Aurora Day: Street Dancing

On February 18, a street dancing competition was held as a part of the Aurora Day Celebration. Different elementary, high school and college groups participated in this affair that started with a parade in the morning and then the main presentation at the capitol grounds. I think three locations along the Quezon highway were set up for the groups to do their thing in front of judges. Then they were judged again for their main presentation in front of the capitol stage. This year, provincial tourism officer Cristopher Gonzales personally commissioned an original song titled "Pagsibol" from some members of Manila's popular band Reggae Mistress. This was used or interpreted by the participating groups in the competition. This was a very colorful event and the parade is a must see. It's better than the Aurora Day parade where all you see are mostly color coded employees walking on the road, most of them doing it against their will. There were two categories for this competition, elementary and high school/college with each winning team receiving 17,000 pesos. This year Baler Central School and Aurora State College of Technology won the elementary and high school/college categories respectively. Enjoy the pictures!



United Colors of Aurora



The costumes are all about coconut and sabutan.



Not really packed with people, but you can say it's a hit.



A sweeping attire.



Ka Karding's house at the corner of Angara and Quezon. The banner is about a 3-cock derby.



This is not the 1000 meter relay.



The little komedyantes of Buhangin.



Doing the bilao thingy.



A tribute to selling vegetables.



It pays to be my kumpare, your daughter or pamangkin stands a great chance to be posted on batangbaler. The Baler Central School winners fronted by Dianne, my pareng Dan's daughter and pareng Metong's pamangkin.



Too many suns.



Not my inaanak.



Ms. Dulay from Aurora National Science High School, Ymay's pamangkin. Or pinsan.



And this is Maan.



Another sweeping attire.



Boys on skirts. Celebrate diversity!



One of the golden girls from ASCOT. This cheerless gal is named Cheerful. Really.



Three months early for Flores De Mayo.



Those sabutan dress must be very itchy.



And those tistis tubes too.



The agony of walking barefoot on sunbaked concrete.



Caption this pix and win a prize.



Sun as hat part 1.



Sun as hat part 2.



Sorry kid, no banig tonight. Ate made a dress out of it.



The second part of the gimmick is this field demonstration.



The sweepers.



The judges.



the salagwet.



The kids from Ditumabo caused a sabutan shortage.



Higantes, the small version.



Now this is what i call the front row seat.



The formation.



It's really a sabutan world. I'm guessing a sabutan fest next year.



Nice portable shades.



The goldies.



I don't know but they really look like trophies.



The crowd.

Aurora Day Parade

These pictures were taken during the benebens (main event) of the Aurora Week celebration, the Parade on February 19.



Used to be the people to finish the parade, Aurora's top officials are now the roadbreakers. Between the two umbrellas: Mayor Angara of Baler, Vice Governor Annabelle Tangson, Cong. Sonny Angara and Governor. Bella Angara-Castillo.



The Baler Association of the Midwest, USA. They were here for the celebration as well as the much attended three-day Medical Mission at the Baler Central School on February 21 to 22. Chica Go!



The evergreens, Nais Ng Ina, probably Aurora's oldest association. It was founded by no less than Doña Aurora Aragon Quezon herself.



The float of Ms. Casiguran leads all Wadi Lakke participants of the parade.



Ms. Dipaculao in a float that seemed to be inspired by all the woods and stuffs washed-out during the November flash floods. Seriously, its all about the Pagsibol thing.



The designers of Ms. Maria's float, anticipating a very sunny and hot parade, decided to add in a natural shade for their muse to save her all the agony of having to carry an umbrella throughout the whole gig.



Ms. Dinalungan's motto: "no to umbrella". It's high time for a tan. And to keep the tan even, they even put a second sun to take care of her backside.



Ms. San Luis is from Ditumabo. She even brought the famous waterfalls with her to prove it.



This year's winner for the worst designed float: Baler. This one is inspired by the popemobile.



Ms. Dingalan pretending to be a pearl in this "manglit" inspired float.



The veterans. An endangered species.



The street dancing winners from Baler Central School, streetdancing once again.



The golden girls from ASCOT showing their winning steps.



Ms. Aurora from Dingalan. They forgot to put a straw to that big "mura" beside her.



The majorettes of Baler National High School (i guess).



This is how the main road looks like. Notice the May 2004 campaign billboard still on a roof after 10 months.



This is the "mura" i'm talking about. This float won the best float award. It has a big kayuran in front and a dog-sized ant eating a panutsa. My picture of the whole float was too dark to be posted.



The stage after the parade. Up front were Señor Ricky Quezon Avanceña, Sen. Angara, Gov. Castillo, Cong. Angara and Vice Gov. Tangson. The guest speaker, Sen. Dick Gordon, failed to make it on account of bad weather.



