Gapan eyeing Guinness with pair of giant slippers

GAPAN CITY — With a pair of slippers (tsinelas), this Nueva Ecija city hopes to make it big.

Slipper makers here are finishing work on a 30-foot long pair, which city officials hope would land in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest in the world.

Mayor Ernesto Natividad said it took eight people three weeks (eight hours each day) to make one of the pair, now displayed at his residence.

Once completed, city accountant Nenita Abenales, a member of the Tsinelas Festival’s working committee, said the full documentation of the pair of giant slippers would be submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The making of the giant pair was one of the highlights of the 17-day Tsinelas Festival, which showcased the city as the country’s footwear capital.

The event, which ran from Aug. 8 to 25, marked Gapan’s fourth cityhood anniversary.

The city’s slippers industry, abuzz in the barangays of Mangino, Pambuan and San Lorenzo, generates annual gross sales of P500 million to P600 million.

The city government has asked the city council, chaired by Vice Mayor Leoncio Mangahas, to pass an ordinance requiring slipper-makers to mark their products "Gapan-made."