Bulacan’s Kneeling Carabao Festival draws huge crowd
FARM WORKERS ] Farmers in Pulilan, Bulacan, give their carabaos a break from working the fields so their farm animals can join the town’s Kneeling Carabao Festival on May 14. (Photo from the Municipal Government of Pulilan)
CITY OF MALOLOS, Bulacan, Philippines — This year’s “kneeling carabao” festival in Pulilan town in Bulacan province drew about 100,000 people, now that movement and travel restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic were fully lifted.
Pulilan Mayor Rosario Montejo said in an interview on Friday that the festival drew thousands of eager residents and tourists who waited for three years to see the carabaos return to the busy streets of the town center in honor of San Isidro Labrador, the farmers’ patron saint, staged on May 14.
The parade’s highlight was when the trained carabaos knelt in front of the San Isidro Parish Church at the town center as a gesture of gratitude to their patron saint San Isidro Labrador for the abundant harvest and as part of every farmer’s prayer for another bountiful year.
“The people [who came here for the festival] reached around 100,000. It fell on a Sunday (May 14) and it was very successful. People were hungry for festivals like this so they went out in multitude,” Montejo told the Inquirer.
Around 300 carabaos from Pulilan and nearby towns and cities took part in this year’s staging of the festival, which was canceled in 2020 after the pandemic struck in March. The festival resumed last yearm but only a few carabaos and visitors were present due to health and movement restrictions.
The festival, which was first recorded in the town in the 1930s, is famous for the carabaos that are dressed up in colorful decorations and clothes. They have been trained by the farmers since they were very young to kneel through hand gestures.
ON YOUR KNEES | A decorated carabao kneels in front of the San Isidro Parish Church in Pulilan, Bulacan, which is the highlight of the Kneeling Carabao Festival parade held on May 14 in honor of the farmers’ patron saint, San Isidro Labrador. (Photo from the Municipal Government of Pulilan)
Tourism comeback
The festival is the top crowd drawer in Bulacan that has also seen a tourism rebound this year.
Eliseo dela Cruz, Bulacan’s provincial history, arts, culture, and tourism officer, said tourist arrivals in the 20 towns and four cities of the province from January to April this year were estimated to reach 2 million.
During the same period in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the country, tourists were at 1,170,246, based on the data from Dela Cruz’s office. In the same period in 2021, the number dropped to 888,890 due to travel and movement restrictions and went up to 1.5 million last year as the local tourist industry started to rebound.
In the same prepandemic months in 2019, the province recorded 1,117,579 tourist arrivals.
Back then, Bulacan’s resorts, private pools, and event places were only more than 300. Today, these have risen to 455, the provincial tourism office said.
Bulacan, popular for its resorts, has lost more than P5 billion in tourism revenues after the resorts and pools were forced to shut down during the summer peak season in March 2020 because of the pandemic.
