Lanzones Festival

Lanzones Festival is held every third week of October and it is a four day grand celebration of the lanzones fruit. The mostimportant livelihood in Camiguin is lanzones. It is when a lot of tourists come to witness the joyous Lanzones festival. Lanzones is one of the major fruit producers in the Philippines. Lanzones is a tropical fruit that grows extravagantly on the north-central coast of Mindanao. Lanzones has a pale brown skin and sweet translucent flesh.

It is said that the sweetestlanzones in the Philippines comes from Camiguin. The town of Mambajao in Camiguin celebrated its annual festival calledLanzones Festival together with its harvest in the month of October. Lanzones Festival in MambadjaoCamiguin is celebrated with a weekend street dancing competition and parties, cultural shows, parade and beauty pageant (coronation of MutyasaBuahanan) and trade fair that features local handicraft and products.

Houses, street poles and even people are ornamented with lanzones during the lanzones festival. According to the legend of an unknown beautiful maiden took the fruit’s past bitter flavor to replace it to delicious and sweet taste of thelanzones, thus townsfolk dance in the streets in order to honor and celebrate. It also celebrated by the people in Camiguin as a contribution in making Mindanao as a cultural tourism destination and give thanks for a bountiful harvest for all the agricultural products.

The Lanzones fruit is a major source of the Camiguin Islands’ livelihood and it is for the annual harvest that they celebrate this thanksgiving day. Houses, carriages, street poles and even people are decorated with lanzones and lanzones leaves. townsfolk dance in joy abandon in commemoration of the legend that a beautiful, unknown maiden took from the its former bitter flavor to leave only its luscious, sweet taste.