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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday, May 18, 2017
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EVERY annual celebration of Tatusan Festival, the isolated island municipality of Caluya, Antique literally suspends its isolation in the three days it takes to gather together migrant natives, local and foreign tourists to its white-sand shoreline.
This year’s three-day Tatusan Festival of tribal dancing and merrymaking — akin to Ati-Atihan of Kalibo and Dinagyang of Iloilo City – kicks off today and climaxes on Saturday (May 20).
The name of the festival stems from Caluya’s indigenous crab known as “tatus” – a unique blue-streaked crab that feeds on coconut meat. It sells locally at P500 per kilo but may cost thrice as much when sold in Metro Manila. This elusive burrowing creature can only be caught at night with the help of a flashlight and grilled coconut as bait. It can grow up to 40 centimeters and weigh up to four kilograms.
It is with gratitude over the bounty of tatus that Caluya celebrates the Tatusan Festival through a parade of colorful crab-shaped floats, street-dancing and booth display showcasing various sizes of tatus, among other highlights of the festival.
The sprightly young mayor of Antique’s only island municipality, Genevive Gumban Lim-Reyes, thinks of Tatusan as not just a festival but as a generator of opportunities for prosperity of their people.
The Tribu Tatusan, the festival’s “warring tribe”, has gained regional prominence by winning the championship twice (2015 and 2016) in the “Kasadyahan” segment of Iloilo City’s Dinagyang Festival.
There was a time when native farmers and fishermen could hardly survive on copra making, seaweed farming and fishing due to depressed prices. But when they got in contact with visitors from the “outside world” willing to pay higher prices for their harvest, their lives changed for the better.
Caluya is now the fifth largest seaweed producer in the country. Needing no fertilizer, it takes only about three to four weeks to harvest the seaweed. Compradors buy it at more or less P200 per kilo and send it to Cebu where it is processed into carrageenan, a gum that is used as stabilizer or thickener in jellies and dairy products, processed meat, toothpaste and pharmaceutical products.
The island is a potential tourist haven that could compete with the now congested Boracay as getaway for nature trippers escaping from the cacophonous city life. There, they can go snorkeling, diving, boating or swimming alongside playful dolphins.
Caluya has a population of 30,000 spread out in the cluster of eight islands. Apart from Caluya Proper, it has seven more islands: Sibay, Sibato, Sibolo, Liwagao, Nagubat, Panagatan and Semirara.
If Semirara rings a bell, it is because it is where Semirara Mining Corporation sits and mines coal. In a sense, coal has catapulted Caluya from 4th class to 1st class municipality in 2007, has provided employment to the natives who willingly pay taxes that help the municipality build various infrastructure projects. Without coal, the islands would have remained uninhabited.
To recall, it was way back in 1940 when then President Manuel Luis Quezon saw the energy potential of Semirara. And so on Nov. 20, 1940, he signed Proclamation 649 declaring the islands of Semirara, Sibay and Caluya as “coal mining reservations.”
One obvious landmark mirroring Caluya’s success is the town’s awesome municipal hall – no doubt the most beautiful of the 18 municipal halls in Antique.
Now operational is the port in Barangay Masanag, which links Caluya to its 18 barangays.
The previous town mayor, the late Reynante J. Lim, Sr., had intended to construct a 1,200-meter-long airport. His daughter, the incumbent mayor, has started doing it. (hvego31@gmail.com/HV)
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