Sogod Town Fiesta

December 15, 2021

Fiesta is one of the most awaited celebrations of the year. It is a community’s collective way of expressing thanks to the Lord, through a patron saint, for the bountiful harvest and good fortune. It has been a part of our rich tradition.

Practiced since the Spanish era, fiesta is celebrated in every city, town, and barangay (village) in the country in honor of a patron saint, in which the patron saint and fiesta date were assigned to the community either by the priest or chosen by the townsfolk themselves.

I woke up at the sound of the marching band playing on the early morning street of our road it's Diana. The early morning band playing called “Diana” is to signal the start of the 9-day novena or it's waking up the people to know it's already fiesta.

I could hear the wailing of the pigs and shrieks of chickens as they are being slaughtered. Then the air was filled with aromatic scents as different dishes are being cooked. But before these were served to visitors, everyone in the house prepared in going to church, dressed in their Sunday’s best. Families would troop to church to thank the Lord for all the blessings and to La Purisima Concepcion the town's patron saint.

Today is considered a local holiday, so we do not have classes. Even though there's no class, we still have to report at school.

To make use of our time. I and my colleagues decided to decorate for our Christmas Party. We installed our Christmas tree which was kept in the storage room. The work was easily done as all of us did certain tasks.

While we were busy doing tasks, we received a notice coming from our school administrator that classes are suspended on 16 and 17 due to the typhoon that will hit the province. We immediately sent notices to the parents so that they will be guided on the suspension of the classes.

At lunchtime, Miss Donna, one of the stakeholders of our school, who lived just near the school, invited us over to her house. Good timing, because we were also about to have our lunch. We gladly went to their house and we are welcomed warmly by her family.

We were served delectable foods. We even had dessert right after eating.

We felt so full and crammed. We are grateful to her family for serving us delicious foods on their table.

We continued decorating our classroom right after we got back to school from miss Donna's house.

Around 3 pm we finished decorating our classroom ready for our Christmas Party this Saturday. I just hope and pray that everything becomes fine on that day.

If it weren't because of Covid-19, probably there are lots of activities done. Well, the safety of the people is the priority. Hopefully, by next year, all will go back to normal and we could enjoy all the activities done every fiesta.

I am also excited about the first Misa de Gallo. I am willing to finish the 9 dawns of Misa de Gallo. They said, when you can finish it, you can have your wish granted. I have a great wish for next year. But also, I'd like to offer the remaining days of 2021 to the Lord.

That's all for today folks, Odette is already here. We are already in Signal No. 2. Praying for everybody's safety.

Thank you, everyone :)