Monday, March 9, 2009

HIMOLOAN FESTIVAL

This festival commemorates the Patronal Feast of St. Michael the Archangel. Himoloan literally means pag-atang or tinagba (offering). Thus, it is the time of the year when the faithful honor their patron, St. Michael on the Feast of the Archangels by offering to him not only material goods but the talents that God bestowed upon all as well. Its highlight is the Himoloan street presentation and the Carrosa Contest wherein it is participated by the different barangay and is also open to other barangays of other nearby towns to gather and bring the carrosa/andas of their patron decorated with their produce as well as native materials found within their reach.

2 comments:

  1. wow. nagpadagos palan kading festival na pinunan namu nu nasa oas pa si fr raleigh. i remember the many preparations we did para lang maging sucesful ung first. including ung search, ung contests, ung prices, ung dream namin na sana marecognize ng Department of Tourism as known festival proper to Oas kaso di na yun nafollow-up. all the preliminary papers are now gone. but the people who started it are still alive. It was Raphael Leonardo Siapno, the then parochial vicar of the St. Michael the Archangel Parish who had the idea of the Carosa contest. the first year, that was 1998, it was just a simple one. but the following year, we the then youth had a very ambitious dream - to make oas alive once again, to bring a festival into existence kaya banderitas were solicited from Naga just to decorate the whole major road as posible, rented the gowns of daragang magayon in Legazpi so that the candidates for the first search would look better, organized cultural shows, a military and civil parade was held. contests between elementary and high schools, a tree planting was held in cooperation with the 22nd Infantry Batallion of the Philippine Army na nasa Oas-Ligao boundary and their major officers came to judge the 1st military parade. that 1 week festival was spearheaded by the Youth Ministry of the parish with Raleigh Siapno as Director in cooperation with the parish organizations that existed at that time - mga prex members. hehehe. naalala ko pa nung nasa kasagsagan na activities and conflicts started to rise. engr steve revereza can atest to that. hehehehe. it was Msgr. Diokno then who was the parish priest. hay. if only i can get back all the drafts of the festival it could have been shared to you. but i dont think nageexist pa coz during the time of Roger Relato as youth Coordinator, all the documents were lost sa office ng youth because of calamity ata. but perhaps Dominic Ragos still have the memories of the old past because he was part of the executive comittee that we have organized if you are to look for the roots of this festival. and if you have access to ONCS, OSCS, OPS (na maraming awards na nakuha), SMA, perhaps in their hanged certificates of participation or the trophies, some names could be retrieved and if they still have the Modules or Activity Guide baka may makuha pa kayong data for a complete and not one sided history of how this festival was born. and to look for those who participated the the event, look for the then president ng Akrho or other fraternities sa Oas (1999), and for the first MR n Ms Himoloan contestants look for Christian Ricafrente (Bubu of Busac - a student of SMA) he was one of them as far as i could remember and a certain reverente of Ilaor Norte na student ng OPS ata un. well any... good luck in searching...

    ReplyDelete
  2. As far as I know, Madonna Redoblado is one of the Beauty Queen of Himoloan. She's a product of SMA.

    ReplyDelete