Two of this year's four Dangal ng Bayan Awardees. Dr. Epitacio Palispis for Education and John Arcilla for Performing Arts. The other recipients were Sen. Edgardo Angara for public service and Jeho Bitancor for Visual Arts.



The kids donned in international attires.



The Governor



Señor Ricky Avanceña.



John Arcilla sings our Gov's favorite, The Impossible Dream.



Cong. Sonny Angara




Vice Gov. Tangson delivered the message of the guest speaker, Sen. Richard Gordon. It was a sunny day in Aurora, but a wall of dark clouds on the mountains prevented him from coming to the Province.



I love orange.



Dr. Epitacio Palispis, receiving his Dangal ng Aurora award.



Sen. Edgardo Angara delivering his acceptance speech.



Ceasar Cristopher Gonzales, Aurora's new tourism Czar.



The mayor of Dingalan with Ms. Aurora. That was Aurora's map painted on her banig skirt. And she's still wearing those coconut bras.



The Dr. Galban megged ASCOT chorale doing their thing to close the program.



Aurora's new battlecry "Bagong Sigla, Bagong Pag-asa" was literally launched into space.

Wallpaper

This wallpaper is donated by Olin Duaso. Just click on the picture to open the 1024 X 768 image.

Old Baler

Corrected caption (thanks to Poppo Olag): This picture was taken in Cemento Creek on 1921. The person with the guitar was Ka Eton Querijero and the one with a violin was Ka Jesus Ferreras. In between was Ka Upay Gonzales, Poppo Olag's father.

I'm looking for old pictures of Baler and Aurora like this one for a Batangbaler gallery of old pictures that i will setup online in a few weeks or so. If you have some pictures in your old lolo's kaban, have it scanned or digitally photographed and send it to me at batangbaler at gmail dot com.

Passage

Aurora lost a great person when Mr. Lauro Bihasa passed away more than a week ago. Ka Lauro, who hailed from San Luis will be remembered as a great teacher, musician and a model Auroran. Loved and respected by many, he was survived by his wife, Mrs. Lading Villas Bihasa and their two children. He was interred at the Baler Cemetery on Tuesday, March 1, 2004. He was 52 years old.

Also, one of Carrasco St. originals. Ka Rolan Buen passed away more than a week ago. He will be missed.

Baler The Bountiful

While waiting for the updates, take time to read this Philippine Star article about Baler and the recent Aurora Day by Alfred Yuson. It's a great read:

Baler the Bountiful. " Somehow you’re grateful the overland trip takes at least six-seven hours via Cabanatuan, with at least a couple of those on dusty, winding rough roads. Otherwise, Baler might well be swamped with tourists foreign and local, meaning Metro Manilan. There’s a remarkable bounty of attractions all over Aurora province. But you want to be selfish about it, go sotto voce only among close friends: Hey, you should try it, guys – beach and mountain, mountain and beach, spectacular sweeping views, old-growth forests, waterfalls, ravines and rivers pristine. The food’s good, and the people all seem like long-lost family. "

Batangbaler Down

For those of you who can still access Batangbaler via this blog, the main BB server is down because it has reached it's bandwidth limit for the month. It means that the main website cannot be accessed including the guestbook, messageboard and all pictures located in the server. Things will be back to normal by March 1, hopefully with new updates. Please inform other regular Batangbaler visitors about this. Most Akaws using the www.batangbaler.net will only get a "bandwidth limit exceeded" message. If you can read this, it means that you are using the www.batangbaler.blogspot.com address. This blog is still working because this is not located in the Batangbaler server but some pictures will not be available.

Batangbaler has a 5 GB bandwith allocation per month, the highest in the webhost package. Usually the average 300 to 400 visits per day on the site does not even consume half of this bandwidth. But because of horny Pinoy's frantic search for the Ethel Booba video, traffic to BatangBaler now reaches more than 1000 visits per day, more that double the average. And that's because Ethel Booba once had a show here in Baler that BB covered. BB don't have the Booba videos. That coupled with legit visits to see the latest Aurora Day 2005 pictures used up all of BB's bandwidth.

So see you on March 1 peeps. Hang on tight. We have tons of updates for you.

Volunteer Switch Still On!

Batangbaler and Volunteers for Aurora are still in volunteer mode and we're still working on our next project (on our own pace). We're still receiving donations. Thanks to our latest donors from US and UK:

Ms. Anne Roberts and friends and families from U.K.
All State Insurance Employees c/o Mr. Lauro Poblete from Chicago
Ma. Nympha Poblete also from Chicago.

Rock Aid

100% of the profits will be going to UNICEF for their relief efforts in Quezon, particularly the towns of Real, Infanta, Gen. Nakar, Polilio Island (Quezon Province) and Dingalan (Aurora Province).

Read the Philmusic article.