Paombong holds first Suka Fest

PAOMBONG, Bulacan — Fiestas are normally characterized by smiling faces, but in this town, residents can contort their faces all they want as they celebrate the first Sukang Paombong Festival today. 

"We will have a mukhasim vinegar-tasting contest as one of our activities for the day-long celebration," Mayor Donato Marcos said.

There will also be street-dancing competitions, suka and tuba cooking contests, exhibits, and pagtutuba demonstrations. 

The first of its kind, the festival was conceived to help preserve and promote the naturally fermented nipa palm vinegar that has made this town famous.

Through the festival, Paombong officials also wanted to extend support to small and medium enterprises.

Marcos expressed hope that the festival would reinvigorate the town’s dying vinegar-making industry.

According to municipal agriculturist Francisco Fajardo, fertile swamplands, where nipa palm trees and mangroves throve, covered more than 60 percent of the total land area of Paombong in the 1950s. 

Today, however, no more than 350 hectares of nipa lands remain due to the mushrooming of fishponds.

"We have to keep our remaining nipa lands intact because they support the town’s P88.2-million (vinegar-making) industry," Fajardo said.

Based on records, a hectare of nipa palm can produce 24 liters of tuba per day.

Apart from cooking purposes, Fajardo said vinegar can also be used as antiseptic, disinfectant and cleansing agent.

Other products from nipa palm include firewood, thatch or pawid, broom, palaspas used during Palm Sunday, delicacies like sweetened nipa fruit, and tinamis or sweet tuba, he added.