Street party gives Pinatubo throwback for millennials

Angeles City stages the street party Tigtigan Terakan Keng Dalan yearly, which gives participants a chance to handle sand and ash spewed out by Mt. Pinatubo (right photo) in 1991. —PHOTOS BY TONETTE OREJAS AND ANGELES CITY PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE

ANGELES CITY — Millennials are getting a “throwback” about the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruptions in the 25th Tigtigan Terakan Keng Dalan (TTKD or Singing and Dancing in the Street) to be held this week.

In this homegrown mardi gras on Oct. 27-28, young Filipinos will have a chance to handle with their bare hands the sand and ash that Mt. Pinatubo spewed out.

The new feature of the street party is called “Pamangasnang lahar,” the act of smearing one’s face or arms with volcanic materials, according to Joy Cruz, the city’s deputy tourism officer.

“We want to bridge the gap between millennials and older TTKD-goers,” Cruz said. “We want them to experience a bit of this disaster that befell our city and how we overcame it through courage and hard work.”

Millennials are those born between the 1980s and 2000s.

TTKD began as a simple get-together started by Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan. It was held in October, Pamintuan said, “because I thought of the Apu (Apung Mamacalulu or Dead Christ) fiesta at the last Friday of October.”

“I added it to the fiesta spirit which had plummeted so low and people had been in stupor, discouraged and almost surrendered because of their condition [after the eruption],” he said.

Over 3,000 families in the city lived in tents with no potable water, electricity and jobs.

Pamintuan’s rallying cry was “Agyu Tamu (Yes we can)!” as residents struggled to overcome Pinatubo’s eruptions, as well as the closure of the Clark Air Base when the American troops left.

As acting mayor from July to October 1991, Pamintuan did not mind shoveling sand out of the streets with other volunteers to give Angeles a semblance of normalcy.

On the last Saturday of October 1992, on his first term as mayor, the first TTKD was born. Pamintuan gathered his friends, closed a stretch of MacArthur Highway in Barangay Balibago, called in local bands to perform, and allowed traders to sell food and drinks.

TTKD has remained the same each year, but its venue has been expanded to a kilometer of road. Culinary fests and artists’ villages will be introduced in the street party for the first time this month.