CATBALOGAN CITY- The contingent from the Samar National School(SNS) was declared as champion in this year’s Manaragat Festival 2017 held at the grounds of the Samar provincial building held last Wednesday (August 23), besting eight other participants.
The grand winner of this year’s festival, who received P100,000 as cash prize, will represent Catbalogan City in next year’s Sinulog Festival in Cebu City.
The SNS contingent was also named as the best in musicality.
Samar College bagged second place and won P60,000 while Catbalogan National High School was named as third place and won P30,000.
Meantime, Samar State University bagged best in costume special award.
This year’s Manaragat Festival is a continuation of the activities they lined up as the city celebrates its 400 years founding anniversary.
The Manaragat Festival centers on the dance presentation on the fishing heritage of the people of the city from the time before Spanish colonizers arrived in Samar Island up to the present which they call “Kamurasak han Kadagatan”.
The showcase of the fishing practice through a festival dance is an effort to rediscover and reinvigorate old traditions of the city as well as to educate the community on sustainable practices in fishing as a climate change mitigation program.
Manaragat, a local term for fishermen, is the annual festival of Catbalogan City held every August 24 in honor to St. Bartholomew the Apostle as the miraculous Saint who maintained the richness of Maqueda Bay, a major fishing ground of the province of Samar. (ROEL T. AMAZONA)
