TRADITION: Fiesta

Fiesta is a Filipino folk revelry of sort woven in the tapestry of our history, culture and traditions. Calamba has a twin fiesta, June 19, which is the birth date of National Hero and Calambeño Dr. Jose Rizal and June 24, feast day of Calamba’s Patron Saint, St. John the Baptist. In Calamba, the weeklong celebration is coming when big tents and makeshift stalls begin to rise at the town plaza. When I-beams and iron pipes and bars are screwed and clamped together to form the Ferris wheel and fun ride structures, which to kids’ eyes seem to reach the sky.

Remember the “Beto-betp.””Sa Pula-sa-Puti,” :”Karerang daga,””Bingo,” “Pea Rifle shooting Gallery,” the side shows like “Ang Babaing Sirena,” “Batang Gagamba,” and the many other attractions of what folks call “Perya” or “Karnabal” These are the excitements of the Calamba Town Fiesta not to mention food favorites in every home open to all guests from all over.

Who remembers the mother who went home with a thermos bottle, pots, and pans, winnings from Karerang Daga, where gays in wild colored dresses lip sync songs like “Stairway to Heaven,” Samson and Delilah,” Heavenly Angel,” etcetera, and the kid who went home crying because he lost all his money in the “Beto-Beto” and “Sa-Puti-sa-Pula”? Who remember their first kiss atop a Ferris wheel? Who remembers the teenage girl who tells her parents she’s going to the perya only to elope with her boyfriend? Who remembers the fun and excitement of the 60s? Who could forget the town fiestas of the early era?

The Calamb fiesta is being celebrated until today by many Calambeño communities in the USA and other counties in the world but is seeming ly ignored or forgotten by not a few Calambeños at home.