Paseo de Belen in Dagupan
The figure in this belen are real humans.
MANILA, Philippines - Imagine driving down a highway lined with 20 life-size belens or Nativity scenes. Such is the experience you will get driving down De Venecia Highway Extension in Dagupan City in Pangasinan this Christmas season, as barangays put their artistry and craftsmanship to the test in fashioning belens out of indigenous and recycled materials. When the belens are lighted in the evening, it is a sight to behold.
Dagupan has long had a Belen sa Barangay project, but this is the first time the 20 top entries are gathered in one area for greater impact and for more enjoyable viewing by a wider audience.
Mayor Belen Fernandez says barangay officials and local residents conceptualized the ideas for their respective entries.
Malued barangay captain Filipina delos Santos is particularly proud about their 11-meter tall star lantern highlighted by a crèche in the middle.
Pantal barangay captain Julita Perez used decorations shaped like bangus to represent the city’s best-known product. After all, Dagupan is known as the Bangus Capital.
They used wild grasses found on the shore, rice hay, talahib and toothpicks to resemble cactus plants, Perez says.
For three consecutive years, Pantal has been the champion at the Gilon! Gilon! Festival every summer.
Barangay captain Helen Fermill of Tebeng says “Frozen” was their theme and they recycled styrofoam and a net hung with glittering threads to mimic falling snow.
Barangay Mamalingling’s belen features life-sized camels and is brightly lit with numerous Christmas lights.
Childe Libertad, designer for a manger for five coastal barangays of Calmay, Carael, Pugaro, Salapingao and Lomboy, opted to use real humans dressed as Mary and Joseph, with a doll on board a banca in place of a manger. They depicted a fishing village since Dagupan is a coastal city.
Edgar Perez, who works under the Tarlac Heritage Foundation that holds the now famous Belenisimo, was tapped to decorate the belen of Barangay Caranglaan. He conceptualized a modern depiction of the sea for their manger and used silver paper plates, disposable plastic cups, capiz and abaniko.
Dagupan Electric Corp. contributed its own belen that uses electric equipment like electric meter for the body of the characters and street bulbs for their heads.
During its opening last week, the Balon Dagupan Children Choir, which earned an international award in the Malaysia International Children Choral Festival 2016, serenaded the audience with Christmas carols.
“In all of my 80 years, I have never seen a Christmas season festival featuring 20 different Bethlehem mangers, so beautiful, so ornate, so gracefully crafted and done with the eyes of the people in the barangays,” says former House speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., a proud Dagupeño, who will turn 80 on Dec. 26.
