In Dagupan, ‘bangus’ is biggest star again

DAGUPAN CITY—For the 11th time, Anton Caneng brought his oversized bangus (milkfish) to the “Bangus Rodeo” here on Thursday hoping to take home the top prize as he had done almost every year in the last 10 years.

But this time, his winning streak ended when he lost in the heaviest bangus contest. His entry was a little more than 5 kilograms, far lighter than the winning entry of Rene Landingin, who brought a 12.95-kg bangus.

Landingin, a bangus grower from the village of Bonuan Sabangan here, also took home the P15,000 top prize.

“It’s difficult to catch milkfish,” said Caneng’s wife, Christy.

She said to get the heaviest bangus from their pond, they will have to catch each of the 400 oversized bangus and weigh each of them.

But Caneng won in the longest bangus contest. His entry was 83.5 centimeters long, more than 10 cm shorter than his winning entry last year which was 94.5 cm long.

This was his third successive year to win in the contest, although he had won it yearly from 2002 to 2008. In 2009, the longest bangus, which was 89 cm long, was raised by Tommy Abuel, a bangus grower here.

City agriculturist Emma Molina said had Caneng won in the heaviest bangus category, he would have been elevated to the Bangus Rodeo’s hall of fame, which means he can no longer join future contests.

“If you win four successive times, you’ll be a hall of famer,” Molina said.

But Caneng’s sister, Emy Maramba, said they did not mind losing because they can still join next year.

This year’s “prettiest bangus” was raised in the pond of the Caguioa family in neighboring Binmaley town. The family won the same category last year and in 2009.

Other event winners in the Bangus Rodeo, which is one of the highlights of this year’s Bangus Festival, were Elvira Flena (fastest bangus deboner), Joel Seram, (fastest bangus eater) and Melecio Melendez (fastest bangus classifier). The winners won P3,000 each and a trophy.

In a separate festival event, the city’s amateur and professional chefs tested their skills in preparing bangus and other seafood dishes.

The cooking contest came up with a variety of preparations for bangus, talakitok (jack), oyster and lapu-lapu (grouper).

The competition, held on Wednesday, was  patterned after cooking shows on TV: For 15 minutes, the contestants choose 15 from 20 ingredients found around the city. Among these were buro (fermented rice), binuburan (fermented fish), glutinous rice, salted eggs, tofu, spicy mango sauce and chili flakes.

The contestants were given 30 minutes to prepare their dish for each of the three categories (soup, salad and main course).

The contestants were also required to prepare a separate dish of their choice from oyster, lapu-lapu and talakitok.