The residents of our municipality and from those in the nearby localities were fruit-fully reunited through our agri-socio-cultural celebration of the 8^th Sablan Fruit Festival (SFF) held on September 2-4, 2022. Although it was still a subdued observance of the event due to the ever-present stigma of the pandemic COVID-19, most of the component programs of the earlier SFF celebrations were still realized.

Day one started with a Thanksgiving Mass perpetually acknowledging the generous hands of our Almighty for blessing our community with the variety of farm products that flourish in our land. The mass was simultaneously followed by the opening of the Agro-Trade Fair across the Satellite Market at Poblacion and the 8SFF Program at the municipal gym with various presentations and messages duly spoken by selected political authorities. Hon. Felipe, Vice Governor of the Province of Benguet was the event’s Guest Speaker. On the same program was held the Fruit Medley where an assortment of locally grown fresh fruits were served to all guests and spectators alike much to their delight and enthusiasm for more.

Relative to the health advocacy of the event was a friendly game enthusiastically played by the combined players of Itogon and La Trinidad against our local volleyball players in the afternoon of the first day. The second day enabled us to witness variety of fruit-inspired competitions such as fruit processing competitions and fruit quality-based recognitions. To unwind the restricted and boxed movements of Sablan residents for the past two and a half years as well as awaken the musically inclined Sablanians, Sablan Got Talent was again reprised for this purpose. The event was also staged to entertain the locals in the evening of 8SFF’s second day.  Recognizing the efforts of our local farmers for the birth of this occasion, the third day was hence used to enjoin our fruit farmers and other interested residents who are inertly agriculture driven in a community assembly dubbed as Farmers Congress. The participants had their fill of know-hows and awe-inspiring farming testimonies imparted by speakers who are either from agriculture or agriculturally supportive government and non-government offices. The government sourced facilitators are from local and national agencies while the non-government resource speakers are known to be agriculturally agile entrepreneurs.

This year’s theme for the occasion is Sablan Fruit festival: “An Abundant and Bountiful Direction”. Sablan Fruit Festival was locally institutionalized by virtue of Municipal Ordinance 16-01 dated May 10, 2016.