After nine days, the final result of our first online polling has came out..
36 votes came in and distributed as follows: 26 votes (or 72.2%) are not in favor while 10 votes (27.8%) are in favor with no one undecided.
The Pahiyas Festival is supposedly a Catholic feast because it is celebrated in honor of San Isidro de Labrador, a Catholic saint revered to as the patron saint of farmers. History has it that the Catholic church was the one who established it within the predominantly Catholic community during the Spanish time until 1963, when the Art Club of Lucban whose members are private citizens of Lucban, has started popularizing and modernizing the festival but keeping with the religious tradition.
Until the government took over its management and organization in the middle of the 1970s, that its religious significance has been reduced. But only during the incumbency of the present local government officials which dominates the Pahiyas Executive Committee, that the Catholic Church was intentionally overlooked for the reason that these officials who run the Pahiyas are obviously, non-Catholics. The remaining Catholics in the local government are not just so religious but even powerless to the caprice of these officials. Thus, the celebration becomes commercialized, rather than religious.