Thousands of tourists invade 1st Buri Festival in Ilocos Sur

SAN JUAN, Ilocos Sur — Thousands of tourists and Ilocanos flocked recently to the streets of this town to see what locals claimed as the “World’s Longest Mat” measuring 2.4 kilometers long and to witness the 1st Buri Festival which featured street dancers depicting the weaving of a mat and other buri products.

Even though the San Juan town folks failed to weave and present their earlier target of four kilometer-long sleeping mat, they were able to surpass the country’s unpublished record on longest mat made by the residents of Basey town in Samar Province six years ago.

San Juan town Mayor Benjamin Sarmiento disclosed that they failed to present their earlier target of four kilometer-long sleeping mat due to the usage of the other weaved mats as costumes by the parade’s participants.

"We had a problem completing the four-kilometer weaved mat because of a shortage in materials as the parade’s participants will also wear buri-inspired attires. Thus, some of the weaved mats were sewed as costumes," Sarmiento explained.

According to Sarmiento, the weaving of the mat was started early last year by all local weavers in the town, in which each weaver was assigned to weave a five-meter long with more than a meter width mat. The pieces of mats were connected by way of sewing it at both sides.

However, the mayor told that the second edition of the buri festival will be different because he asked the committee in-charge in the preparation of the longest mat, to initiate the weaving of a single mat measuring four kilometers long with more than a meter width.

Meanwhile, Councilor Proceso Ochosa disclosed that the launching of the Buri Festival was one of their initiatives to promote the "Buri Industry" in the local and world markets. Buri is their official product registered under the "One Town One Product" (OTOP) program of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

With a total of 32 barangays, half of it is located in the eastern side in which most of the residents particularly women and out of school youth are in the weaving industry using Buri (silag) as major raw material. "Buri weaving has been a tradition in the town. The Buri fibers are extracted from the petiole, rolled and are weaved into mat, bags, holiday decors and giftware and other novelty items like shoes, slippers, coin purses, pen holders, window blinds, table accessories, wall papers, screen dividers, lampshades, and other handicraft items," Sarmiento said.

Hundreds of buri plants are abundantly seen in Barangays Cacandongan, Darao, Malammin, Caronoan, Camanggaan, Immayos Norte and Barbar.

There’s nothing to be wasted in the Buri weaving industry as its midribs are also used in making chairs. The finished products are brought to Heritage Village in Vigan City and even reaches Baguio and Manila through trade fairs and exhibitions.

To improve the quality of Buri products as well as to conserve the availability of raw materials, the municipal government has allotted an initial fund for the industry amounting to R200,000.00. Sarmiento said the amount will be used for the acquisition of new technologies in Buri Production and for financing the continuous trainings and seminars of the weavers.

"Actually, we had already established a Buri plant nursery in connection with our program on massive plantation of Buri to anticipate the possible scarcity of raw materials in the future due to the increasing demand of Buri products," he said.

[Sta. Maria Church]