Editorial
Out
of Context
IT is disagreeable to overuse local festival a reason to mount
beauty pageant specially when the “brand” they promote is
religiously and culturally rooted.
The festival referred to is the Kamundagan Festival in December
where an enterprising group took the occasion to hold a beauty
pageant as if it is the highlight of the festival. Yes, another
beauty pageant for the nth time!
We say “brand” to qualify the occasion Kamundagan because there
must be someone, institution or community to hold the name in high
esteem.
In this regard, Kamundagan is rightly owned by the Naga city
government and the Archdiocese on historical account that the
festival is a union of activities by both institutions to
highlight Yuletide Season.
Festivals’ names are not copyright covered that’s why it is easy
to use any festival’s name conveniently to organize beauty pageant
in its name.
For example, the Miss Kamundagan beauty pageant, organized by a
private group, as a point on the issue being raised, cannot just
use the name without clearance from the Catholic Church and the
city government following ethical standard.
But who will raise the point when it would be doubly hard to prove
transgression in the use of the festival name in any other way of
interpreting a celebration. A sanction is never an option.
At the crossroad of the issue who will determine whether or not
the expressed approval of the use of Kamundagan by the Archdiocese
of Caceres and Naga City Government is required before using them
as themes or in any other way possible?
A mechanism to protect the Kamundagan Festival must be installed
against opportunists who have overflowing ideas on making use of
it for purposes definitely outside of context.
Using the Kamundagan to raise funds, reenact the same acts in the
previous beauty pageants with the same cast of participants who
have been competing with each other the whole year-round is
distasteful.
Kamundagan Festival is a homegrown festival unique in Naga City
and celebrated in the month of the birth of Jesus Christ which
makes it the only Christmas festival in Bicol.
Except for the towns with fiesta on Christmas, in the “Heart of
Bicol” Kamundagan Festival is the only religious and cultural
festival in the region that celebrates Christ’s birth and marks
the city’s foundation.
But Kamundagan Festival is beyond religious and cultural
celebration. Its historical importance lies in the foundation of
strong alliance between the Archdiocese of Caceres and the local
government unit under the leadership of Mayor Jesse Robredo.
Kamundagan Festival is not the celebration of the “birth of Venus”
where the anatomy of a woman lays supreme. It refers to the birth
of the city and the Savior that a beauty pageant sorely
misrepresents.
