LOS ANGELES – The Historic Filipinotown Neighborhood Council (HiFiNC) held the 6th annual Polemount Parol Lighting at Filipino American Community Los Angeles (FACLA) Hall on November 25.
The event started with a lantern parade outside the hall, led by Jorge Prado (one of the HiFiNC directors) and followed by the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner by Sharon Mislang and the Philippine national anthem (Lupang Hinirang) by master of ceremony, comedian Bernardo Bernardo.
HiFiNC President Cecilia Ramos began her welcome remarks, noting the parol event as a “meaningful night that symbolizes hope.”
Entertaining performances became the highlight of the program. There was a guitar performance by Pastor Jeffrey Ilagan, followed by a special dance number by the Burlington School Children, a song number by Pastor Lily Lapuz Burton and the Tinikling folk dance by siblings Sean and Alexis Casas.
In closing, master of ceremony Bernardo sang Hanggang (originally by Wency Cornejo).
The awards ceremony for Filipino-American leaders followed and was conducted by Ramos and Consul General Hellen Barber-Dela Vega.
During her closing remarks, Consul General Barber-Dela Vega told the audience about the importance of the parol-lighting event.
“It’s very important to have a parol-lighting event. We light the world despite the challenges we experience, especially the natural disasters that happened in the Philippines” Consul General De La Vega said.
The Consul General also announced that the Filipino community has been officially declared as the number one Asian Pacific Islander ethnic community in the State of California.
Meanwhile, Ramos shared some developments in the lantern event to the Asian Journal.
“We used to have a lantern parade in the past and only few people went. So our organization (HiFiNC) came up a better project, which is to light the lanterns in the streets (Historic Filipinotown) to feel the Filipino Christmas spirit,” Ramos said.
The annual parol-lighting almost got cancelled due to the typhoon devastation, which occurred in the Philippines. However, HiFiNC decided to push through with the event and dedicated it to the typhoon victims, Ramos added.
“This event (Polemount Parol Lighting) promotes our culture and tradition despite of what happened in the Philippines. [It] celebrates the Filipino spirit as one community, keeping alive this sense of giving,” Bernardo said.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend November 30 – December 3, 2013 Sec A pg.9)