Cagayanos find ‘Kalesa’ as preservation of Ibanag culture 08/07/2011

Cagayanos find ‘Kalesa’ as preservation of Ibanag culture

08/07/2011
Cagayanos have found a way to promote its culture and arts in an unlikely medium uniquely Ibanag: the horse-drawn rig public transport “kalesa.”

Unlike the rest of kalesa elsewhere in the country, the Ibanag kalesa is made of a combination of rubber, wood and GI sheets. Add to that is its full passenger capacity of eight persons unlike, again, the other kalesas where it can only accommodate two passengers.

No one knows who made the first kalesa in Tuguegarao City and who first owned one but the more than 200 kalesas now plying the concreted barangay roads and those in the poblacion can be your best bet to promote and conduct a massive information and education campaign on almost anything, at the same time preserve and promote the Ibanag culture, arts and traditions.

While it is now relegated to the minor streets of the city to ease monstrous traffic, the Ibanag kalesa definitely has seen better days. Its history is the history of the Ibanags. Its existence is the existence of a culture, many believe, may soon be at the verge of extinction..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20110807nat6.html/