Antique's Binirayan 2006 vies for longest festival
Antique province's annual Binirayan festival might turn out to be the longest festival in the country. Binirayan Foundation, Inc. (BFI), official events manager of the 32-year old cultural festival announced that Binirayan 2006 will start from April 1 and end with a three-day highlight on April 27 to 29.
The Binirayan festival committees has planned out a program of events starting with a formal launch on April 1 at the EBJ Freedom Park and week-end special events that include the Komedya festival, the Semana Santa, music and food festivals, and trade fairs.
The komedya festival is the newest addition to the events of the Binirayan. Antique is the last bastion of the komedya, a traditional theater form, which some scholars consider as the national theater of the Philippines. It is a play in verse that employs extravagant costumes, swordfights, magical elements and spectacle on stage. While the komedya has become extinct in other provinces, komedya troupes in Antique, such as in San Antonio, Barbaza, continue to produce it every year during the fiesta. Reviving the komedya during the Binirayan is one last ditch effort for the province to save it, consistent with Governor Salvacion Z. Perez's program for cultural nurturing. Four komedya troupes from Barbaza, Lauaan, Bugasong, and San Jose are presenting komedyas of different themes.
The Semana Santa, which falls on April 9 to 16 also becomes part of the festivities. Holy week activities such as the via crucis and visita iglesia are practiced widely throughout the province. On Holy Thursday and Good Friday, elaborately decorated santos dramatizing the characters in the Pasyon are taken around town in an afternoon procession. The best processions could be seen in San Jose and Hamtic as these feature life-sized and antique santos. In San Jose, kapiya or chapels depicting each of the stations of the cross are being built beside the streets. But the best attractions may be witnessed in San Pedro, a barangay of San Jose. On Good Friday is the Pagtaltal, a street theater about the crucifixion of Christ, and on Black Saturday the Hudas-Hudas, where effigies of Judas are being burned for public censure at the plaza.
Other activities include the nightly band concerts at the food festival, talents competition, and the presentation of the candidates for Lin-ay kang Antique. On the final dates, visitors may join the Biray kang Barangay from the San Jose Port to Malandog Beach. The biray dramatizes the coming the Bornean Datu to Antique, the historical and cultural basis of the Binirayan Festival.
The Binirayan Festival was first organized by Governor Evelio B. Javier in January 1974 as a celebration of Antique's rich cultural heritage.