Filipinos abhor a vacuum. Give them space and they’re bound to fill it up with all sorts of gewgaws, from plaster images to wall hangings and makeshift altars. Give them an occasion, and soon they’re trying for a world record.

Take Villasis, Pangasinan, which grilled a thousand eggplants on a 500-metre long barbecue laid along the national highway during the town’s fiesta in January 2006. The town mayor called it the 'Talong Festival' to celebrate the importance of the vegetable, the number 1 produce of the municipality.

The usual festival fare of street dancing, partying and the religious procession of revered saints were relegated to a sideshow.

With much publicity, the town soon became known as the 'vegetable bowl' of the Philippines. The following year, balikbayans (returning Filipinos) and tourists came to enjoy and join the merriment.

And that’s how fiestas are constantly being reinvented in these islands. Fiestas are a community’s equivalent of the over-decorated jeepney, with religious icons mixing it up with suggestive sayings all over the vehicle’s interiors, and passengers underlining the melee with their constant chatter.

True, the fiesta began as a patchwork of pagan rituals and Spain’s Christian traditions celebrated to honor saints and religious figures. But they have since assumed a more secular character, much of the merriment fuelled by inordinate drinking, costumed dancing, frenzied singing, indiscriminate eating, as well as assorted street games and carnival rides. Not to mention the attempt to trump other celebrations and haul in the cash in the process.

And so, in recent years, we see organisers of such fiestas like the Ati-atihan, the Santacruzan, the fertility dance at Obando, the Panagbenga festival (flower festival), among others, try to outdo the previous year’s celebration with more dancing, more food, more fanfare, better and more colourful costumes, more celebrities and more media mileage.

The Santacruzan (May procession) has not been exempt from this grandstanding. The queen of Maytime festivals, which started as a solemn procession to honour St Helena’s finding of the cross, has since become a showcase for fashion designers to advertise their latest creations. Politicians too have used it to raise their stock by inviting movie stars to glamourise the event.

With blogs and computer games somewhat reducing the mass appeal of this ostentatious street show, the Santacruzan has again reinvented itself. Just like a software upgrade, they needed more visuals, more action, more features to counter short attention span. And that’s how gay Santacruzans have become a recent hit. (By ERNIE U SSRMIANTO/ Philippine Daily Inquirer/ ANN)