“I’ve brought you there before,” my protesting husband declared after I told him I’d honor an invitation to witness and take part in the Bangus Festival in Pangasinan early this month. For some reason I couldn’t recall that experience. Instead, I have memories of a lechon festival in the same province, when I was mindful of my hypertension and could only poke at the skin and meat of the roast pig served us.
But bangus, or the milkfish? My yaya called me the original bangus lover who’d fight for the fish belly served fried and crisp on our table.
It was Elizabeth “Beng” Doria, civil society volunteer and freelance artist-photographer, who had issued the invite to our Facebook group, Seniors on the Move (SOTM, a political force with a following of over 15,000 that serves as a collective conscience on social media).
Only I among those in Metro Manila could make it on the appointed day. I was a chance passenger in a Bolinao-bound bus that left Baguio at 5:40 a.m. As the bus approached Dagupan, Beng called to change our meet-up place with the initial question, “What would you like to eat for breakfast?” She asked if I would care for a fast-food joint beloved by misguided children and hated by Anthony Bourdain. So, she moved our rendezvous from Lingayen to the waiting shed across from the Binmaley Catholic church.
Binmaley. Hearing Beng pronounce the name, I was thrown back to my Dad’s stories of where the Lolarga family traces its roots. I couldn’t wait to reach the municipality immortalized in a Fred Liongoren watercolor seascape hanging on our living room wall. As I was getting off the bus, the conductor told me that my pickup party was there already, and indicated the woman standing at the waiting shed, wearing a sombrero like mine.
Bangus brunch
Beng and I hugged; she sounded relieved that we were finally meeting face to face after months of group chats in SOTM. We took an electric jeep (there are such vehicles in the countryside), disembarked at a crossing, boarded a tricycle that drove us to Nansangaan Road, also in Binmaley, and finally, to Rudy-Jing Restaurant, a big airy place with a turo-turo style of ordering.
The dishes, mostly seafood, including the latô or fresh seaweed, were enclosed in glass display cases. One pointed, and the lady taking one’s order dispatched the cook to reheat or refry one’s daing na bangus with the unusually wide and juicy belly that I saved for last as I relished the fish with garlic fried rice. Not content, I also ordered bangus sisig. Instead of hot coffee, Beng and I decided on Coke Zero because this was practically lunch!
It was only 10 a.m., and we had the huge space to ourselves. There was a pasalubong corner where I found precious commodities for my balikbayan brother and his wife: Cagayan-made chicharon kalabaw (less cholesterol than the pork variety, or so I heard) and caramel-flavored mamon tostado that would be perfect with their brewed coffee.
While going over our itinerary, Beng suddenly remembered that we had not visited the church. We retraced our steps after our long lunch. (Rudy-Jing was by then nearly filled with families of diners. Beng said local politicians and national celebrities made dining stops there, too.)
The Our Lady of Purification Parish Church, among the oldest in Pangasinan, remains open at noon. In its courtyard are varieties of apple blossom trees flowering at the height of summer. There are also frangipani trees abloom.
It was cool and quiet inside the church as we took pictures of the altar and statues. But we couldn’t find anyone to whom we could make a donation for the devotee candles we wanted to light.
Small fishermen’s catch
The church visit done, we squeezed into a service tricycle that took us to Barangay Isidro Norte in Sitio Buer, also in Binmaley, to meet a community of small fishermen. Someone was having a birthday, and they were roasting five small gurami and an eggplant for lunch.
According to their informal spokesperson, Mar dela Cruz Terceño, small fishermen don’t earn enough. Their catch is barely sufficient to feed their families, especially with the rise in the price of crude and the onslaught of “Uwan” and other typhoons. The sweltering weather discourages them from heading out to Lingayen Gulf, and big fishing boats are eating into their space, he said.
They seemed ready to wait it out for better days, meaning the rainy season, when their catch would be bigger. But it’s a bitter summer for them when they bring in just 1 to 2 kilos of hasa-hasa or sapsap. From November to February, they can expect the bigger espada or swordfish.
A typical day would have Terceño and his fellows venturing 20 miles from shore in bancas running on 8 liters of gas. But these boats are small and cannot handle big waves, such as when Uwan struck, he said.
