Only religious activities on Dagupan's Bangus festival

Monday, April 18, 2011

DAGUPAN CITY -- In observance of the Holy Week, no event was scheduled by the Bangus Festival committee from Holy Monday to Black Saturday other than two religious activities.

These are the traditional Pabasa of the Roman Catholic community and the Golgotha play.

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The Pabasa sa Plaza started Monday morning around 8 a.m. and will continue until 5 p.m. Tuesday. Different groups will render the story of Jesus Christ's passion, death and resurrection in song.

"Pabasa" readers, mostly street sweepers, will be joined by 15 employees from different units which are selected by the Administrative Services department, every hour on rotation.

As explained by Joseph Bacani from the City Information Office, the Pabasa or better known as pasyon is a verse narrative about the life and suffering of Jesus Christ.

The verses are structured in five-line stanzas with each line containing eight syllables.

The pasyon is commonly sung during Holy Week, starting Holy Monday.

The reading of the pasyon is a traditional religious practice in the Philippines and people gather around the reader of the pasyon to listen and reflect. It is seen by many of its practitioners as a vow or panata.

He said many innovations in pasyon singing have been introduced, like the use of the guitar or rondalla to accompany the singing and the use of the accordion by a traveling group of pasyon singers.

The pasyon is performed in two basic group formations.

In the first, two people or groups of people sing alternately. In the second formation, each of the singers takes his or her turn in singing a stanza of texts.

Meanwhile, Golgotha is the biblical name for the place where Jesus was crucified. The Golgotha play will be held Wednesday afternoon also at the city plaza.

The idea of holding a pabasa and the Golgotha play came about when Beep Beep Tan, one of the chairmen of Bangus Festival 2011, paid Arbishop Villegas a courtesy visit at the former's office.

Villegas presented the Bangus Festival activities. Likewise, he asked the prelate's opinion about the holding a Bikini Open competition.

Accordingly, Villegas said he is not against the holding of such contest so long as the organizers make sure that the participants will be treated well.

He also broached the idea of having the traditional pabasa, a dying Lenten tradition. Villegas would like to keep the tradition alive not only for the Catholic devotees, but more importantly, to inform or enlighten the youth about this tradition, helping them inculcate them about the sufferings of Jesus Christ. (Sunnex)