Christmas season is here! That’s why participating barangays in San Fernando Pampanga has prepared for the Giant Lantern Festival for 2018. Preparing for the giant lantern festival is not easy! It takes guts! hard work! money! and creativity!

Lanterns are called Parol in the Philippines. Every Christmas season in the Philippines, you can see a lot of lanterns everywhere!

But how are these lanterns made?

Together with my friends in Travel Itinerary Philippines we went in San Fernando Pampanga to know how were these lanterns were made.

Rolren’s Lantern

Our first stop was at Rolren’s Lantern. Mr. Rolando Quiambao taught us the history and how does the lantern work.

Rolren’s lantern was one of the oldest lantern makers in Pampanga.

Lantern making also shows how creative are the Kapampangans.

By the way, the shop also sell various lanterns for a very affordable price. So if you want to create your lantern business you can get your supplies from them. 🙂

Parts of a Lantern

• Tambor
  • Middle part of the lantern
• Siko-Siko
  • The triangle part that connects the tambor to the palimbon
• Palimbon
• Pontetas
  • End of the lantern

Hot to make a Giant Lantern?

In the shop, they also showed us how does the giant lantern work.

The giant lanterns were operated manually and should be controlled depending on the music.

After we saw the miniature giant lantern and how does it work, we went on to visiting some of the participating barangay for the Giant Lantern Festival 2018 and saw how does each giant lantern was made.

Here are the barangays that shared their giant lanterns:

• Del Pilar
• Sto. Nino
• Telabastagan
• San Jose

1. Create a master plan

The artists creates the concepts to form their master plan.

The team then estimates how many of each materials should be used, and of course the budget for the lantern.

2. Prepare the Light bulb

Electrical wires and cardboard were placed on the light bulbs. Afterwards, the light bulbs were painted by car paint one by one.

3. Arrange the Wires

4. Create the Frame

The frame of the lantern was made out of steel, and cardboard.

Don’t worry if it rains, the lanterns were placed under large tarpaulins to be protected from the sun and the rain. 🙂

5. Insert the light bulbs

I’m just re-enacting 🙂

Light bulbs with the wires were arrange depending on the pattern.

6. Prepare the Rotters

Rotters are the instrument that was used to control the lights of a giant lantern.

In my sample earlier in the video, there is just one rotter. But for a larger lantern, they need a lot of rotters.

As shown below, the rotter is a large metallic cylinder which has different patterns. These patterns were just made out of masking tape.

The patterns were made depending on the timing whether the light bulb should glow or not. If a part of the cylinder has no masking tape, it will trigger the light bulb to function.

It was amazing to see that a simple masking tape can stop the electricity from flowing.

The copper is connecting the rotter and the wires of the light bulb. When the open portion of the metal is exposed with this copper connector, the light bulb will glow.

The lantern makers organize the wires and the connectors like this:

7. Place the cover

The lanterns that we visited does not have the cover yet. But according to the barangays, some of them will use plastic, and some will use the traditional paper cover.

8. Attach the Barangay Signage

Bonus Step: Be proud of your lantern

One giant lantern measures around 20 ft in diameter, and it usually costs around 500,000 to 1 million pesos to create. Kapampangans do not mind the hard work and the money, what they love is that people appreciate what they do.

Looking forward to the festival

We can’t wait to see the finish products of the giant lanterns! We’ll go back on December 15, 2018 to witness the festival.

Calendar of Events

DECEMBER.15,2018
Giant Lantern Festival Competition:
6PM | Robinson Starmills Pampanga

DECEMBER 16-21,2018
Giant Lantern Exhibition:
7PM | City Wide

DECEMBER 16-24,2018
Lubenas: City Wide

DECEMBER 22,2018
Giant Lantern Exhibition:
7PM | SM Telebastagan

DECEMBER 23,2018
Giant Lantern Exhibition:
7PM | Greenfields Square, Sindalan

DECEMBER 24,2018
Giant Lantern Exhibition:
11PM | In Front Of City Hall
San Fernando, Pampanga

DECEMBER 25-30,2018
Giant Lantern Exhibition:
7PM | Robinsons Starmills

DECEMBER 29-30,2018
Giant Lantern Exhibition:
6PM | Marquee Mall, Angeles, Pampanga

JANUARY 1-2,2019
Giant Lantern Exhibition:
7PM | Robinsons Starmills

For more information about the event visit https://www.facebook.com/GiantLantern/