ILOILO City – A showcase of various festivals in Western Visayas, the Kasadyahan competition of the annual Dinagyang Festival may become a separate festivity itself.
The proposal to remove Kasadyahan from Dinagyang again surfaced with the creation of a new body to manage the Dinagyang and other festivals here. The Iloilo Festivals Foundation Inc. (IFFI) held a consultative meeting yesterday.
Department of Tourism (DOT) regional director Helen Catalbas said it should not be a problem.
“Kasadyahan should be distinct from Dinagyang. It must have its own identity,” she stressed.
Every year, the Kasadyahan contest is held a day prior to the main tribe competition of the Dinagyang Festival.
Catalbas said the Kasadyahan has leveled up through the years, noting the improvements in the competing contingents’ choreographies, costumes, music, props, and concepts.
There’s a proposal to stage the Kasadyahan every September, the National Tourism Month.
Catalbas said DOT-6 is prepared to support Kasadyahan if the IFFI would drop it from the Dinagyang Festival.
The Iloilo Dinagyang Foundation, Inc. (IDFI) which used to organize the Dinagyang may handle the Kasadyahan, said Catalbas.
“Why not? Kasadyahan participants have no complaints whatsoever against the IDFI,” said Catalbas.
IDFI got Mayor Jerry Treñas’ ire in January this year for not inviting him to the festivities.
In a previous interview, Treñas said that as an official of the city (then as congressman), he should have been invited and that the festival should have been spared from politics. He was then running for mayor against the incumbent Jose Espinosa III.
It was during Treñas’ term as mayor from 2001 to 2010 that the private sector – the IDFI for that matter – was tapped as official managing partner of the Iloilo City government and the Parish of San Jose de Placer for the Dinagyang.
In deciding to drop IDFI, Treñas said there were people in the foundation that he could no longer work with.
He also said the IDFI has no ownership or exclusive right over the staging of Dinagyang “kay ti iya ina sang pumoluyo sang syudad.”
Meanwhile, DOT’s Catalbas said the Kasadyahan may be held in another place.
“There is nothing that prevents DOT from holding this. We can hold this in Capi, or in Kalibo or Bacolod City,” she said./PN
