Location: Socorro, Oriental Mindoro

Date: July 26

Reason to Celebrate: For their bounty and fruitful harvest

Festivals are held every year in honor of the town’s saints and to commemorate a meaningful event that happened and shaped their history, culture and civilization. Since the Philippines is one of the most well- shaped and culture-rich country, great numbers of festivals are held every month. Provincial, municipal, or even barangay levels for festivals are visited by different local and even foreign visitors.

The second class municipality of Socorro industry relies on agriculture. Rice, sweet potatoes, fruits and coconut products and other root crops are harvested to sustain and make the lives of its people productive. This municipality has remote areas where tribes and groups of indigenous people live. There are groups of Mangyan’s that inhabit the remote parts of the town. The largest among them is the group of Tadyawan Mangyan, who, unlike other indigenous tribes, wears a civilized outfit and has the agricultural way of swidden farming for their crops.

For their bounty and blessed harvest, they show their gratefulness and thanksgiving through a festivity called Pakapya-Agtike. This is celebrated every 26th day of the month of July and features lot of activities such as cultural shows done by people of Socorro, parade of colorful floats. The highlight of this celebration is the street dancing competition showing how blessed they are in terms of agriculture done by group of Mangyan Tribes, students, schools’ faculties, and barangay residents and officials. This festivity is for thanksgiving to the rich harvest of Socorro’s farmers offered and celebrated in honor to the town’s patron saint the Holy Family. As they believe that they owe all of the fruits of their crops to them, they do this ritual yearly to achieve better harvest for each and upcoming years. What matters most on this celebration is that they celebrate what their tradition is and it gives smile to the visitors who travel extra distance to witness this culture-rich event.

Pakapya-Agtike Festival – Socorro, Oriental Mindoro