For 6 years, the Anilag festival has been the focal location to feature Laguna’s OTOP (One Town One Product) concept, where they showcase iconic products of each town and the way they have improved throughout the years.
Over the years, the province’ economy and local produce has benefited from the festival. Visitors and tourists fill Sta. Cruz Laguna’s capitol grounds for the event.
Aside from the trade fair that housed 22 participants that features Bagongbayan’s kesong Puti, to Luisiana’s Pandan products, waterlily bags of……, and handicrafts of Paete to name a few, the festival also showcase their local delicacies in a spectacular way.
From the biggest Buko pie, to the longest espasol, to the biggest halayang ube to this year’s Biggest cassava cake that was made up of 1,140 fresh cassava, 285 kgs of sugar, 57 kgs of powdered milk, 1,140 pcs of fresh eggs, 86 liters of cocomilk and 57 kgs of margarine/butter.
Anilag Festival has such a great impact on the province of Laguna. Mr. Jun Guidote, the Provincial planning officer of the province of Laguna, and also the festival director, cited “In tourism, this is now a much awaited event, we have won the best tourism city in the past 3 consecutive years. Another impact is in the livelihood of the people within the province, now, we do not solely rely on the big industries but we also try to make the small and medium enterprises thrive so that we have a backbone for the economy of the province.”
Guidote added, “Buko pie and espasol were not exported before. When we started the Anilag festival, there were a lot of foreigners and Filipinos abroad who requested to have the products exported. So what the owners did is they coordinated and worked with DOST and they came up with a blast freeze product to make the shelf life of the buko pie last for two weeks rather than the normal 3 days. And when you open it up after it is blast-freeze, it will be as good as fresh. So because of the Anilag Festival, we were able to export buko pie and espasol to the US and to different parts of the world.”
Anilag festival doesn’t stop there. This week-long celebration is full of surprises and events that will make you keep on coming back for more. There is the Carnival Queen Mardigras Party, Santacruzan, Landscaping Competition, Street Dance Competition, Palarong Pinoy, Amateur Singing Contest, Drum and Lyre Competition, Cooking contest, Little Miss and Little Mister Laguna, Ginoo and Binibining Laguna, Artisan’s Village, and the Amazing Lagunuenos just to name a few.
