Pagsanjan Academy

Happy birthday, Risha! Today, we celebrate not only your special day but also the positivity and joy you bring to everyone around you. May this new year of your life be filled with growth, success, and meaningful experiences. Your Pagsanjan Academy family is proud of who you are and who you are becoming. Keep shining brightly, and enjoy every moment of your day!

Mga Abangers,

Wow. Malupit ang hagupit ni Uwan. Buong Luzon sapol.



No Classes in ALL Levels sa mga sumusunod (November 10-11, 2025, Monday-Tuesday):
• National Capital Region
• Cordillera Administrative Region
• Region I
• Region II
• Region III
• Region IV-A
• Region IV-B
• Region V
• Region VI
• Region VII
• Region VIII
• Negros Island Region

No Government Work sa mga sumusunod (November 10, 2025, Monday):
• National Capital Region
• Cordillera Administrative Region
• Region I
• Region II
• Region III
• Region IV-A
• Region IV-B
• Region V
• Region VIII

Ingat lahat.

Sumunod sa pahintulot ng mga opisyal. 'Di biro ang lakas nito.

What an amazing success! 🎊
Congratulations to everyone who made our United Nations Program a memorable celebration of culture, peace, and unity! 🌍💙

SANTA CRUZ, Laguna—The exhibition hall of Sa Pantalan 2025 at the back of Ted’s Kitchen was bustling and festive on the morning of Oct. 25, with Philippine folk songs playing in the background. At the forum at the end of the hall, a member of the audience has just asked guest speaker Socorro “Corito” Llamas...

Sa Pantalan’s Mercado Komunidad —PHOTOS BY LIANA GARCELLANO
SANTA CRUZ, Laguna—The exhibition hall of Sa Pantalan 2025 at the back of Ted’s Kitchen was bustling and festive on the morning of Oct. 25, with Philippine folk songs playing in the background. At the forum at the end of the hall, a member of the audience has just asked guest speaker Socorro “Corito” Llamas which of Laguna’s many famous delicacies should be preserved.

“Aside from espasol and buko pie, there are nata de piña, nata de mansi, lambanog, and bibingka made from brown rice,” replied Llamas, co-founding editor of Food, the Philippines’ first “magazine of good cooking.”

The forum was part of the program of Sa Pantalan 2025, a yearly food and heritage festival of Laguna. In her talk titled “Food as an Epicurean Journey,” Llamas spoke of how stories about food protect the local culinary heritage and uplift local cooks. Organized by the sibling-chefs Day Salonga and Gel Salonga-Datu, Sa Pantalan has convened farmers, gourmands, and skilled craftsmen under one venue since 2020 in promoting Laguna’s products and industries.

Spotting a Filipino

According to Llamas, food is intertwined with identity, in the way apple pie is associated with Americans and balut is undoubtedly Filipino. The boiled duck embryo makes it easy to identify Filipinos in a crowd, she said, citing her friend, the late activist and film-theater director Behn Cervantes who, when in a crowd in New York, would shout balut “to find out if anyone was a Filipino.”

Balut is unique to the Philippines, said Llamas, recalling that Chef Glenda Barretto used to serve balut soufflé at her restaurant Via Mare. It is still sold by both street and ambulant vendors who, Llamas pointed out, were the precursors of food delivery services. She said that before the advent of Grab and Food Panda, “vendors were going around shouting ‘ice cream’” or whatever they were selling, like espasol and balut. She said a vendor regularly came to their family home to sell balut at 5:30 p.m. because it was supper time.

She added: “Balut saves the peso-strapped consumer. For ₱20, using only your bare hands, your hunger can be satiated nutritionally on the street with a sip and quick gulp.”

Curious, she asked her audience, “How many still know and eat balut?”—and was met with vague murmurs.

Food magazine co-founder Socorro “Corito” Llamas delivering her remarks
Bringing everyone together

Llamas said her childhood in Pagsanjan, Laguna, was filled with food, particularly her grandmother Josefa Francis’ potato salad, cheese pimiento, and pan de sal. “People who came to the house were always given something to eat, and the helpers were instructed to prepare food for the workers,” she said.

In the household, food gathered everyone together, blurring social classes momentarily. “Everyone was included in the meals, including the farmers, workers, and drivers. My lola said to give merienda to those nasa lupa (on the ground), as she put it,” Llamas said.

The everyday food consisted of nilagang manok at baka (boiled chicken and beef), puchero (meat stew), adobong munggo at isda (mongo beans and fish in soy sauce and vinegar), and escabecheng baboy (sweet and sour pork), she said. They also ate kamaksi (crickets), palakang bukid (rice field frog), dagang bukid (rice field mice), and sawa (snake), and, she said, never fell sick or poisoned.

But cake was a rarity and, unlike today, was not part of the meals because it “was made by hand,” she said. “We had cake during our birthday and were lucky to have it.”

Llamas also spoke of food as softener of political differences. One anecdote she narrated was about her cousin-in-law giving “food and drinks to the demonstrators” at the People Power Revolution in February 1986 that toppled the Marcos dictatorship. In another anecdote, she was advising the caretaker of her farm in Montalban, Rizal, to give food to anyone who asks. “The result was there was no fighting in the area, and the farm grew fruits abundantly,” she said.

https://coverstory.ph/?s=abundant+story+of+pantalan