Capiz prepares for Capiztahan 2023

By Felipe V. Celino

ROXAS CITY, Capiz – The provincial government of Capiz is now preparing for the forthcoming Capiztahan celebration.

A meeting was held on Friday with the provincial board members and department heads to discuss possible activities during the weeklong celebration which was postponed in previous years because of the pandemic and other calamities that hit the province.

“This is my first Capiztahan as a governor and we decided to celebrate this with a big bang just to somehow lessen the hardships felt and carried by the people,” said Governor Fredenil Castro.

The province of Capiz is not only famous as the seafood capital of the Philippines but also because of the namesake of its capital city Roxas.

The city was named after the late Manuel A. Roxas, the first Filipino president of the third Republic who was born in the same city.

Capiz holds an annual festival from April 13th to 15th to commemorate Roxas’s death anniversary.

The festival is called “CAPIZtahan,” a portmanteau or combination of the words Capiz and kapistahan (festivities). Kapistahan comes from the word pista, which is borrowed from the Spanish fiesta which means festival.

CAPIZtahan also marks the founding anniversary of the civil government of Capiz. Every year, all 16 municipalities of the province work together to organize several events for the locals.

The Capiz provincial capitol, which was built in 1901 upon the order of then governor Sulpicio Jugo Vidal, is one of the largest individual structures that William E. Parsons designed, and one of the historical landmarks in the province which was originally a two-storey, reinforced concrete structure topped by a roof of flat clay tiles.