Travel flashback: Pahiyas Festival 2009 in Lucban, Quezon

It is not enough for me to describe what the Pahiyas Festival is about, aside from being a feast every May 15 in honor of San Isidro Labrador with thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest, wherein the sights to behold are households with colorful agricultural ornaments. More than just the beautiful exteriors of each friendly competing house, tourists can go inside most of the houses too and see more of the residents' creativity. See more information here.

An image of San Isidro Labrador

One of the festively decorated houses

I had the chance to witness this event with my former colleagues in Citi, to which my then teammate Kate's family is based in Lucban. We had an overnight stay at Batis Aramin Resort & Hotel.

We had breakfast around the carinderias among the decorated households. I indulged myself with their famous Lucban longanisa and pansit habhab. We needed to pack on energy for the long walk in the festive streets.

Souvenirs

After the walking with my teammates, we had lunch at Kate's family house. I was lucky to be able to borrow a DSLR camera from Kate's friend, Joey. I grabbed the camera and went by myself walking around the streets of the Pahiyas houses. It was my first time to take photos using a DSLR and apparently, I was more interested in taking photos of smaller details. I should have taken shots of each house too, which I didn't.

Details of the ornaments, from left: bakya (native wooden clogs),
kiping (ground rice flour papers), palay (paddyrice grains), other agricultural harvests

One of my favorite houses (because all others are too colorful
and typically with lots of kiping while this one is mainly of palay only)

Large creative displays

It was also during my busy time in taking photos that I realized my cellphone and wallet were taken from my bag! There were many policemen around the festival route and I told them about what happened to me out of panic. Of course I got advice from them to report it but I figured it was no longer of use. When I was finally able to collect myself, I went back to Kate's house and started calling the banks where I had to block my credit cards and ATM cards, as well as SMART to inactivate my postpaid SIM.

My emotional pose at Kate's family house after the unfortunate event
(I was wearing a Giniling Festival shirt for the festival!)

When I finally got home empty-handed but with Lucban longanisa which I was able to buy before my wallet disappeared, I first had to obtain a new SIM and phone from SMART. It just so happened that my two-year subscription plan has already passed, and that I could renew for another two years and avail another free phone. When my new SIM was finally activated, I received a text message from an anonymous sender saying that they got my wallet from the trash!

I agreed to go back to Lucban and claim my wallet from the kind lady who took the time to inform me about it, because of my important ID's, and most importantly that wallet was a birthday gift from Pol. Unfortunately within that day, she said that her companion at home surrendered the wallet to the police station without her knowing. She told me to go immediately there and claim it right away because she didn't trust their policemen. I took Pol with me to Lucban and when we went to the police station, there was indeed a logged report of my surrendered wallet but they couldn't find the wallet in their lost-and-found counter!

Pol and I were getting quite disappointed because of the long trip we had to get to Lucban for nothing. We went to the kind lady's house to tell her about what happened at the police station and she was outraged as well. She and her neighbors who knew about my wallet were all there in our conversation, and they said that the person who stole my wallet and cellphone were probably not from Lucban but from Laguna. The lady who found my wallet also expressed the shame she felt for their policemen and that it gave shame to the Lukbanos. She was embarrassed about how tourists like me were treated. One of her concerned neighbors went far by calling in an off-duty policeman and a barangay tanod to raise our concern. The kind barangay tanod went to a police officer's house with us to tell him about the surrendered wallet that weirdly could not be found. I was not sure about how their conversation turned out but the tanod shook his head in disappointment when he signaled to us how it went. It was already evening when Pol and I took the bus back to Manila without my wallet, but with more Lucban longanisa which I bought because it was really good.

A few days later, the kind lady sent me a text message to tell me that the wallet was finally recovered, and she would have it shipped to my address. I didn't ask her anymore about how they even got it back because she, I, and the tanod knew that some policeman may have taken interest of it with the wrong assumption that its owner who lived in Metro Manila would even bother claiming it. I was so thankful to her, her policeman friend, her neighbors and their tanod because they proved that Lukbanos in general are indeed good people. I sent her chocolates as a surprise in return for gratitude, which she said I shouldn't have bothered doing. But for me it was just a small gesture for all the effort she and her fellow Lukbanos made to help me.

The Pahiyas Festival is one festival that I will never forget because of the unfortunate events that I encountered and the outweighing wonderful experience I had with the sights and the food, and the locals of Lucban themselves. I encourage everyone to go to the Pahiyas Festival because it's really a visual and gastronomical treat! Just be careful with your belongings, as we always should be. :)