Bulacan dressmakers innovate onion designs  

CITY OF MALOLOS, Philippines — What makes wedding days more memorable to the bride and groom?

Let’s take a cue from wedding dressmakers of Disenyo Pandi in Pandi, Bulacan that are well known for their quality designs, hand woven or computerized embroidery textile materials. They said a unique and beautiful dress makes the bride stand out while a hybrid barong would be fit for a dashing groom.

The wedding dressmakers thought of eye-catching bouquets and giveaways to make the wedding day more memorable.

Add onions to the scene and the event would turn out a teary and memorable event for the rest of the lives of the couple. The onion will surely add spice to the most important day of the couple’s life when the bride finally takes the surname of her groom and makes the event unforgettable to the couple’s family, relatives and friends.

Take the case of a couple in Bulacan who made their “I Dos” last Jan. 24 and whose wedding coordinator, as reported by ABS-CBN, ordered 150 kilos of onions nicely packed in a small “bayong” to be given to guests at their wedding reception in Tagaytay City.

The coordinator said the bride’s family is engaged in the onion business and, with the skyrocketing prices of onion, decided to make it a wedding giveaway.

If you’re one of the guests, surely the aromatic smell of onions will remind you of the event in the days, weeks, months and years to come.

Or, the spin could be carried further by using the word mahal, which in English would both mean love and expensive.

And that’s just what happened in Iloilo, where Sonshine Media Network reported that couple Lyka and Erwin love each other so much (mahal na mahal) that the bride decided to add more “mahal” (expensive) to their wedding day by choosing what was “mahal na mahal” (more expensive) in the market for their wedding bouquet.

How’s that for a teary-eyed change?

Smuggled from India

The root vegetable has become so expensive in the country that some want to ride the bandwagon by smuggling it from other countries.

In southern Philippines, the 2nd Zamboanga City Mobile Force Company (2ZCMFC) and Bureau of Customs (BOC) intercepted a jungkong motorized boat that was transporting 24,000 kilos of onions Wednesday night.

Police Lt. Col. Reynald Ariño, 2ZCMFC commander, said they recovered about 6,000 mesh bags of red and white onions in separate operations in La Caldera Point and in Varadero de Cawit in Zamboanga del Sur.

Based on the labels and tags, the police said the shipment originally came from India and was sneaked into the country via Sabah.

The boat skipper told investigators that their watercraft was only chartered to transport the bags from Taganak in Tawi-Tawi province.

According to the BOC, the catch had a total value of P9.4 million.

It added that the onions were seized after the boat crew failed to present sanitary and phytosanitary import clearances from the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry, thus violating Republic Act 10863, or the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act of 2016, and the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016.

The confiscated items were turned over to the custody of the Department of Agriculture and BOC for further inventory and investigation. – With Roel Pareño, Robertzon Ramirez