By Hilda Austria

CHAMPIONS. The grand prize winners in the street dance competition of the first Kirmat (lightning) Festival in Malasiqui town, Pangasinan on Wednesday (Jan. 22,2025). The Kirmat Festival aims to boost tourism and economic movement in the town. (PNA photo by Hilda Austria)

MALASIQUI, Pangasinan – Jubilation filled the atmosphere in this municipality as residents and visitors witnessed the street dance performances of the first Kirmat (lightning) Festival on Wednesday.

Kirmat or lightning may seem destructive but the municipal government opted to highlight its benefits to agricultural lands, which comprise most of the town.

Inspired by a preaching of Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas during an ordination ceremony last year, Mayor Noel Anthony Geslani said lightning symbolizes reckoning force, persistence, and resilience of the people.

“It is destructive but we turned it around to mean energy, strength, and resilience in the face of disasters and trials,” he said in an interview.

Malasiqui, being an agriculture town, also benefits from lightning as the ash produced from burning provides the land with natural fertilizer. Lightning is also usually accompanied by rain, which is beneficial to the town’s rain-fed agricultural areas.

Serafin Morales, festival chairperson, said lightning also means giving life.

The festival, launched as part of the town’s fiesta (festival), showcased a street dance competition participated in by 54 out of the 73 villages of the town.

The villages were clustered into six groups for the competition composed of nine villages per group, and with a total of over a hundred dancers and participants.

Dressed in colorful costumes and with props creatively made, the dancers displayed their outfits and dance skills in the business district of the town.

Cluster five won the street dance competition with their performance that featured the growing furniture products of the town.

The group’s performance premised on timbers struck by lightning, which was turned into furnitures by a family who have seen opportunity from a seemingly hopeless situation that embodies the point of the Kirmat Festival.

The group also took the opportunity to promote the names of the furniture makers in the town.

Cluster three was awarded first runner-up with their performance featuring the onion produce of the town.

It showed how lightning provided natural fertilizer to the soil that helps the growth of onions as well as the efforts to help the sector.

Cluster four, which feature silag or palm tree, won the second runner-up for their performance.

The winners were awarded with PHP300,000 for the grand prize, PHP200,000 for the first runner-up, and PHP150,000 for the second runner-up.

Other clusters showcased the other products of the town such as vegetables, bamboo, and tobacco.

Councilor Rydel Ann Laforteza, overall town fiesta chairperson, said the festival was registered with the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA) “so we could join with other festival competition and promote our town.”

Sangguniang Kabataan (Youth Council) member Riza Mae Cabrera said the festival benefited them for its historical significance, represented their community, and a way to express their creativity.

Economic impact 

Businesses in the town also benefited from the event since they extended their operating hours to accommodate customers.

John Paul Penuliar, a vendor, said he sold more grilled fish on the night of the festival than the usual number.

Other businesses which usually close before 9 p.m. since most people were already home at that hour closed at a later hour due to influx of people. (PNA)