Caviteños brew coffee — and a coffee festival

This Friday, April 19, the aroma of good coffee will attract visitors to a quaint, upland town in Cavite as it rolls out the welcome mat and serves cups of free coffee for "Pahimis 2002," a coffee festival that will run for 11 days.

Pahimis is a Tagalog word unique to Amadeo, a town named after the son of a Spanish king. It means thanksgiving after an abundant harvest of coffee. The owner of the farm throws a picnic for those who have helped harvest his coffee. It may also mean allowing the pickers to gather and bring home whatever coffee might have been left unpicked.

The word is thus an apt name for the first ever coffee festival that Cavite Gov. Ayong S. Maliksi and his think tank that have cooped up to call attention to the export quality of Cavite coffee, more popularly known as kapeng barako. For the governor, a known coffee drinker who has sipped the best coffee that the posh bars and hotels in Metro Manila, Europe and the US can offer, nothing can beat the Cavite brew.

Which is why he can’t accept the fact that the coffee growers of his province had once considered abandoning coffee production in favor of growing other crops.

At one point, there was massive cutting down of coffee trees in the town, according to Amadeo Mayor OJ Ambagan. "What the farmers got from selling the harvested coffee was not even enough to cover cost of production," he says. "We are heavily indebted to our governor for doing everything he can to save the industry. Now, our farmers are in high spirits. They are convinced that Gov. Maliksi’s effort to push Cavite coffee in the world market will succeed. And I know it will."

Maliksi’s crusade, backed up by Likhang Kabitenyo Foundation, Inc. in terms of handsome packaging and other creative ideas, is reaping dividends.

For one, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has created the Presidential Task Force on Coffee specifically to address the problems of the industry. And with all the right reasons, Amadeo, which accounts for 30 percent of the total national requirements for coffee, was picked as headquarters for the working committee of the task force.

The big buyers of Cavite coffee – now alternately called Cavite Brew or Amadeo Brew – have positively responded to Gov. Maliksi’s challenge to businessmen and entrepreneurs to help the Cavite industry by raising the product’s cost by another P3 per kilo.

Gov. Maliksi doesn’t mind using the powers of his office to influence both government agencies and departments and NGOs into extending a helping hand, in whatever way, to the festival organizers, Amadeo and its population of nearly 26,000.

For their part, the townfolk have been focusing much of their time and effort on the preparations. They are gladly volunteering their services for free, said Mayor Ambagan. The men clamber up houses, poles or ladders to hang gaily-colored bunting and streamers; some, including their barangay captain and councilors, cut and polish bamboos to build nipa-roofed booths, all 40 of them. From Day 1 to Day 11, guests, estimated to be at least 3,000 daily, can have cup after cup after cup of free brewed coffee from any of these booths.

The womenfolk are as active, Gov. Maliksi found out when he visited the town one pre-drawn morning last week to check on preparations for the festival, while jogging outside his Imus farm. There, he found women and children, already massing in front of the municipal hall to rehearse for the street-dancing and dance exhibitions, "Pahimis 2002" on Friday.

The most creative of the womenfolk, led by Pahimis overall coordinator Corazon Salcedo, who is also principal of Amadeo Western Cavite Institute, had already finished sewing the coffee "wearables" ahead of schedule. "These outfits," she explains, "are made of parts of a coffee tree, from the roots, barks, twigs and leaves all the way up to the beans or their shells. Some skirts and blouses are fashioned from strips of colored plastic bags containing the finished product."

On the second day of the festival on Saturday, the candidates for the titles Mga Mutya ng Pahimis 2002 will model the coffee "wearables" prior to the selection of the four major titles named after the varieties of coffee the local farmers grow – Mutya ng Robusta, Mutya ng Liberica, Mutya ng Excelsa and Mutya ng Arabica.

Robusta, being the coffee growers’ main variety, is the most coveted of the four titles. But, no, the crowns to be placed on the winners’ heads are not made of coffee. The beauties, however, will be riding in coffee floats during the opening parade.

"The community spirit is every evident in the way the townfolk, young and old alike, immerse themselves in preparations for the festival," says the governor. "Even children sacrifice a few hours of sleep just to be able to do their part."

There will be more color and flavor as the fiesta celebration of the town in honor of St. Mary Magdalene falls on the last three days of the festival, from April 27 to 29.

Until the very last day, says Mayor OJ Ambagan, there will be excitement to the max. From the first day on, there will be a lot of dancing (to include rigodon de honor and ballroom dancing for the balikbayans), singing (highlighted by an amateur contest and Sing-Galing), and competition (essay writing, on-the-spot painting, coffee rap singing, Coffee Festival Songfest and fancy drills).

The athletic among the mangagape (coffee farmers) can try their hands at softball, boxing and arnis.

The fun never ends as the coffee growers play Go-Bingo on Sunday courtesy of the Kiwanis Club of Amadeo. For the young set, there’s the Discorama, organized by the SK Federation and the youth sector on Tuesday.

Good fortunes can be had, too, during the festival. One hundred handpicked farmers will receive P3,000 each under the "Tulong-Puhunan Kape ng Amadeo Ani ng Maliksing Kabitenyo" program of the Office of the Governor and the Department of Social Welfare and Development led by Social Welfare officer Raffy Gamad.

In appreciation of her swift action on the plight of the coffee farmers through the creation of the Presidential Task Force on Coffee, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will be given a kangga (an animal drawn-cart) welcome by Gov. Maliksi and his entourage of provincial and local officials.

Salcedo says the President "will hold the reins of the animal pulling the cart and lead it to the Trade Fair whose ceremonial ribbon will be cut by the mere passing of the animal.

"After viewing the parade of coffee floats and street-dancers, she will then proceed to the stage, grip the handle of a coffee grinder, turn it thrice to signal the beginning of the ceremony toast. A cup of brewed coffee, Cavite Brew, of course, will next be handed to the President, and as she raises her hand holding the cup, 3,000 of the townfolk will also raise their cups and simultaneously drink the coffee."

First converted into a town in 1872 in honor of the son of King of Spain at the time, Prince Amadeo, the town stands to benefit the most from whatever gains the festival will generate.

To date, Amadeo, which started growing coffee in 1880, has 4,508 hectares of its total land area of 4,790 hectares planted to coffee, making it the province’s biggest coffee producer. Sixteen of its 26 barangays are engaged in the industry, which translates into nearly 6,000 coffee farmers.

When the price of coffee beans declined by 60 percent between 1990 and 2000, the town farmers almost gave up growing coffee. This, even if the cost of the finished product swelled by 30 percent. "It is hard to reconcile the fact that although the Philippine coffee industry is a P32 billion industry, only two percent of this goes to the coffee farmer," laments Gov. Maliksi.

He declares: "For as long as I am in public service, I will make selling Cavite coffee here and abroad my person crusade."

Let’s all drink coffee to that.