Giant Lantern Festival of San Fernando Pampanga - Lighting up the Holiday Season

GIANT LANTERN FESTIVAL

The Festival

During December in San Fernando, Pampanga, the city celebrates the Giant Lantern Festival, Saturday before the Christmas Eve. The festival features competition of creatively built giant lanterns. Through this, the city has earned the nickname The Christmas Capital of the Philippines.
These giant lanterns measure an average of 40 feet in diameter and can contain thousands of light bulbs each. They sparkle, pulsate, intricate patterns, in a loop of random movements that glows against the eveningís blue sky. The blinking lights form kaleidoscopic patterns cast by hundreds of thousands of multicolored bulbs all in all, complete with safety box and 75 KVA generator apiece, powerful enough to light up an entire barrio. There are even entries to the giant lantern competition with state of the art technology.
Giant lanterns are usually made of crepe paper, Japanese paper, softdrink straws, wood, metal, plastic, capiz shell and many other materials. Costly as it is, it is a symbol of Pampanga folk art.
Because of the sizes of these ìparolsî, they have to be carried by parade of 6X6 trucks, and weighs around 1000 kg or more. Creating a single giant lantern requires at least 50 people, working almost the whole year to finish it.
The highlight of the festival is the parade of the competing lanterns in the streets on the 16th, with music and dancing.

Origin

The art of parol making tradition started way back 1928 as Francisco Estanislao made a symbol of the Star in Bethlehem when he made the first parol that has five-point star lantern, lighted by a candle or carbide lamp.
Lantern-making industry in San Fernando is dramatically influenced and assisted to boost by this magnificent event, the Giant Lantern Festival. Originally named as ìLigligan Parulî or ìPista ng Parulî, the festival is said to have started in 1904.
Lubenas, a predecessor of the modern day Giant Lantern Festival, is a religious event. The lanterns originally measure only 2 feet in diameter, they are usually built from bamboo and other local materials. In the event of the 9-day novena before Christmas, as people observe the Simbang Gabi, the lanterns march around in every barrio as an observance of the ìvisitaî. Along with the barrioís patrons, the lanterns were brought to the town church before the Christmas Eve.
Evolution of the lanterns started from the size and designs have become elaborated, it is decided that each barrio gets represented by only one big lantern built through cooperative effort. One resident of a barrio would contribute for the materials to be used, one would make the design, and one would manage the construction. With this, the lantern became a symbol unity for each barrios.

History

At the time President Manuel Quezon made Arayat his residence and converted into a tourist destination, the fist Lantern Festival is held. Being thankful, the people of Arayat devised a Christmas Lantern contest in honor of the president and his family. The winner of the contest received an award donated by the president himself thru his first lady Aurora Quezon.

In Succession

In the succeeding years, innovations are continuously introduced in giant lantern making. The traditional ìpapel de haponî is replaced by colored plastics, big metal rotors replace the manual switches for the lights, and the lanterns, keeping up with modern technology, became bigger and bigger, and these days about 20 feet and lights up approximately 5,000 light bulbs.

© anton sheker
all photos protected by copyright

Related Festivals and Fiestas:

1. Sinukwan Festival of San Fernando, Pampanga
2. Pampanga Festivals - Festivities in Pampanga
3. Duman Festival - Gastronomic Festival of Sta. Rita Pampanga
4. Festivals in December! - Festivals and Fiestas on the month of December
5. International Hot Air Balloon Festival Clark Field Pampanga
6. PANAGBENGA FESTIVAL - a season of flower blossoming
7. November Festivals in the Philippines
8. Higantes Festival of Angono, Rizal - Gigantic caricatures of their cruel landlords
9. Pahiyas Festival - gratitude to the patron saint San Isidro Labrador for good harvest
10. Obando Fertility Rites or the Kasilonawan Festival - because fertility was considered wealth or abundance of every individual