Kamayan gives a hand to local tourism
February 2, 2003 | 12:00am
Customers of Triple V’s original Kamayan restaurant on Pasay Road, Makati had more than their treats of kare-kare and tinola and the perfect lechon de leche during the festive Yuletide season last December. While enjoying their favorite native food, they were regaled with lively enactments of colorful and interesting festivals that live on among the folks in the provinces.
"Many of these festivals are little known, if at all, by Manila’s urbanites," says Tootsie Marco, vice chairwoman of Triple V and personal overseer of Kamayan Pasay Road, "but these festivals have continued to bring job and merriment to people in the provinces and have kept alive customs and traditions unique to their communities."
Presentations of these folklores in Kamayan, which Marco launched in December, a prelude to what she envisions as a year-long regular activity, truly complement the native theme and ambience of this 25-year-old restaurant, which popularized eating with one’s hands sans fork and spoon, like townsfolk and picnickers do. At the same time, Marco says, it’s Kamayan’s contribution to the tourism promotion efforts of the country, which this year will be basking in the international tourism limelight.
By official declaration of the World Tourism Organization this year is "Visit the Philippines Year." We can almost hear Tourism Secretary Dick Gordon exclaiming "Wow!" (incidentally also, WOW is the slogan for his much-publicized tourism program, meaning "Wealth of Wonders"). But there’s more work to do than just launching slogans with exclamation points.
Kamayan understands this very well and has set the example for other private enterprises in helping drum up tourism, especially local tourism. In December, Kamayan’s first salvo was the "Romance of the Hands," which reintroduced the hands-only dining etiquette. "The novelty of eating with one’s bare hands has been wearing off among locals as well as foreigners," says Marco, "and we are interpreting kamayan in other ways." They are doing this through expressive gestures of the hands, say, in welcoming visitors at the door, acknowledging their summons to their table, and more especially in a ritual of ablution after meals. Two pretty attendants pour scented water on your hands from a small earthen pitcher into a bowl while reciting a Tagalog chant. Quite interestingly, many of the "Romance of the Hands" rituals were devised by the enthusiastic staff and crew of Kamayan.
The second week Kamayan held the Sinukwan Festival of San Fernando, Pampanga, a Yuletide festival marked by streetdancing and music and a fabulous Christmas lantern parade. Again the Kamayan crew goes into the spirit of the season and in a competition created parols using papel de japon and the restaurant’s interior décor. Kamayan likewise held a lantern-making competition that drew the enthusiastic participation of the restaurant’s neighboring barangays.
The third week celebrated the Pastores a Belen of Bicol; on the fourth week Kamayan held the Karisyohan of Leyte, a festival of the region’s traditional dishes. We braved the horrendous traffic of pre-Christmas Day in Makati and Pasay for the experience of the scrumptious buffet lunch cum Pastores a Belen show – and it was worth the epic three-hour journey from Las Piñas. Among the guests were Nini Ravanilla, Region 5 tourism director; Sonia Garcia, Region 11 tourism director; Kathleen Santiago, and Alexander Yague, president of Philtranco. Arriving an hour later, crawling along EDSA from Quezon City, were the other invited guests led by Albay Rep. Krisel Lagman-Luistro, chairwoman of the House tourism committee.
While watching the "command" performance for the latecoming guests, the effervescent Nini Ravanilla, who brought the Pastores performing group from Iriga City, winner of the Pastores competition which has been held every year since 1958 throughout the Bicol region, tells us about the origin of the festival, the costumes (which are very Mexican) and the traditional steps of the dance to music and words by Dr. Jose Rizal himself ("Pastores a Belen, vamos con alegria…")
"These festivals need to be enlivened, reactivated for the young generation who’s increasingly being overwhelmed by Westernized pop culture," says Ravanilla. "Kamayan should get all the support for promoting these folk festivals in its restaurant, and thereby also promoting local tourism." She also says that Gordon looks at local tourism as "the fastest way to economic recovery," and thinks that Gordon’s program (patterned after former Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor’s "Bring Home a Friend" program of encouraging each of the 8.7 million OFWs to bring at least one foreign friend every year) is very brilliant and practicable, indeed. (Hopefully, if it happens that way.)
Ravanilla is looking forward to participating in "The Best of the Regions’ Festivals" pageantry on Sept. 1 to 15 in Intramuros, Manila, held in connection with Visit the Philippines 2003. But more than being a call for foreign visitors to come to the country, however, Luistro said Visit the Philippines should focus on luring domestic tourists. "Let’s be realistic," she says. What with risks if Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and Bali-style terrorism, "it’s hard to promote the country to foreign visitors because of problems with security."
What’s very viable now, Luistro says, is forging a truly Filipino partnership, a joint endeavor between private business and local government units to encourage more Filipinos to visit the Philippines. More to the point, she’s thinking of promoting a strong Filipino identity through sightseeing, cultural and food tours. She also feels strongly about making fares more affordable to more travelers and for government to speed up the development of tourism infrastructure with improved tax incentives.
In its own way, Kamayan will be part of the government’s local tourism promotions. "We are in touch with the regional tourism directors and they have expressed their support for Kamayan’s cultural presentations," says Marco. Kamayan has been into native Filipino culture, specifically cuisine, from the start, but now, Marco says, "we are doing it in a more focused manner."
It is also for her a journey of personal revelations. "I had gone to many parts of the world, but I could not say I’d seen the Philippines. In the last two or three years I began traveling throughout the country and I realized how beautiful the country was, how rich in culture and heritage. And in all the places I visited I experienced the warmth of true and genuine Filipino hospitality. And then I began to bring my children with me in these travels, and it was a revelation for them too. I think it has instilled in them a stronger identity as Filipinos."
