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Thursday, December 29, 2016
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SAN JOSE, Antique – Antiqueños honored the late governor Evelio B. Javier, founder of the Binirayan Festival.
A wreath-laying ceremony was held at Javier’s bronze statue at the EBJ Freedom Park on Wednesday.
Javier created the festival in 1974 to unite the locals and make them proud of their history, the province being considered the first Malay settlement in the Philippines.
A reenactment of the arrival of the Malayan datus in Barangay Malandog, Hamtic is the main attraction of the festival.
Provincial Board member Errol Santillan, chairman of the committee on tourism and history, said he was 16 years old when he first played the high priest “Bangot-bangot” during the reenactment.
Javier dreamed of holding the festival every year to recall the noble quest for freedom by the Malay forebears, said Santillan.
“The Malay datus left Borneo because of tyranny, and it is in Antique where they landed and established their home in peace,” he said.
Javier also wanted every town to help stage the celebration, said the Board member. “Let us consider Javier’s vision to be one Antique, one province.”
Meanwhile Board member Pio Jessielito Sumande said this was the first time Javier, as the province’s “folk hero,” was given military honors in recognition of his great contribution to the province.
“Javier, through the festival, opened our minds to how we came to be as Antiqueño people,” Sumande said.
Moreover Binirayan Festival executive director Rexon Nodque thanked Javier for starting the festival and called on Antiqueños to keep doing whatever is good for the province. (PNA)
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