ILOILO City – The 2020 edition of Paraw Regatta Festival will be staged from April 1 to 5, announced Mayor Jerry Treñas yesterday.
The original schedule – Feb. 23 to March 1 – was called off over concerns on the possible spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Officials of the Iloilo Festivals Foundation, Inc. (IFFI), in a meeting yesterday, agreed to set a new date for the regatta, considered the oldest sailing event in Asia and the largest in the Philippines.
“The postponement is for everyone’s safety,” said Treñas.
Paraw Regatta, now on its 48th year, is a race of wind-propelled native boats.
In a recent executive order, Treñas ordered the non-holding of major crowd-drawing events in the months of February and March as a precautionary measure against COVID-19.
There is no confirmed case yet of COVID-19 in this city, Iloilo province and the rest of Western Visayas.
Treñas announced Paraw Regatta’s postponement after consulting with the Department of Health (DOH) Region 6 and IFFI “because want to protect the Ilonggo people.”
Paraw Regatta was established nearly half a century ago primarily to preserve the paraw as a significant link to the earliest period of Ilonggo history.
The paraw is a small boat with two stabilizers and was widely used for travel and trade in the 1200s. Up to this day, it is still being used as a means of transport as well a source of livelihood.
A strikingly fast boat, the paraw makes 20 kph to 30 kph through the waves. It was the prototype that inspired Westerners to develop the trimaran, the fastest sailboats now on the planet./PN
