ILIGAN CITY – The City Government has allocated space for the stalls of some 50 internally-displaced persons (IDPs) from Marawi City inside the newly-opened Diyandi Fiesta Park in Doña Maria in Barangay Tipanoy.
Iligan City Councilor Sol Bacsarpa, over-all chairperson of the Diyandi Festival sa Iligan 2017, said the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) – Iligan paid for the rental at P4,500 for each stall to provide IDPs staying in different evacuation centers in the city with livelihood opportunities.
“The DTI is renting 50 stalls here at 4,500 pesos each for the IDPs to do their business until October 15. This is their (DTI) project. There will be dry goods stalls, food stalls, para mahatagan sila og kahigayonan nga maka-negosyo, kay by nature, mga negosyante na sila didto sa Marawi,” Bacsarpa said.
The Diyandi Fiesta Park formally opened last September 13 although carnival rides and other amusement-related businesses have been operating here since the first week of the month.
The park, formerly known as Mugna, changed to Taboan sa Iligan, and now to Diyandi Fiesta Park, operates by virtue of a local ordinance and is part of the month-long celebration of the city’s annual fiesta.
The city fiesta celebration falls on the 29th of September.
Bacsarpa said the park is called Diyandi Fiesta Park because the theme is "family gathering and funfare".
“The City Government has changed the name into Diyandi Fiesta Park to be consistent in our celebration because we have already an ordinance to institutionalize the festival that we call Diyandi,” Bacsarpa explained.
The official Diyandi Festival celebration will be on September 20 to the first Monday of October (this year, first Monday of October falls on the 2nd day). September 20 is the ritual of the Catholic Iliganons where they are going to bring down the image of the patron St. Michael De Archangel form the altar to down to the main entrance of the church where devotees can easily access for their prayers. The ritual is called Pakanaug. The patron’s image will be brought up to its proper place on first Monday of October and Catholic devotees called it Pasaka.
In line with the Diyandi Festival sa Iligan, the city government has also issued the list of local holidays in the city: September 20 for the Pakanaug ni Sr. San Miguel ritual; September 29 for the city fiesta celebration and September 30 for the students and workers to rest.
This year, September 27 was also declared a local holiday.
“But September 27 is only intended for the schools, both public and private. The ordinance we passed last June, being Diyandi as the official name of the festival in Iligan City, we incorporated here the declaration on September 27, to allow our youth groups to witness our cultural presentation during the Diyandi Sayaw Saulog (street dancing competition), kay ang atong mga kabataan dili kakita ani kay duna silay klase, labina kung matunong sa ting-eskwela,” Bacsarpa said.