During the month of February, Iriga welcomes the world with different colorful festivals. Recently, it held the Gayon Bikol sa Tinagba Festival 2012 where thousands of people all over the country joined Irigueños as they celebrated this annual festival.

Tinagba Festival is a harvest-offering celebration which also coincides with the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. This feast originated from the early rituals of ancient Bicolanos who offered their harvest to their gods as a way of thanksgiving and to ask bountiful harvests.

The highlight of the festival is the “Festival of Festivals Showdown,” which is the most awaited event by the locals and visitors alike.  It is a competition of street dancing, an ultimate display of the different festivals of the Bicol Region, depicting the richness, colors, pageantry, temperament and the diversities of the Bikolano Culture.

The city invited celebrities from Manila to judge the competition.  Dancers from Masbate province were declared the victors of the event, taking home a very large grand prize.

Apart from the “Festival of Festivals Showdown,” the weeklong event also features of a carnival and expo, as well as a farmers’ parade of carabao-drawn carts filled with the best of local produce, which are blessed at mass and are distributed to the needy. The procession ends at the foot of the Emerald Grotto located at the top of Calvary Hill. After that, a mass is held, and later on, there is a distribution of the agricultural products to needy families in the town.

Make sure you get to visit next years event to enjoy the taste of the beautiful, exciting and colorful Tinagba Festival.