Kannawidan is a variant of the
Ilocano word "tawid" meaning heritage or
inheritance. Kannawidan has its beginnings
in 1992 when Guia Monroy Valenciano,
then vice-president of PCI Bank, began
sounding out to friends about establishing a
museum. Her son Al, an artist, and the late
Perlita Alviar-Foz, who once served as a
curator of the Ayala Museumin Vigan,
encouraged her. The idea caught on fast.
Among the instant converts were: Ogie
Balmaceda Alviar and Alice Raval Ventura,
the wife of then city mayor Cesar Ventura.
Together with Guia and Al, they called on
Francis Ablan, then Caltex Phils. President.
The old and the new in Ilocano culture are both featured in this year’s Kannawidan Ylocos Festival, the festival of Ilocos Sur that celebrates its being a separate province from Ilocos Norte, and its being a treasure chest of traditions and culture. Kannawidan became one of the most awaited annual celebrations in the province and consequently improves Ilocano culture. One way to understand community is to look at it as a social construction, in which people create the feeling of similarity based on their culture, thus the starting point of community is the culture (Cohen, 1985). This concept presents disagreement on understanding community as a fixed structure with components and a mechanism. Instead, Cohen drives us to look at how community appears based on human interpretation of cultural meanings, rather than on objective forms. It becomes necessary to understand the construction of culture, along this line of thinking. Geertz (1973, in Ziakas) explained that “culture is made by symbols, and their uniqueness can be seen under the expression of social behavior.” Similarly, Cohen expressed that culture, in itself, is a symbol which equips people to be social. It has developed different activities to showcase the richness of Ilocos Sur culture and heritage. One of which became the most popular part of the festival community food ways. Here, the meaning of food beyond the physical fact is stressed. Food is an important tool in unraveling the culture of a community because it belongs to a system of attitudes, beliefs and practices. They argued, in more detail, that food is the product that belongs to food ways that incorporate culinary smells, ingredients, sights, landscapes, sounds, eating practices, and farming traditions of people or a region. Then, food, food ways, cuisine and gastronomy are all part of a broader “system of communication.” Food ways are a way of “cultural heritage by their passing of intergenerational knowledge, taste, political power struggles, connections to nature, stories of subsistence, local environment, human sensuality, poverty and wealth” Understanding food as a heritage implies to comprehend the way by which human beings orient themselves to their IJSER.
It is the Ilocanos' way of giving thanks to the Almighty not only for the bountiful blessings but also for the rich heritage of the city, including the close family ties among the Ilocanos. This event showcases the deep-rooted religiosity of the townsfolk.
