FOR PEACE AND UNITY Baguio-based Cordillera youths perform the traditional communal dances in the provinces of Benguet, Kalinga, Ifugao, Apayao, Abra and Mountain Province during the 12th Gong Festival at Burnham Park on Sunday. Now run by young Cordillerans, the festival founded in 2012 advocates peace and unity. —Vincent Cabreza
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Amid the current global turmoil, Cordillera youths who reside in this city performed their forebears’ community dances to denounce wars during the 12th staging of the annual Gong Festival at Burnham Park on Sunday.
“The world is at war. The First World countries are making more weapons. The IP (indigenous peoples) do not want war. We do not want more guns,” said Josephine Banasan, 64, who founded the festival in 2012 with her late husband Raffy Kapuno.
The youths exhibited the community dances of Kalinga, Mountain Province, Apayao, Abra, Ifugao, and Benguet to dramatize IP traditions of unity and peace, said Banasan, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker.
The Begnas of eastern Mountain Province and the numerous dances of Kalinga—where Banasan was born—express community thanksgiving or courtship and love, “not hate,” the festival founder said.
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Clans of every generation gather at ritual feasts called “cañao” or assemble for “tongtongan” or communal discussions whenever gongs are played, she said, to explain why gongs are significant for peace-building.
“For the last two years since the festival’s tenth staging in 2022, I relinquished the festival to youth groups in the barangays and in various schools so they have been running the festival,” Banasan revealed.
Culture bearers
The youth groups chose Sunday’s theme, “Gongs for Peace—a harmony of heritage and ancestral reverence,” she said.
“They are very young but they understand how disputes in the region and across the world affects them,” Banasan said.
The festival also allows the youths to be their generation’s cultural bearers.
“This festival is partly educational for children and visitors,” Banasan stressed.
On Sunday afternoon, another group of Baguio youths held a peace rally at Malcolm Square along downtown’s Session Road to denounce the year-old conflict between Israel and terror group Hamas that has killed 400,000 Palestinians in Gaza City.
Calling their rally “The Days of Action Against State Terrorism and Genocide,” the militant students from various Baguio universities joined a global protest to demand a ceasefire.