously, and the cooked food will be judged for winners prior to being served to residents and visitors alike.
Aside from the Tinungbo cookfest, various sectors in the municipality will join the civic-military parade on January 19, 2018 and the streetdancing parade on January 21, 2018, major highlights of the festival.
The theme of this year’s 2nd Tinungbo festival is “Inspired by Traditions, Nurtured by Values.”
Mayor Priscilla M. Martin attributed the success of the various activities of the festival to the stronger ties between the town’s private and public sectors who worked together in making things done for the benefit of placing Pugo in the map of must-see destinations because of its rich culture and traditions passed on to the present generation.
“We were not able to reach the stage where we are now in the conduct of our festival if not for the partnership of the public and private sectors. Let us sustain the gains of our collective and individual efforts by leaving behind the past and looking towards a brighter future for Pugo,” Mayor Martin stressed.
According to her, one of the major factors that was instrumental in the festival’s overwhelming success was the unwavering and uncompromising support of the Tinungbo Festival Organization headed by her husband, retired Director Eugene G. Martin, who worked extra hard in putting things together for a better and developed locality with the welfare of the town’s youth, among other important sectors, as the main considerations.
Martin assured that the local government and the Tinungbo Festival Organization will continue to aggressively introduce necessary innovations in the various activities of the town’s festival to entice residents and visitors to make it a habit to patronize events prepared for the annual festival.
In the olden times, inhabitants of the town used the bamboo in cooking their food while in to the forest to hunt or in the various river systems to fish.
Pugo is the last town of La Union heading towards Baguio City through the Palispis-Aspiras highway formerly known as Marcos highway.
By HENT
