UP Lantern Parade 2009

The lantern parade is one event in the Diliman Republic that we wish to watch every year. There is always something new to excite everyone--lanterns as performance art pieces or as political statements shaped by recent national events, and how they’re crafted to provide the fodder for noisy but humorous commentaries.
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This year’s theme was KKK--Kapaskuhan, Kalikasan, Kinabukasan. 

Needless to say, the underlying environmental issue was climate change; thus, the lanterns were created from recyclable materials found in the classrooms, buildings and the campus grounds. This year’s top winner was the electric jeepney of the College of Engineering, which had the largest participating contingent as well (we’d think almost all the students and faculty headed by the dean herself were present).

Pres. Glora Macapagal-Arroyo and raging political issues were subjects of creative protests in the lantern event. We’ve never seen the College of Law very tibak until this latest edition of the parade. Their Maguindanao massacre float and banner looked like these were headed for the Batasan on a SONA day with the effigies up for burning esp. as it had one that’s familiar with everyone – it has an iconic mole on the face. Another university unit's float had her effigy with a backhoe tail.

The LGBT group, UP Babaylan, took issue with the Comelec disqualification of the Ang Ladlad party-list for being an “immoral” group. 

The gay/lesbian/bis/trans community were fiery red in their assertion that they are moral.

Nothing can complete the lantern parade except the Fine Arts contingent. They're Hall of Famers, they don't compete anymore for prizes. They take the rear of the parade, and nobody leaves before they arrive on the scene.  Their event theme this year was Asian festivals with eight arts classes taking on Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Indonesian and other motifs. The last contingent was Filipino “Pandanggo sa Ilaw” with higantes of Manny Pacman Pacquaio and his cosmetically reconstructed mother Dionisia. The spoofs had Pacman dancing with beer bottles on his hands (well, he's a San Miguel beer endorser), and his mom with large diamonds on hers and kicking her leg up as she would while dancing with her favorite dance instructor.

The National University, which UP is in the two-year old charter, took almost four hours on Friday, December 18, 2009 to joyfully greet the campus community and the country Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon!