Festival

The Municipal Tourism Office headed by Mercy Manansala tasked each of the 26 barangays to prepare more than 100 kilos of seafood dishes such as steamed, baked, buttered, sweet and sour and honey lemon crabs and shrimps, paella and rice aligue and fried fish, among others.

Aside from these, seafood producers and consignacion sellers were also asked to offer price discounts on fresh seafood including tilapia, crab, crablets, shrimp, crawfish, prawns and shellfishes, as well as the famous aligue or crab paste to tourists who wished to take home the town’s specialt i es.

According to Mayor Danilo Guintu, who launched the festival in 2013, the event is aimed at celebrating the bountiful harvest of seafood from the Pampanga River and Manila Bay which surrounds the coastal town of Masantol.

“We celebrate the Seafood Festival every May 1 to show our gratitude for the year-round bountiful harvest of our fishermen. As you know, Masantol posts the highest number of seafood and production in Pampanga which are being transported to different places in Manila and abroad also,” he said.

Guintu furthered that the festival also serves as the biggest promotional event for the town’s seafood industry as aid of the local government to the local fishermen and fish ponds operators here.

“We wanted to showcase our rich seafood industry in Masantol and we wanted local and foreign tourists to know that we have the most delicious and tasteful seafood in our town, and hopefully, this will boost the sales of our seafood producers,” he said.

The festivity was also highlighted by the colorful street dance competition, where youth from the 26 barangays danced around the municipal grounds and St. Michael the Archangel Parish patio.

The participants were dressed in colorful costumes of seafood and fishing-related activities while performing dance steps that replicates the traditional way of fishing in an aim to pay respect to the fishermen in town, Guintu said.

Guintu stressed that that the street dance festival is also intended to inculcate to Masantoleño youth the significance of fishing in the economy of their town while engaging them in such fruitful act i vi t i es.

“Hundreds of youth from our villages voluntarily participated and I believe that this activity engaged them in a good recreational activity away from dangerous vices and illegal activities,” he said.

The celebration of Masantol Seafood Festival held every May 1 also marks the town’s founding anniversary which is now on its 124th year.