Every town or city has its annual event, either a religious, cultural, thanksgiving or a celebration of bountiful harvests. Whatever the reason, it serves the purpose of bringing town’s identity to honor our patron saint, heritage of culture and traditions. It is also a reason to get out of our daily and stressful routines to spend some time with friends and family and a hospitable practice to welcome, bond and to unite with relatives and townmates living in a foreign country.
Just like any other festival, Sambali celebrates with a series of performances and beauty pageant. Every year, our town conducts its own beauty pageant as popular inclusions.
Sambali Festival is a religious and cultural revival to commemorate Christianity of the Itawis region. It is a weeklong festival that reflects the daily life, culture, religion and history of Piat. This festival plays a prominent role in Piat’s culture and tourism.
During the festival, Piat has many fun-filled activities to engage with, including the Entrance of our Lady of Piat, Floral offering, Dance number, Little Miss Piat and Miss Piat Sambali competition, Farmer’s day, Colorful street dancing, Street parade and Marian procession to name a few….
My townmates especially those living and working overseas, I know, it could be very lonely sometimes if you missed to attend this special day but this blog of mine will feature some of the joyful moods of the people and cheerful Sambali activities during the fiesta. You can catch up and I will reach out to you hoping you’ll experience the same mood while reading my blog.
Municipal mayor of Piat, Atty. Carmelo Villacete with his wife, Beatriz and daughter, Bianca during the opening of the ”30th Sambali Festival” July 23, 2019 Piat Cagayan
Thousands of people attended the festival although, not yet known how many attendees in total. The good news, there’s no traffic congestion prevailed, there’s a smooth flow of traffic for this year 2019. Thanks to the construction of the new bypass route! The bypass is a priority project completed before the town fiesta, it’s an alternate route to divert traffic. My special thanks to Eng. James Garcia.
The mayor who vows to continue more development projects, Atty. Carmelo Villacete and wife Beatriz poses for a photograph in front of bypass, a newly developed project. The two, combining their efforts and inspiring everyone to work together for a better Piat.
It’s a bright future for the people of Piat and I’m here to share your vision. Congratulations for reaching this far! With all the changes and thriving achievements, may you continue your traditions of dedicated leadership and cultural enrichment.
Photos taken during the ”30th Sambali Festival 2019”
Note: (This is not the full coverage of the Sambali Festival, it’s just a half of it )
Part of the festival is the ‘‘Farmer’s Day” it’s a farm bountiful harvests show featuring exhibits and parading of local agricultural crops.
Our beloved Mayor, Atty. Carmelo Villacete carrying an oversized jackfruit, the mayor of Piat who introduced modern technical in farming and fruit planting. With the help of our mayor, agriculture will surely rise and crop yields will soon increase.
What a festive feeling!
This is a unique kind of float, ”The Kuliglig Float” ( improvised vehicle) featuring Piat’s farm agricultural products.
Presentation of Little Miss Piat and Miss Piat Sambali candidates
Coronation Night Little Miss Piat 2019
Little Miss Piat 2019 Pia Joy Sagalon
Back to Little Miss Piat 2018
Little Miss Piat 2018 Sara Sammoury
My gorgeous niece, Sara Sammoury bags the title ”Little Miss Piat” last year.
Another niece of mine, Miss Piat Sambali 2019 Daphne Louise Aquino
2019 Miss Piat Pagayaya Piatrice Marie Dela Cruz
Miss Piat Sambali Candidates brought out best designs on a variety of formal evening gowns.
Sambali Street Dancing
One fun activity to be enjoyed with is the highly anticipated ” Sambali Street Dancing” this is for the students and other participants to showcase their talents. Students dressed in colorful and spectacular costumes performing choreographed tribal dance.
Dancing takes part on the street as an exhibition space for the performers to illustrate the Sambali war dance.
A traditional style entertainment scene. The street of Piat crammed with people followed by big crowds in colorful costumes beaming with so much Itawis spirit.
The most blessed part is the Marian procession, the feast day of ”Our Lady of Piat” it was an evening procession and despite the rain, many devotees flocked to the streets of Piat. Experiencing weather disturbance, rain didn’t stop but it was a peaceful walk with prayers.
Marian procession is a religious expression of Christian faith handed down by generations. Here in Piat, crowd gathered each time it is paraded through the streets of Piat during Sambali festival held annually on June 23-July 2.
Organizers of this event, devotees, the people of Piat and commuters earlier feared weather disturbance, the approaching brunt of moonsoon season might trigger and disrupt the week long activities especially the fluvial procession but it was just a fair and slight one prevailed. Rain or shine, the festival will go on.
The welcoming and entertaining Sambali festival is a huge success, Bravo! Once again, I would like to express my sincerest thanks to our beloved mayor, Atty. Carmelo Villacete and wife, Beatriz Villacete, Vice-Mayor Leonel Guzman and to everyone who participated in this year’s 30th Sambali Festival. Congratulations! My best wishes to a more successful activities in the future. Special thanks Eng. James Garcia and Mr. Benedict Sto. Tomas Big thank you for all your hard work and perseverance. Well-done!
Note: Want to be featured on my blog? Don’t hesitate. Submit your photos, I will consider any pictures related to this event 30th Sambali Festival 2019. I will add your pics here. Pls. pm me messenger or pm Elvie Baculi (FB) for more details.
Thanks for reading my blog!
Awesome !!!!
What a happy festival in your town. So many fun activities going on around.Great!
Thank you Ana!
Thank you for this! It was helpful for my research