Gasang-Gasang Easter Festival set in Marinduque

GASAN, Marinduque – Aside from the famous Moriones Festival which is considered as the most colorful Holy Week celebration in the country, this town in Marinduque will also hold this year’s biggest and grandest “Gasang-Gasang Easter Festival.”

The Easter festival will feature an agro-industrial fair showcasing native food and handicrafts; a memorable putungan welcome ritual for tourists and balikbayans, the daily rhythmic clop and crack of kalutang and drum players, a must-see pugutan stage presentation on Black Saturday and the popular street-dancing parade on Easter Sunday.

The moryonan street-dancing is expected to draw some 2,000 participants from the various barangays, schools and private groups. Organizers have granted parade participants with more creative freedom in the designs of their own costumes and masks to ensure wider participation. Some local artists have also volunteered their own designs.

The festival is the culminating event of the week-long celebration spearheaded by the Gasan Culture and Arts Foundation (GASCUAF) led by Mayor Vicky Lao Lim with the help of the public and private sector including the media.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church and the Philippine Independent Church, the two major religious organizations in the municipality have also listed down their traditional Lenten activities that have endured over the years. These activities are characterized, for the most part, by age-old rituals and solemn meditations on the life, teachings and passion of Jesus Christ. Religious processions have been organized by these groups.

The Gasan Easter event serves as a launching pad for the municipal government’s related programs for the year.

To date, new interest is being generated by private groups on Gasan’s pre-colonial past. It will be recalled that the first recorded archaeological expedition in the country’s history dealt extensively with artifacts from Gasan where the largest of the Tres Reyes islands is found. Subsequent expeditions conducted in the 80s confirmed the wealth of these archaeological finds.

With these cultural wealth and ecotourism spots, Gasan town which has consistently won the annual “Clean and Green” awards in regional and national competitions, hopes to create its own tourist market.

[ Tres Reyes Islands Wiki ]