Filipino Sun Festival

800^th Unilocal review! Might as well make it about something new to San Diego…
According to the website for the Filipino Sun Festival, «The Filipino Sun is historically (and geographically) significant, as the sun symbolizes unity, freedom, people’s democracy, and sovereignty, while each of the eight rays represent the first eight provinces (Manila, Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Laguna, and Batangas) that rose up and started the 1896 Philippine Revolution against Spain.»
The Filipino Sun Festival has been around the Mira Mesa area for two years; its mission statement is to «celebrate, promote, and share Filipino and Filipino American pride, culture, heritage, and history through educational, historical, and cultural activities and programs.»
Currently, it’s a pretty small local festival — many of the vendors I saw this past Saturday were the same ones represented at the Mira Mesa Street Fair, including newly minted District 6 councilman Chris Cate (whom I unfortunately missed when I got there). A number of the booths were manned by youth and young adult groups as well; perhaps the Filipino Sun Festival is a way for them to get their community service work requirements done.
The food court had about 10 vendors, four of which were Filipino food booths. In fact, I heard some people grumbling that they were expecting to see more Filipino food offerings; hopefully as this festival gets more traction as the years go by, they’ll be more on board. I did order a stick of BBQ pork and some lumpia while I was there, as well as some takoyaki (fried octopus shaped into balls) from a Japanese booth — I was pleased with what I ordered, even if the bonito flakes were piled onto my takoyaki.
There’s also a beer garden sponsored by San Miguel (the major Filipino beer brand) on premises — San Miguel USA is one of the festival sponsors. I partook of their $ 2 happy hour, and got a pretty good buzz on, as well as one of the hats the booth was giving out. (At their booth, if you follow them on three forms of social media, you could score a free golf shirt… unfortunately, by the time I got there, the only size they had was medium. Guess someone will be getting a free shirt from me as a gift.)
The entertainment hit the spot — while I missed seeing the performance from The Voice’s Katriz Trinidad, there was a pretty decent Filipino beatboxer, and the dance performance from Tekniqlingz (tinikling dancers that also incorporate hip hop) was off the hook!
The Filipino Sun Festival may be a small local festival, but there’s potential there for growth. I’d like to see how it improves as time goes on.