At Guimaras fest, visitors grab island’s popular mangoes

GUIMARAS PRIDE Mangoes grown in Guimaras province have reached markets in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. —RAUL FRANCISCO GALON JR.

ILOILO CITY—The island province of Guimaras has given its visitors a taste of its export-quality mangoes through the Manggahan Festival that is ending this week.

Local officials said long lines at piers in Iloilo City for boat rides to Guimaras in the past few days were not surprising since visitors needed to pay only P120 to avail of a 30-minute, “eat-all-you-can” treat of Guimaras Super (Galila) mango.

The festival ends on Tuesday.

This mango variety, said to be one of the sweetest in the country, was developed by the Guimaras National Crop Research, Development and Production Support Center (GNCRDPSC) and exported to the United States and the United Kingdom.

Bare hand feast

On the festival’s first day on May 11, the Guimaras provincial tourism office said about 1,200 kilograms of different varieties of mangoes were served at the provincial capitol grounds in Jordan town, the main festival area.

The province described the event as an “unlimited, bare hand mango feast.”

On weekdays of the 11-day festival, about 600 kg were served while weekend servings reached about 2,000 kg—all coming from nearly 50,000 mango trees planted around the 604-square-kilometer island that is about the size of Singapore.

However, world-class mangoes do not come cheap as these are sold anywhere from P150 to P180 a kg in Guimaras.

Rivalry

Records from the National Seed Industry Council, which approves and registers crop varieties in the Philippines, show that 15 carabao mango fruit varieties are registered in its office.

The GNCRDPSC often names its mango strains after the surnames of owners of the mother tree and acknowledges the rivalry between Sweet Elena of Zambales province and Galila. —Hazel P. Villa