Pista'y Dayat 2003 formally opens

Amidst rumors of an impending SARS outbreak (no truth, no basis), people trooped to the formal opening of Pista'y Dayat 2003 with Ilocos Norte Representative Imee Marcos as guest of honor and speaker. Starting promptly at 8:30, the program handed out the awards for the previous week's winners from the different art categories which included the Ating Yaman Photo Competition, the Mural and Scroll Painting Contests. Dressed casually in jeans and a red peasant blouse, Ms. Marcos who is currently on the cast of the GMA-7 telenovela Ang Iibigin Ko Ay Ikaw, spoke lengthily in her native Iloko about the kinship of Pangasinenses and Ilokanos. She handed out vanity calendars with a picture of herself and her son, Bench model Borgy Manotoc on the cover.

1st Prize Title: Paradise Island Location: Hundred Islands Photographer: Willie Lomiba

This year's 1st prize winner of the Ating Yaman 2003 Photo Competition was last year's 3rd place finisher, international freelance lensman Willie Lomibao. Second place is Jonaber Ignacio of Lingayen and the third prize went to Vicente Domaloy, a native of Sison town.

2nd Prize Title: Bagoong Maker Location: Lingayen, Pangasinan Photographer: Jonaber Ignacio

Titled "Paradise Island", Lomibao's shot of a small swath of beach at the Hundred Islands in Alaminos was felt by the judges as truly evocative of the kind of tourist attractions we could offer to visitors. " It's pleasantly surprising to realize that despite the indifference we feel for our own, there's still some room for a fresh perspective. Lomibao's shot renewed our interest in making some bold moves towards reclaiming the Hundred Islands; that with local patronage and government initiative, the park can be revived, restored and its wonders shared with future generations."

Ignacio who is part of a photo-tandem with husband Corlito Jr., favors photo-set ups; something which most conventional photographers avoid because the effect could appear unnatural. Her winning shot titled "Bagoong Maker" has her husband as model, pouring fish paste into a vat. Several clay pots lit from the inside, show fish streaming into the vat in a single, straight stream. There is something surreal about the shot, but the Ignacios who incidentally live at the heart of Lingayen's bagoong industry, Pangapisan, know their subject well and it shows. Bagoong making through their lens assumes mythical underpinnings befitting this product's long and ancient history. The set-up (done mostly with a black background) works in elevating an otherwise ordinary shot of another local industry, into art with a historical sheen.

3rd Prize Title: The Fisherman Location: Sison, Pangasinan Photographer: Vicente Domaloy

Domaloy submitted interesting sunset studies taken from his native Sison, but it was his sepia-toned shots of Dasol at dusk which caught the judge's attention. His winning piece titled, "The Fisherman" caught the ire of some critics who cited several violations in the symmetry and composition of the shot. Contest chair Ryan Amor defended the decision by saying that " this is not a technical competition. While we would like to raise the level of this contest to international photography standards, our priority first and foremost is to choose pictures which could promote our tourism programs; in this case to travelers who have yet to see the Hundred Islands or the beaches in Dasol."

" The bottomline after all is about choosing the picture which evokes the spirit of Pangasinan and it's something you can't measure or define with technical rules."