"Many of these festivals are little known, if at all, by Manila’s urbanites," says Tootsie Marco, vice chairwoman of Triple V and personal overseer of Kamayan Pasay Road, "but these festivals have continued to bring job and merriment to people in the provinces and have kept alive customs and traditions unique to their communities."
Presentations of these folklores in Kamayan, which Marco launched in December, a prelude to what she envisions as a year-long regular activity, truly complement the native theme and ambience of this 25-year-old restaurant, which popularized eating with one’s hands sans fork and spoon, like townsfolk and picnickers do. At the same time, Marco says, it’s Kamayan’s contribution to the tourism promotion efforts of the country, which this year will be basking in the international tourism limelight.
By official declaration of the World Tourism Organization this year is "Visit the Philippines Year." We can almost hear Tourism Secretary Dick Gordon exclaiming "Wow!" (incidentally also, WOW is the slogan for his much-publicized tourism program, meaning "Wealth of Wonders"). But there’s more work to do than just launching slogans with exclamation points.
Kamayan understands this very well and has set the example for other private enterprises in helping drum up tourism, especially local tourism. In December, Kamayan’s first salvo was the "Romance of the Hands," which reintroduced the hands-only dining etiquette. "The novelty of eating with one’s bare hands has been wearing off among locals as well as foreigners," says Marco, "and we are interpreting kamayan in other ways." They are doing this through expressive gestures of the hands, say, in welcoming visitors at the door, acknowledging their summons to their table, and more especially in a ritual of ablution after meals. Two pretty attendants pour scented water on your hands from a small earthen pitcher into a bowl while reciting a Tagalog chant. Quite interestingly, many of the "Romance of the Hands" rituals were devised by the enthusiastic staff and crew of Kamayan.
The second week Kamayan held the Sinukwan Festival of San Fernando, Pampanga, a Yuletide festival marked by streetdancing and music and a fabulous Christmas lantern parade. Again the Kamayan crew goes into the spirit of the season and in a competition created parols using papel de japon and the restaurant’s interior décor. Kamayan likewise held a lantern-making competition that drew the enthusiastic participation of the restaurant’s neighboring barangays.
The third week celebrated the Pastores a Belen of Bicol; on the fourth week Kamayan held the Karisyohan of Leyte, a festival of the region’s traditional dishes. We braved the horrendous traffic of pre-Christmas Day in Makati and Pasay for the experience of the scrumptious buffet lunch cum Pastores a Belen show – and it was worth the epic three-hour journey from Las Piñas. Among the guests were Nini Ravanilla, Region 5 tourism director; Sonia Garcia, Region 11 tourism director; Kathleen Santiago, and Alexander Yague, president of Philtranco. Arriving an hour later, crawling along EDSA from Quezon City, were the other invited guests led by Albay Rep. Krisel Lagman-Luistro, chairwoman of the House tourism committee.
While watching the "command" performance for the latecoming guests, the effervescent Nini Ravanilla, who brought the Pastores performing group from Iriga City, winner of the Pastores competition which has been held every year since 1958 throughout the Bicol region, tells us about the origin of the festival, the costumes (which are very Mexican) and the traditional steps of the dance to music and words by Dr. Jose Rizal himself ("Pastores a Belen, vamos con alegria…")
"These festivals need to be enlivened, reactivated for the young generation who’s increasingly being overwhelmed by Westernized pop culture," says Ravanilla. "Kamayan should get all the support for promoting these folk festivals in its restaurant, and thereby also promoting local tourism." She also says that Gordon looks at local tourism as "the fastest way to economic recovery," and thinks that Gordon’s program (patterned after former Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor’s "Bring Home a Friend" program of encouraging each of the 8.7 million OFWs to bring at least one foreign friend every year) is very brilliant and practicable, indeed. (Hopefully, if it happens that way.)
Ravanilla is looking forward to participating in "The Best of the Regions’ Festivals" pageantry on Sept. 1 to 15 in Intramuros, Manila, held in connection with Visit the Philippines 2003. But more than being a call for foreign visitors to come to the country, however, Luistro said Visit the Philippines should focus on luring domestic tourists. "Let’s be realistic," she says. What with risks if Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and Bali-style terrorism, "it’s hard to promote the country to foreign visitors because of problems with security."
What’s very viable now, Luistro says, is forging a truly Filipino partnership, a joint endeavor between private business and local government units to encourage more Filipinos to visit the Philippines. More to the point, she’s thinking of promoting a strong Filipino identity through sightseeing, cultural and food tours. She also feels strongly about making fares more affordable to more travelers and for government to speed up the development of tourism infrastructure with improved tax incentives.
In its own way, Kamayan will be part of the government’s local tourism promotions. "We are in touch with the regional tourism directors and they have expressed their support for Kamayan’s cultural presentations," says Marco. Kamayan has been into native Filipino culture, specifically cuisine, from the start, but now, Marco says, "we are doing it in a more focused manner."
It is also for her a journey of personal revelations. "I had gone to many parts of the world, but I could not say I’d seen the Philippines. In the last two or three years I began traveling throughout the country and I realized how beautiful the country was, how rich in culture and heritage. And in all the places I visited I experienced the warmth of true and genuine Filipino hospitality. And then I began to bring my children with me in these travels, and it was a revelation for them too. I think it has instilled in them a stronger identity as Filipinos."
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