CANDABA, Pampanga- The Ibon-Ebon Festival, held here annually at this time of the year and placed in the international tourism map through coverages by National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Living Asia, among other international news networks, has finally been shot down by politics.
“It’s been scrapped altogether,” lamented former Mayor Jerry Pelayo who initiated the festival during his term.
A three termer, Pelayo fielded his son Patrick for his post but lost to Rene Maglanque, a former ally of ex-Pres. Arroyo and former undersecretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications under her administration who emerged as Liberal Party candidate in the 2010 polls.
Pelayo rued the junking of the festival he founded which, he noted, highlighted and helped promote the duck industry in this town where migratory birds abound at the Candaba swamp. Hundreds of local folk who earn from tourist arrivals here for the festival have stayed home instead.
Pelayo said said duck-eggs from this municipality are even exported to Malaysia aside from supplying Metro Manila and nearby provinces. Last year, the festival was held from February 8 to 10, already under the term of Maglangue, who jumped to the Liberal Party (LP) during the 2010 elections.
Maglangue was reported to have announced a new festival called Ibon-Itik festival to replace what Pelayo had founded, but he could not be immediately contacted for details. Pelayo also lamented that the colorful monument depicting the Ibon-Ebon Festival at the entry point to this town was demolished reportedly upon the orders of Maglanque along with the stainless steel sign of the municipal library which was named “Aklatan Pambata ni Gloria” and even the signage of his Bebe Ilog restaurant.
“All the efforts to promote tourism in our town have been laid to waste. International media had already listed the festival for annual feature, and that opportunity has been abolished for reasons hard to comprehend,” he said.
Pelayo also reminded authorities of the plunder charge filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) against Maglanque. He was among the 24 persons, including former Pres. Arroyo and Janet Lim Napoles, charged last year with plunder in connection with the use of the P900 million Malampaya fund.
In October last year, the NBI recommended to the Office of the Ombudsman the prosecution of the respondents, including Maglanque who was tagged for receiving cash worth P75 million from the JLN (Janet Lim-Napoles)
office and withdrawal from the MBTC-Kaudapan- Magdalena (073-3- 07367713-1).
“I really don’t know how all of a sudden he was the LP candidate in Candaba in 2010, when he had been known all along as the right hand man of former Rep. Mikey Arroyo (during the Arroyo) administration,” Pelayo added.
Soon after Maglanque was elected mayor, he was noted to have invited Napoles to Candaba, with a huge streamer of a welcoming sign making it to the front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The accompanying story recalled jueteng whistleblower Sandra Cam’s claim in 2005 that Maglangue was one of the “bagmen” of then Rep. Mikey Arroyo and that as DOTC undersecretary, he failed a lifestyle check.
In 2012, the same newspaper reported claims that Maglanque had tried to silence a leader of a fisher’s group in Masantol where 2,500 local fishers had reportedly denied signing documents that they had received fishing tools worth some P89.2 million from the Department of Agrarian Reform, through a non-government organization associated with Napoles.
