It's festival galore in Pangasinan province with different festivities already lined-up this summer by different towns and this city, to be capped by the Pistay's Dayat (sea festival) celebrated in capital town Lingayen by the provincial government on the last week of April to May 1.

Governor Victor Agbayani said the festivals are expecting to bring in the tourists to Pangasinan where they will enjoy different activities prepared for them and at the same time, learn about the cultures of the Pangasinenses.

From April 3-19, Mapandan, a fourth class town in central Pangasinan will stage Pandan Festival which will feature past cultural practices such as those on courtship, wedding, pregnancy and giving birth and building houses.

Mayor Ferdinand Calimlim said this will also be the first time that the festival will hold a cook fest which will feature exotic foods using frogs, crickets, grasshoppers, bayawak (monitor lizzard) and field mice. "But the cook fest will depend on the availability of these main ingredients," Calimlim said.

On April 29, Alcala (Pop: 40,000), also a fourth class town, will try to unseat Dagupan City which holds the Longest Grill record in the Guinness Book of World Records by holding its own version of Longest Grill and Longest Barbecue Grill.

Mayor Manuel Collado however said that landing in the Guinness Book "would only be a bonus as the festival will really focus on fund raising from the Alcala folk residing abroad."

"We will line a three-kilometer grill across five villages and will grill 20,000 pieces of bangus (milkfish) and 4,000 kilos of pork barbecue," Collado said.

The pook barbecue will be prepared specially for the occasion by Monterey Meat Company while the bangus will come from Dagupan which will not try to break any record of the Guinness this year. Collado said 975 grills (measuring three meters) have been pre-sold mostly to balikbayans "so we are confident that we can sell every grill before the festival." Each three-meter grill is sold at $100.

"We are not promoting any products of the town, we only want merrymaking and earn money at the same time. The funds that we will raise will be deposited with a local foundation which will use the money for heath, education and livelihood projects," the mayor said.

While Alcala town is holding its longest grill, Dagupan will be conducting the annual Bangus Festival which aimed to promote the city's bangus.

Around the same dates, San Carlos City will have its own Mango and Bamboo Festival to bring focus to the city's main produce and products.

Mayor Julian Resuello said while other provinces may have unseated the city which used to have the biggest mango harvest, San Carlos is still known to be a mango country whose residents have mastered the art of mango production and marketing.

"Many residents are hired by orchard owners from other provinces to take care of their orchards. And mangoes produced from other provinces are traded in San Carlos, either for export or for local consumption," Resuello said.

The city is also known for its bamboo crafts such as the nipa huts whose original concept came from a resident. "We have 2,000 kilometers of rivers and creeks whose banks are planted to bamboo. Many residents are dependent on the bamboo industry for their livelihood," he said.