CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — Two of the biggest Pampanga festivals –Giant Lantern Festival (GLF) and Sinukwan Festival – were launched on Friday as well as the Robinsons Starmills’ tree lighting ceremony to mark the start of the Kapampangan Christmas celebration.
The two biggest Kapampangan festivals will take place at Robinsons Starmills Pampanga.
The Sinukwan Festival will run for a week from November 23 to 30. It will kick off with the opening of a trade fair to showcase the best of Kapampangan arts and crafts, cuisine and fashion.
The highlight of the event will be in the culmination day with the holding of a street dancing parade and an interpretative dance competition from various schools in Pampanga.
The highly anticipated Ligligan Parul (Giant Lantern Festival competition) will be held on December 14 at the mall’s open grounds where a new venue was prepared by Robinsons Land Corporation (RLC) that can accommodate more than 100,00 spectators.
The mall will also hold the Giant Lanterns’ nightly display thereafter which will run until January 1, 2020 (except on December 31) starting at 6:30 pm.
Twelve barangays will participate in this year’s Giant Lantern Festival. Each barangay was given a P300,000 subsidy by the city government led by Mayor Edwin “Edsa” D. Santiago during the twin festival launch.
Mayor Santiago also expressed his gratitude to Robinsons Starmills for being the venue of two the biggest festivals in Pampanga for more than a decade.
“We should thank Robinsons Starmills in bringing Christmas early to our city, for being the venue of our GLF for 12 years and the Sinukwan festival for 15 years now,” Mayor Santiago said.
“The Christmas tree lighting event at Robinsons Starmills has become a tradition in the Christmas capital of the Philippines to signal the start of the Christmas season in the city,” he added.
RLC regional operations manager Jodee Pineda-Arroyo said supporting these two big festivals of Pampanga is part of the thrust of RLC in promoting cultural heritage to bring in both local and foreign tourists to the province and for the tradition to be passed on to the next generations.
“(Because of) these two big events, we can claim that we are the home of Kapampangan Festivals, not only the home of the GLF,” Arroyo added.
Meanwhile, a memorandum of agreement was also signed between RLC, the Foundation for Lingap Kapampangan Inc. (FLKI) and CLTV 36 to formalize their cooperation during the event.
Photos by Ric Gonzales
