NAGA CITY --- What’s wrong with street parties?

        Nothing much, except that they choke road traffic and cause inconvenience to motorists.

        In fact, 193 of the 210 respondents, asked through an SMS informal survey, said they won’t mind having street parties during the Penafrancia fiesta provided that such parties are properly regulated and secured with enough deployment of police and public safety officers. Others specified that such public parties should not occupy both sides of the street to allow motorists an elbow room to drive home without having to curse the heavens along the way.

        Only 23 of the respondents said street parties should be banned. Of this number, 21 said their disapproval is anchored on the traffic mess that street parties create while only two reasoned that drinks and loud music [that go with street parties] desecrate the otherwise solemn observance of the festivities.

        Responding to the survey, one such text message read: “Street parties serve as free entertainment for the community. Don’t ban ‘em. Provide heavy police presence and involve concerned Barangays.”

        Still another, a young lawyer who requested that his mobile phone number be not disclosed, forwarded his opinion: “They [street parties] should nt b banned bcoz they show d naguenos zest for life. D pen[afrancia] s nt just a religious fest but also a social activity nd display of naga and bicol culture. And d love for music nd dance s a big part of that culture.”

        For one who is against street parties, he sent this text message with an exclamation point: “The streets are crowded enough at fiesta time. Ban them!”

        The survey, initiated by city hall’s public safety office, came on the heels of a controversy spawned by an open letter of Archbishop Leonardo Z. Legaspi urging City Mayor Jesse M. Robredo to ban street parties during the three-week long Penafrancia fiesta. Respondents to the survey covered a representative cross-section of the community which included public school teachers and principals, parents, lawyers, judges, police officers, business and civic leaders, college students and even lay ministers.

        Asked by local newsmen for a comment on the Archbishop’s letter, Robredo said he thought the letter was intended for his personal attention which he corresponded with an underscore that it was a personal letter to the Archbishop. “That is why I cannot show you the copy of my letter,” the mayor said.

        Reacting to the Archbishop’s open letter, a young college student said that the good Archbishop may have been ill-informed when Archbishop Legaspi in his letter to the city mayor claimed that “street parties have only resulted in wild rioting, public drunkenness and disorder.” He said it was a sweeping statement, like one coming from an irate mother confronting a son for being mischievous after committing one mistake.

        Some even commented that the letter, how it was written, seemed not to mirror the Archbishop’s finesse and ascendant character as he is widely known to be soft-spoken, stern but humble, and a peacekeeper who is careful with his language when relating with his parishioners.

        The archbishop’s letter obviously was referring to an incident during the Penafrancia fiesta last year where a street party held a few distance away from the Archbishop’s residence ended in a free-for-all in the late hours of the evening. Not a few got hurt and scores of tables and chairs were turned upside down.

        The next day, Fr. Wilmer Tria of the Archbishop’s Palace denounced the incident as barbaric which he said desecrated the holiness of the fiesta and the name of Ina, the Blessed Virgin of Penafrancia.

        The Public Safety Office admitted there was lack of coordination then between the police and the organizers of the street party. He also said the series of street parties lined up during that time was too much to handle for the local office and the city’s safety officers.

        Surprisingly, when a survey was conducted by the Ateneo Student Researchers Pool on the incident, it was found out that “82% (of Naga residents) are unaware of the pandemonium which reportedly occurred during the controversial 2007 Penafrancia Fiesta Street Party celebration.”

        A check with Metro Peso Manager Florencio ‘Jun’ Mongoso who is tasked with the scheduling of civic activities for the fiesta revealed that his office this year received seven applications, the same number as it was last year, but only one was approved by the mayor for this year with instructions that optimum security, safety and traffic measures must be instituted.

        Mongoso said that it would be unfair for street parties (which the city has been hosting for the last three years with relative orderliness and success) to be labeled as generally resulting to violence, wild rioting and open drunkenness because of one untoward incident.

        Others said street parties provide the youth to celebrate the fiesta in their own way, a healthy outlet to express their kind of culture in public as responsible members of the community. Though they are part of the menu, the drinks (which are limited to beer) are not the real stuff in street parties, but the live music and youthful camaraderie, Tina, a coed from one of the city’s universities told this writer.

        A mother, Natividad Galicia of Bgy. Penafrancia here told Bicol Mail that street parties allowed his son and his friends and would-be visitors to enjoy the fiesta without spending so much. “While we cannot afford tickets for exclusive forms of entertainment held in sheltered hotels, we can still entertain our visitors by inviting them to go to a street party and enjoy the live bands from Manila,” she explained, adding that civic activities do not in any way diminish one’s endearing devotion to God and the Blessed Mother.

        “Mas marhay ‘yan kesa mag-irinuman magdamlag sa laog kan barangay o sa natad na natatapos sa ribok o iriwal dahil sa mas maisog na inumon. Sa street party, beer sana man daa an pig iinom,mas desente an dating, kontento pa sa banda,” a barangay official who preferred not to be identified volunteered his own piece of mind.

        But no doubt about it, street parties should be regulated, done in open spaces and with proper coordination with the police, the PSO, and the barangay where it would be held, Public Safety Office Director Lito del Rosario and PNP Traffic Division Chief Romeo J. Perez agreed.

        Meanwhile, because of this recent development that seemed to have created a wedge between the local church and the city government, some sectors have began to ask what the meaning of fiesta is, after all.

        The dictionary defines fiesta as a Spanish derivative word meaning festival, party, celebration, or holiday (the latter in contrast to holy day). The English word “feast” means a large or elaborate meal (with drinks to go with it). The same dictionary qualified further that although many of these fiestas have religious origins, others involve seasonal changes or have some cultural significance.

        It can be noted that the Penafrancia fiesta, despite its heavy religious content, has not been an exclusive Catholic event. Even non-Catholics and non-believers come to celebrate the fiesta as a joyful moment for family reunion, homecoming, thanksgiving, and pure form of merriment and celebration. It also goes with the heightening of trade and commerce of a particular locality on a particular period.

        Amusingly, one recalls that in the late 60s, a prominent Jesuit-educated senator filed a bill banning all fiestas in the Philippines. He wanted to save on food, money, sweat and false colonial mindset about thankful celebrations for supposed good harvests. Yes, the bill was mercilessly killed, not surprisingly with strong pressure from the influential Catholic hierarchy.