Ilocos Town Tries Guinness for its Indigenous Sleeping Mat

During their first ever Buri festival, the residents of San Juan, Ilocos Sur are trying to land a place in the Guinness Book of World Records by weaving the world’s longest buri mat (palm leaf thatch), spanning four kilometers.

By Ace Alegre
Contributed to Bulatlat

San Juan, Ilocos Sur (approximately 350 kms. north of Manila) – Local folks are trying to land a place in the Guinness Book of World Records by weaving the world’s longest buri mat (palm leaf thatch).  Expected date of completion is on December 27.

In their first ever "Buri Festival" on December 27 –30, 2006,  town mayor Benjamin Sarmiento said his town mates have already started to weave a four-kilometer sleeping mat that would be laid down along the streets during the opening of the festival on the 27th.

Each weaver would make a five-meter long mat. Then, all weaved mats would be connected spanning four kilometers.

San Juan is well–known for its woven mats, hats and baskets all throughout the Ilocos region.  It grows abundant buri (silag palm) plants in its eastern barangays (villages).
"Our residents from at least eleven eastern barangays namely: Cacandungan, Darao, Lapting, Malammin, Labnig, Caronoan, Bannuar, Ressurecion, Camanggaan, Namuraya
and Barbar are engaged in weaving mats, hat and baskets," Sarmiento said.

Even buri midribs that are by products of the silag palm are made into chairs, Sarmiento beamed.

These buri products are feted by the Department of Trade and Industry as San Juan's "One Town One Product" (OTOP).

The Buri Festival coincides with the town's annual fiesta a few days after Christmas.  Thus, residents call it their San Juan Christmas Festival.

Sarmiento adds, "We have come to realize that we need to focus our festival on our major product --the buri -- to promote our woven product and, hopefully, for our tourism industry to flourish."

"Our festival for this year is different because we want to put our town in the world map as the producer of the world's longest mat," the mayor added.

Sarmiento stressed that through the Buri festival, they also hope to promote San Juan as an eco-tourism destination.

San Juan folks are vowing that after the festival they would be able to complete all the requirements of the Guinness Book of World Records.

Other highlights of the three-day Buri Festival would be a grand parade and street dancing competition depicting the local technology in weaving; formal
opening of the newly constructed public market; an amateur boxing competition; and a beauty pageant, Miss San Juan, which features balikbayans, Filipinas who migrated to America, Europe and Asia but trace their roots to San Juan.

Thousands of balikbayans from different countries who are natives of San Juan have started to head back home, Sarminento said.

To showcase the town’s conducive business environment, the mayor declared a "tax holiday" at the public market during the three-day festival. "I would like to invite all businessmen to come and sell their products tax free during our festival, “the mayor added. Ace Alegre/contributed to Bulatlat

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