It’s 2nd Mahin Festival in Glan

GLAN, Sarangani, Apr. 18 — This prime resort town in Central Mindanao is getting ready for the 2nd Mahin Festival.

The three-day festival, which features indigenous games to highlight the town’s rich cultural heritage, opens on April 19.

Organizers expect a bigger attendance after the festival’s highly successful maiden presentation last year.

“Based on the very positive response to our first Mahin Festival and the great interest and enthusiasm it has generated, we expect a banner crowd this year,” said Municipal Councilor Jose Tranquilino Ruiz 11, chair of the Sanggunian Committee on Tourism.

He said organizers are focusing on staging lesser but more exciting and competitive games the locals had grown used to like bugno sa kabayo (horse fighting), lumba sa kabayo (horse race), lumba bugsay (boat race) lumba karang (stilts race), and palupad sa tabanog (kite flying).

“Since Mahin, which is B’laan for ‘beach’, was originally conceived as a community-based tourism program, we want our fellow Glanians to be the festival’s prime movers,” he said.

“Of course, there will be the usual jet-ski competitions, beach volleyball, body painting and sand castle building contest, but we will be focusing more on our indigenous games,” he added.

For the thousands of visitors expected to turn up for this year’s festivities, beach resort owners are laying out the necessary facilities for food and accommodation as well as a 2.7-hectare parking lot at the festival venue in the famed white sand beaches of Gumasa.

The 2nd Mahin Festival is being supported by the provincial government, which is holding its 7th Sarangani Bay Festival here in May.

“We want to see a highly successful Mahin because it will be a fitting prelude to Sarbay,” said provincial tourism officer Larry Asparin, who is helping coordinate preparations for this year’s Mahin Festival. (Glan Info and News Service)