A celebration of culture, arts & heritage conservation

Every year, reverence and devotion take part in any festival in the Philippines.

- BUM D. TENORIO, JR.

At the recent 15th Puto Latik Festival in Biñan City, gaiety and devotion merged on the streets as the nine-day celebration highlighted the city's commitment to the advancement of culture, arts, heritage preservation and conservation towards sustainable tourism.

"The Puto Latik Festival is a celebration of all that is iconic in the eyes of every Biñanense. The strengthening of all that is Biñan, and the promotion of its tourism and culture is the main objective of the festival," said Dr. BJ Borja, city tourism and cultural affairs officer.

Mention Biñan and quickly puto (rice cake) comes to mind. Puto Biñan is the most prominent and most iconic of the city's products.

The latik part of the festival is courtesy of Biñan's native dance: the Maglalatik, where male performers dance with half coconut shells in their hands and shirts.

The highlight of the recent festival, which started in 2010, was the Puto Biñan 2.0, a cook-off challenge, where I served as a judge. The cooking challenge required residents of all the 24 barangays of Biñan to concoct recipes with the famous Nila's puto as the base ingredient.

Innovative cooks and hobbyists created sweet and savory concoctions—what with laing-topped Puto Biñan or the proverbial rice cake rolled to become sushi with wasabi! Not only that, there were also Puto Hardinera, Puto Cheesy Corned Beef Caldereta, Puto with Tahong and Tokwa, Puto Chicken Asado, Apple Puto Pie, among others.