DAGUPAN CITY—There’s no question about this city’s reputation as the producer of the tastiest “bangus” (milkfish) in the Philippines, but the composition of lablab, which supposedly ensures the superior quality of the product, remains shrouded in mystery.

Before commercial feeds were introduced to the local aquaculture industry, cultured bangus in Dagupan fed solely on lablab, a mat of organic material found at the bottom of fishponds, said Dr. Westly Rosario, chief of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) Research Center.

Aquaculture experts and scientists have no accurate definition of lablab, but according to Rosario, it is believed to be a combination of plankton (microscopic organisms) and decomposing algae.

It has not acquired an English name, much less a scientific name, as no sufficient research was ever conducted on it, Rosario said.

There are areas in Dagupan where lablab thrives, such as the village of Bonuan, although there are also areas where lumot (filamentous algae) abound and serve as an organic meal for bangus, he said.

Half and half

Lablab could be partly lumot and partly plankton, which looks like a mat covering the fishponds’ floor, Rosario said.

He described it as the natural food of bangus.

And while commercial feeds have all the nutritional requirements for the fish, these cannot approximate the nutrients of lablab, in the same way that infant formula cannot approximate the nutrients of mother’s milk, he said.

The BFAR tried “transplanting” lablab in its research area in Mindoro, “but it did not grow there,” Rosario said.

He said that aside from lablab and lumot, nature must have gifted Dagupan with an environment conducive to bangus culture because even when supplied commercial feeds, the milkfish produced in the city was of top quality.

“It could be the soil, the water and the climate,” Rosario said.

On the map

Suffice it to say that Dagupan bangus has put the city on the world’s culinary map, and that an annual festival is held by residents to celebrate the product.

The Bangus Festival was born in 2002, spawned by the annual “Pista’y Dayat” (Sea Festival) in the province of Pangasinan.

Initially, the sea festival was celebrated in the two coastal villages of the capital town of Lingayen in the early 1960s. It served as the fishermen’s “simple thanksgiving” for the bounties of the Lingayen Gulf, the province’s economic backbone.

Soon, other towns and cities along the Lingayen Gulf came up with their own celebrations to complement Pista’y Dayat, such as the Bangus Festival of Dagupan and the Hundred Islands Festival of Alaminos City.

This year’s Bangus Festival went regional with the staging on April 26 of the Festivals of the North, a street-dancing competition that featured dancers from different provinces.

Protection, not promotion

Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez, the festival chair, said there was no more need to promote Dagupan bangus through another “longest barbecue” because the city already held the Guinness World Record in 2003.

“There is no need to promote our bangus now because anywhere you go, the product is well known. Vendors in other provinces even claim that what they are selling is Dagupan bangus,” Fernandez said.

“What is needed now is not promotion, but protection, of the city’s bangus industry,” she said.