ILOILO City – Cancelled last year, the Iloilo Paraw Regatta Festival (IPRF) is unfurling its sails in the digital world this 2021.
The largest sailing race in the Philippines, this year’s Paraw Regatta will push through, confirmed Mayor Jerry Treñas.
Just like the Iloilo Dinagyang Festival 2021, the city mayor said, the regatta’s 2021 edition would be done virtually due to the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
However, Treñas said, the schedule of activities is still being finalized.
The regatta was initially scheduled from May 9 to 16.
But Treñas endorsed to the Sangguniang Panlungsod the letter of IPRF executive director and Iloilo Festivals Foundation Inc. (IFFI) chairman Carlos Peña seeking to reschedule the event to May 23 to 30, 2021.
The city council has yet to act on it.
Last year’s edition of Paraw Regatta was scrapped after two postponements due to the pandemic. It was originally scheduled on Feb. 23 to March 1 but later rescheduled to April (1-5) after Treñas issued an executive order cancelling all big events for February and March.
Staging it in November was initially explored but the mayor said wind conditions at the Iloilo Strait may not be ideal for the sailing race anymore.
Paraw Regatta is a race of wind-propelled native boats. Now on its 49th year, it is considered the oldest sailing event in Asia and the largest in the country.
It 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
