Guimaras Island scraps ‘mango-eat-all-you-can’ feast in 2021 Manggahan Festival

Guimarasnons will celebrate a toned down Manggahan Festival this month to showcase its famous sweet mangoes as Guimaras struggles to recover from the crippling impact of the pandemic (Photo courtesy of DTI Western Visayas)

ILOILO CITY –– The Guimaras provincial government has announced that the Manggahan Festival, which was canceled last year due to restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, will push through on May 20 to 22.

There would, however, be no mango-eat-all-you-can feast in this year’s festival to be held together with the 29th founding anniversary celebration of Guimaras.

“Manggahan” activities and events will mostly be held outdoors and through online portals in line with the protocols to stop the spread of coronavirus.

An agri-trade fair will showcase the mango and other products of the island that will be streamed on social media.

A virtual tour of the island will showcase the island’s beaches and other tourist destinations.

Tourism and the export of mangoes are among the top revenue earners of the island.

The festival will also include a province-wide bike fun ride and a mango-eating contest at the beach. E-games will also be held.

Guimaras, the smallest among six provinces comprising Western Visayas, was a sub-province of Iloilo until it became a separate province on May 22, 1992.

Its festival is among the biggest in the region that have been canceled or toned down due to the pandemic.

The first virtual Dinagyang Festival of Iloilo was held in January, which featured pre-recorded Ati dance performances, streamed on social media.

Travel and quarantine restrictions have battered the tourism industry of Western Visayas, one of the main economic drivers.

From around six million tourists who visited the region in 2019, tourist arrivals plummeted to about one million in 2020.

Tourism revenues also dropped from P131.1 billion in 2019 to P22.8 billion in 2020.

LZB