WAVE YOUR STICKS!
According to Damaso King, a well-known Vigan historian, the Viva Vigan Binatbatan Festival of the Arts, which runs from the last week of April to the first week of May, was originally the Feast of the Natives, which began on May 3, 1883. The Save Vigan Ancestral Homes Association, Inc. founded the VIVA VIGAN BINATBATAN FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS in 1993. Binatbatan Festival, however, was established in 2002 to honor one of the enterprises that kept inhabitants alive: Abel Iloco hand-loom weaving. It has its origins in Vigan's Abel weaving business, which existed long before the Spaniards arrived to colonize the Philippines. Binatbatan is the method of removing the seeds from cotton pods by beating it. The name "Binatbatan" comes from the Iloco term batbatin, which refers to the process of extracting cotton balls from the seeds of the indigenous fruit tree kapas sanglay. In Ilocano, the word "kapas" comes from the term "kapas sanglay," which means ...