THERE is no stopping this year's Pampanga Giant Lantern Festival scheduled on December 19 at its long time venue, host Robinsons Starmills Pampanga as 11 barangays will join this year's competition that aims to promote the popular cottage industry into the national and international scene.
Giant Lantern Festival Foundation president Alfrito Mah said that the participants this year are an improvement from the previous competitions as more and more barangays are joining in the festival.
Some P3 million has been allotted to help the festival and as way of support to the participants for this year's competition. Now at its 107th year, the festival remains strong and vibrant.
City Tourism Officer Ching Pangilinan was quick to note that the festival is a testament to community involvement and the bayanihan spirit.
The lanterns are made and funded by the community, aside from the funding subsidy coming from the city government. Lantern makers, electricians and ordinary folk volunteer time and effort to make the lanterns beautiful and up to competition standards.
This is not a surprise since the winning barangay takes the honor of having produced the best lantern for the season and each award is a bragging right against competing barangays.
Mayor Edwin Santiago said that they are also focusing on helping the industry penetrate the international market through more quality made lanterns.
This is in response to the current situation in which lanterns made in ordinary lantern makers could not penetrate the international market due to safety issues.
Despite of this, the city's lanterns, locally known as Parul Sampernandu, have been exhibited abroad.
Aside from China, the Parul Sampernandu has been in Hollywood in 1993, a year before, at the World Expo in Spain, the Philippines' embassies and consulates in Canada, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Thailand and the United States, among others.
The city's lanterns had also decorated areas such Austrian landmarks as the Rathausplatz and Ethnology Museum in Vienna, as well as the Stadtturm in Innsbruck, including the Lord Mayor's House in Dublin and the Good Shepherd Cathedral in Singapore.
What started as a lantern contest to honor and thank then President Manuel Quezon for converting Mount Arayat into a tourist resort had turned into a yearly spectacle.
The Giant Lantern Festival has become an annual festival held in December (Saturday before Christmas Eve) in this city.
The popularity of the festival has earned the province the nickname "Christmas Capital of the Philippines".
The GLF is a competition of 10 to 12 feet height lanterns that are made by barangays with standing lantern-making traditions.
The award is seen as a recognition from atop of the significance of the lantern industry here in helping local tourism and craftsmanship of local craftsmen and artisans.
This city's Giant Lantern Festival has been named first runner-up for Best Tourism Event, Arts and Culture category city level, during the National Pearl Awards held in Legazpi City in 2013.
In 2014, the Giant Lantern Festival (GLF) committee has made another historic first with the release of the first ever coffee table book chronicling the Giant Lantern Festival and a children's book on the world famous tourist attraction.
This year, the competition aims to draw more crowd to the annual event. Festival Committee chair Ernesto Cunanan is optimistic that this year's event will add another dazzling color to the proud tradition of lantern making in the capital city.
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