MORE AND MORE residents of Pangasinan are discovering and rediscovering the province?s natural beauty and rich cultural heritage.

Thanks to the ?Lakbay Edukasyon Na!? educational tour program launched this year by Vice Gov. Marlyn Primicias-Agabas and her husband, Board Member Tyrone Agab.

The one-day tour, which has been taking place every Saturday and Monday since May, has brought thousands of Pangasinenses to the towns of Lingayen, Sual and Bolinao, Alaminos City and the pilgrimage town of Manaoag.

Primicias-Agabas said she started the educational tour after finding from her barangay sorties that many residents, especially those from the eastern towns, had not yet seen the provincial capitol in Lingayen or travelled to the western towns.

?Many elderly citizens, for example, tell us that they have not been to Bolinao or Alaminos yet. Maybe, only five in 100 people would say they have been to these places,? she said.

?What a pity. They are already old and they have not seen Pangasinan. Some of them have gone to other provinces, others have been abroad, and yet, they have not seen their own province,? she said.

Ma. Luisa Elduayan, provincial tourism officer, said the tour was a big boost to the tourism program of the provincial government, which has been promoting the newly refurbished capitol and its surroundings as center of tourism.

First-timers

Elduayan?s office has been supporting the program by providing tour guides trained by the Department of Tourism. Since September last year, the office has registered some 15,000 visitors?most of them first-timers?to the capitol.

?You should see the amazement in the faces of those who are coming to the capitol for the first time,? Elduayan said.

Aside from the capitol building tour that includes visits to the offices of the governor and vice governor, and the provincial board?s session hall, tourists are taken to the Veterans? Park to view mounted black-and-white photos taken in the province during World War II.

They also tour the Lingayen Beach, the newly built provincial library and the Narciso Ramos Sports and Civic Center, site of the 1995 Palarong Pambansa.

Moreover, they visit a bagoong (fish paste) maker and the Ramos ancestral house a few blocks from the capitol.

?Soon, the tour itinerary will include the Sison auditorium (the province?s cultural center) and the Urduja House (the governor?s official residence),? Elduayan said. The two buildings are undergoing renovation.

From the capitol, tourists travel for about two hours to Bolinao, straight to the white sand beach of Barangay Patar, where a lighthouse is located.

?They?d usually arrive by lunchtime and they would have picnic at the beach,? Primicias-Agabas said.

After taking their lunch, they go to the provincial government?s agriculture extension office in Barangay Arnedo, where they are shown fish ponds and mangrove plantation.

In Alaminos, they take a short stop at the Lucap wharf, the jump-off point to the Hundred Islands National Park. Then they visit a longganisa (native sausage) maker to watch how the product is made.

In Sual, they only drop by the dried fish makers and buy some for their families, Primicias-Agabas said.

Manaoag Shrine

The last leg of the tour is a visit to the Shrine of the Miraculous Virgin of Manaoag, where they end the day with prayers.

Primicias-Agabas said the educational tours had been possible at no expense to the tourists because the provincial government buses could be used for free.

Gov. Amado Espino Jr. bought several buses in 2007 as tourist and shuttle vehicles for provincial employees.

Retired public school teacher Juanita de Guzman, 69, who was in one of the tours, said she was so excited she could not sleep the night before the trip.

?It has been years since I last saw the capitol and I was so happy to have seen how beautiful it has become today,? said De Guzman, whose village, Carmen West in Rosales town, is 60 kilometers southeast of the capital of Lingayen.