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Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Aloguinsan celebrates!
By Jenara Regis Newman
The rustic seaside town of Aloguinsan in southwest Cebu recently held its first ever Kinsan Festival, celebrating kinsan, the fish that is found in abundance only in its waters, and showcasing its agricultural products, its food and its culture.
All of the town’s 15 barangays had booths displaying the produce and handicraft products of the place, like baskets and mats. Also on display was virgin coconut oil, a municipality-assisted income-generating product.
The festivities began with a Holy Mass at the municipal covered court, followed by Sakay-Sakay sa Suba at the Aloguinsan River and Cove.
Highlight of the festival was a grand parade with street dancing which ended with a finale at the Aloguinsan Reclamation Area. Tapped to showcase kinsan through dance was Val Sandiego who designed and did the costumes: a body suit decorated with shells that looked like fish scales, with a kinsan head replica as headgear, making the participant look like a giant specimen of the fish.
At the grand finale, the legend of how Aloguinsan got its name was re-enacted.
Local lore says that in the early days of Spanish colonization, a soldier happened to be in the place and wanted to know its name. He asked a fisherman “Como se llama este lugar?” (What is the name of this place?) The fisherman, thinking he was asking for the name of a fish he was carrying answered "Kinsan."
Not quite hearing the answer, the soldier repeated the question. The fisherman, who was carrying only the head of the kinsan as he had already sold the rest of it replied “Ulo sa kinsan,” which later on became Aloguinsan.
A Filipino festival does not seem to be complete without food and a beauty queen.
And so the town prepared kinsan in various ways for out-of-town guests to savor. In the evening, there was dancing and crowning of Roselle Macias as Ginang Aloguinsan 2006.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 28, 2006 issue)
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