Fifteen fishermen lost their boats then, but the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) could only provide five bancas. Terceño and company are fixing the five donated boats on a ₱15,000 donation.
The government could provide more support by forbidding big fishing vessels from encroaching on the small fishermen’s area, Terceño said, adding that big vessels should operate more than 35 miles from shore. When the big ones approach the small fishermen’s area, the latter’s nets get ruined, and it is not easy to report these “accidents” to the maritime police and BFAR, he said.
A fisherman for 20 of his 38 years, Terceño said permits are required from the municipal agriculture office, from the maritime office and the BFAR, before one can go out to sea and fish.
He said he had occasionally felt a barrier arising in the waters that small fishermen couldn’t breach. “We are not illegals,” he declared. “We use the prescribed nets with eyes measuring 7.5 to 8 centimeters. Below that size, the small fish will also be caught, and that is not allowed.”
The fish they catch for their food is cooked in vinegar as paksiw or stewed with tomatoes. When fishing does not bring in the much-needed cash, Terceño engages in construction for a wage of ₱500 a day, which is hardly enough to sustain his wife and four young children.
Getting there by water
Beng and I took a long tricycle ride to get to De Venecia Street in Dagupan, the site of the Bangus Festival. The police officers assigned at the street’s entry points refused to let our tricycle in despite Beng’s plea that I couldn’t manage the long hike to the grilling and entertainment areas. She didn’t want to break an artery by arguing with the cops, so we made a U-turn and rode back to Binmaley through the Dagupan downtown traffic to catch a boat to De Venecia.
Who knew that it would be the highest point of my trip, personally speaking? We boarded the motorized banca as the sun set behind us. A full moon rose in front of us, and a cool breeze tousled our hair. We passed fish pens on Basing River set far apart on each bank, and went under a bridge. By the time we approached the waters of Dagupan, I noted that the fish pens were crowding each other. But the waters remained clear and smelled fresh.
We were famished by the time we reached the stand of the Samahang Magbabangus ng Pangasinan Agricultural Cooperative (SaMaPa), our dinner host. Apart from bangus, there were cheesy franks, oysters, pork liempo and chicken barbecue on the hot grills. I saw big cauldrons of cooked rice. I helped myself to rice and the grilled stuff, carefully picking through the fish bones and leaving the succulent bangus belly for last. I savored obvious hints of smoke and salt. How fresh could one’s bangus ever get, I thought. Beng laughed when I told her that for dessert, I had the bangus belly.
Aldo Sibayan, the chair and a founding member of SaMaPa, said his cooperative was established in 2014 because of factors that were “outrightly killing the bangus industry.”
“The bangus prices were so low and not even covering our production costs,” he said. “So we thought of the Bangus Festival to help turn things around. It became the voice of the industry from north to south. We got the attention of the government regarding our various concerns. Somehow, some way, the prices of bangus improved. The value chain is not yet perfect, but at least the bangus farmers can now earn.”
SaMaPa members number anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000, with honorary members coming from the neighboring province of Zambales. Interest groups like tilapia farmers and the Abono Party List link up with them. Sibayan said their industry is rife with challenges, and they’re not exempt from the massive increase in petroleum prices caused by the conflict in the Middle East. What they do is put their concerns to the government and hope that it acts on them, he said.
Early training
A third-generation member of his family’s fishpond business, Sibayan said his parent had trained him as early as when he was 7 years old to help in the farm and get exposed to the palaisdaan.
He was a political science major at the University of Santo Tomas before he shifted to nursing. He tried to study law, but the demands of the fishpond business made him abandon his legal studies.
From an economical perspective, the Bangus Festival “boosts the identity of the province and of the nation,” he said. “I estimate 200,000 people coming and going. Our Pangasinan bangus remains the best-tasting in the entire country. It may be due to the natural waters, the brackish quality of the sea, the saltiness, the freshness of the water coming down from the mountains and reaching the farms. All these create a unique blend of algae, feeds and moss.”
Asked how he liked his bangus served, he said: “Grilled in all its simplicity with just a dash of salt.”
I imagined my own ancestors eating their bangus in the same delicious way. CS
