Pila’s first ‘Pailah’: Town celebrates blessings

PILA, Laguna, Philippines—The residents of this sleepy town have a reason to celebrate: It has survived not only past wars but also modern-day calamities, earning for it the term bayang pinagpala (blessed land).

Grateful for the long list of blessings and saying prayers for more, the townsfolk held their first Pailah—for palay (rice grains), isda (fish), lilok antigo (antique crafts), and halaman (plants)—festival last month with a celebration that involved rich and poor alike.

They named their festival after Pila’s ancient name.

The merrymakers converged on the so-called “elite center”—the central plaza, which, on regular days, provides a postcard view of an old town marked by the affluent clans’ centuries-old houses.

During the Pailah festival, the plaza was dotted by replicas of the poor man’s nipa hut. Seventeen of these single-room huts representing the town’s barangays were on display, and were actually carried there bayanihan-style by neighbors.

The huts teemed with vendors, farmers, fisherfolk and other townsfolk wearing shorts and slippers and standing shoulder to shoulder with the owners of the heritage houses who were dressed more formally.

Outside, despite the heat of the noonday sun, brightly made up and gaily costumed teens and children engaged in street dancing. They waved stalks of palay, with paper cutouts of wild flowers, fish and farm vegetables clipped to their costumes.

Their elders tended to stalls offering native bags, buri hats and assorted dishes, notable among which was sinukmani, a popular Tagalog delicacy of glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk and caramelized sugar.

On center stage

The town had long been holding its fiesta on July 29 to commemorate its founding anniversary. But last year, the municipal council issued a resolution approving the celebration of the Pailah festival in April, in time for the harvest season.

Last month’s festival was the first time in Pila’s history that its poorest of the poor—the farmers and fisherfolk, the key players of the town’s main source of living—held center stage along with their harvest of palay and vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplants, patola and upo. Pila, a fourth-class municipality, remains heavily dependent on farming and fishing, Mayor Edgardo Ramos said.

Half of its land area (2,000 hectares) is planted to rice, coconut and calamansi; many residents in the coastal area rely on Laguna Lake for a living.

“Pila is a poor town,” the mayor admitted. He said it was surviving on an annual budget of P72 million, only P7 million of which was coming from the local tax collection.

Poor but rich

Pila may be poor but its old folks are secure in the thought that their town is rich in history.

Historians believe that the town existed long before the Spanish conquistadors set foot on Philippine shores.

This is evident in the inscription on a Laguna copper plate dating back to 900 AD, according to Cora Relova of the Pila Historical Society Foundation.

She said the inscription on the artifact—considered the oldest written record in the Philippines and found in Lumbang (now Lumban town)—mentioned the word “Pailah” twice.

Researchers were later led to believe that the ancient word was a reference to the town of Pila.

Stories passed on through generations are also the town’s treasure. People still talk about legends, including one saying that during the Spanish-American war, all the other towns in Laguna were razed by fire except for Pila because it was cloaked with divine protection.

“There were stories that cannon balls hurled at the church would bounce back,” said Raffy Antonio, a great grandson of Pila’s first doctor and now the owner of one of its heritage houses.

Historical landmark

With Pila’s structures and artifacts preserved, its town center was declared a National Historical Landmark by the National Historical Commission in May 2000.

The Department of Tourism is now considering Pila’s promotion as a historical village in the Southern Tagalog region.

“The [idea] is to instill in the minds of the people of Pila their long and rich history. They should take pride in having descended from maharlika (royal), respectable and disciplined people who lived in Pailah,” Mayor Ramos said.

But alongside the festivities, is the need to uplift the lives of the present-day Pileños, Ramos said.

Redirecting efforts to agri

He said the Pailah festival was only to show that the government was redirecting its efforts to agricultural projects, so much so that this year, it had increased the budget for agriculture from P200,000 to P2 million.

The government has also begun distributing fertilizer and seeds to the farmers and providing scholarships to their children.

“We are really hoping that [the Pailah festival] will boost tourism and the local economy,” Ramos said.

He added that Pila Day would still be celebrated every July 29, but that the activities would be focused on basic services such as medical-dental missions.