Feature: 4th Pasayan Festival evokes more smiles as ever

A feeling of festivity filled the Luneta Park here as people scrambled to pick their share of the fried pasayan or shrimps while it is still hot in the carefully lined-up frying pans.

“This is the usual atmosphere every 10th day of every year since the start of pasayan festival in reverence to the feast of Patron Saint San Nicolas de Tolentino,” said Trujillo Pepito of Provincial Agriculture Office and one of the overseers of the event.

He said, a total of 1 ton of pasayan are harvested just for this festival and once cooked, it would be freely given to the spectators as part of the tradition which never fail to evoke smiles in their faces.

“For this year, some 70 groups composed of three persons handled the frying pans that can cook at least 10 kilos of pasayan,” he added.

Pepito added that around 700-800 kilos of pasayan are cooked in the event, the rest are given to the street children, inmates and the orphanage.

He said harvesting pasayan is not costly since it is indigenous to the provincial waters and is only a by-product of their main marine products such as crabs, lobsters, and fishes.

In an earlier interview, Gov. Robert Ace Barbers said, pasayan festival that started during the administration of his brother, Robert Lyndon, is aimed at augmenting the income of marginalized local fisher folks in the province.

Meanwhile, Susil Ragas who participated in the festival for the first time said the overwhelming excitement she feels outweighs the intense heat and the laborious stirring of the pasayan she endured. (PIA-Caraga)