PUBLIC FEAST. Participants of the Talaba Ihaw Ihaw (oyster grilling) in Alaminos City, Pangasinan on Saturday (March 9, 2024). The activity is part of the annual month-long Hundred Islands Festival. (Photo courtesy of Alaminos City LGU)
ALAMINOS CITY, Pangasinan – The city’s month-long celebration of the Hundred Island Festival features mainstay events to celebrate good harvest and boost tourism.
One of the regular events in western Pangasinan is the Talaba Ihaw-Ihaw (oyster grilling) held on Saturday.
Alaminos Mayor Arth Bryan Celeste said in an interview that the city is the largest producer of oysters in Pangasinan.
“We want to market our product and, hopefully, it will also be as popular as the Alaminos City longganisa (local pork sausage),” he said.
He said 185 sacks of freshly harvested oyster purchased by private individuals were consumed during the grilling event along the 400-meter stretch of Barangay Poblacion.
City aquaculturist Mikhaela Tamayo said in an interview on Monday that there are about 1.5 hectares of oyster farms in the city, from the villages of Pangapisan, Mona, Cayucay and Baleyadaan.
She said the city’s oyster production last year reached 766 metric tons from 266 oyster farmers.
Alaminos has successfully adopted the modified bamboo raft technology introduced by the Department of Agriculture-National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (DA-NFRDI) last year.
Tamayo said the farmers have 29 modified bamboo rafts situated in Barangay Baleyadaan.
“Environmental wise, it is safer and harvesting is also made easy with the bamboo raft, according to the farmers,” she said.
Funded by the DA-Bureau of Agricultural Research, the project was implemented by NFRDI in collaboration with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources-Ilocos and National Fisheries Development Center.
Oysters are cultured and harvested here by using either discarded rubber tires or the bamboo stake method.
On the other hand, the bamboo raft technology utilizes floaters, bamboo, and straps to cultivate oysters, benefiting growers by reducing mortality rates, enabling faster growth, and producing better-quality meat, Tamayo said.
Tamayo said oyster farmers are also fishers during the off-season or while waiting for the harvesting of oysters.
Last year, 438,619 tourists visited Hundred Islands, up by 12 percent compared to the 389,006 visitors in 2022.
Although the number of tourist arrivals last year has not yet reached the pre-pandemic level of 520,000 in 2019, it has already exceeded the number of visitors to the Hundred Islands National Park in 2020 at 93,000 and in 2021 at 50,000.
Tourism receipts rose to PHP44 million from the previous year’s PHP33.3 million.
The other activities for this year’s festival celebration include the lights parade and street dancing competition, the first Hundred Islands Amazing Challenge, Miss Hundred Islands 2024, invitational hip-hop dance showdown, agri-trade and tourism expo, and longganisa cookfest. (PNA)
