Traditions beyond price
Palapak os Saint Anne
Boasting rich cultural meaning and a long history, traditional customs play an important part in Ilonggo culture. Some towns in the province of Iloilo showcase a lot of such cultural heritage, which includes traditional dishes and its traditional games.
San Joaquin is one of Iloilo's First District clustered towns, numbering some 47, 826 (2000 Census on Population) people all over its 85 villages who live through fishing and farming. The isolated barangay of Lomboyan make their presence felt in San Joaquin in May of every year as it celebrates its barangay fiesta with an exciting and entertaining display, an elaborate pageant of their culture.
The palapak of St. Anne, the community's patron saint is an important tradition for the community's spiritual life. Devotees believe in the direct intervention of their patron saint, worthy and respected by everyone healed and eased from illness and suffering. The tradition of placing the image on a devotee's head has become a central ritual of the celebration.
Juego de Anillo,a courtship game
In fundamentalist circles, courtship practices especially in the rural areas follow rigid traditional rules. Not to depart from their traditional courtship pattern, the courtship practice of Juego de Anillo define relationships between single males and females in the community and play a dominant role in selecting future marital partners where single males gather to compete for attention of their ladies. This tradition is regarded as a celebration of blossoming romance.
Juego de Anillo, is a courtship game. To please their ladies, single males participate in the juego, each riding one horse passing through narrow track. The horseman armed with a stick mostly made of bamboo and measuring about four inches, attempts to pin the ring of his beloved. The object of the game is to pin the ring suspended through a piece of cloth stringed to an elevated rope extending 8 feet above the ground. Its uniqueness lies in that the man who gets to pin the ring of his beloved gets the opportunity and priority of courting her.
Most members of this younger generation in the area regard the practice as necessary to them in order to redefine their relationships with ancestors and to their beloved San Joaquin. Also, the coming of visitors was ever the occasion for celebration of this nature, giving to the town a characteristic atmosphere, which more than anything, save its art, has contributed to center upon it the continued interest of the traveler.
The people of barangay Lomboyan believes that in holding this activity annually, it will not distance themselves from the culture of their parents and grandparents; and seeking nourishment and identity from their San Joaquin heritage.