Once again, Negros Oriental will celebrate its festival of festivals, as the two-week Buglasan Festival starts this Friday.
This celebration, which is named after Buglas, said to be the old name of Negros, will feature the best of what the 25 towns and cities of the Province have to offer. There will be contests, cultural shows, art exhibits and food festivals. It has gone a long way from the folk arts festival that it used to be.
The Buglasan Festival was started by Foundation University and the Balikatan sa Kaunlaran in 1981 to determine the Province’s delegation to the National Folk Arts Festival. In 2002, the Province of Negros Oriental adopted the Buglasan Festival as the Provinces’s annual Provincial Fiesta.
While this event is touted as the number one tourist drawer for Negros Oriental, it would probably be more important to concentrate on its cultural and historical significance. Negrenses, especially the students, need to appreciate Negros culture first-hand because it is easy to lose our identity in the wake of all the information overload that comes our way in this digital age. We understand more of ourselves when we see how our predecessors lived. Hopefully, we can also look deeper into the future with renewed confidence in our proud past.
Yes, the Buglasan Festival is everybody’s fiesta. This is not just a call for celebration–this is a call for everyone to get involved.