Hundreds of people showed up at Cooper River Park on June 13 to celebrate Filipino Independence Day with a festival full of the country’s food and music.
The township event was hosted by the Filipino Executive Council of Greater Philadelphia and included traditional dances such as the pangalay and singkil; singers; and more than a dozen tents representing organizations like the Philippine Nurses Association of Pennsylvania; USS New Jersey Lodge No. 62; and Free and Accepted Masons.
The singers included 9-year-old Zoe Erianna, a Philadelphia resident who’s appeared on “America’s Got Talent,” and Mia Bompensa, a singer/songwriter and graduate of Haddonfield Memorial High School.
Chris Rivera, vice president of the council, said the event has been happening at Cooper River for more than 25 years, with a decent turnout this year.
James and Elbira Marziani, who’ve been married for 20 years, were attending their second Filipino festival. James said the couple will come back for “the music, the food, everything – the people.” Elbira, who emigrated to the U.S. from the Phillipines 20 years ago, misses her country, but appreciated its representation at the event.
Rivera noted the park’s monument to Jose P. Rizal – a national hero in the Philippines who helped the country gain independence – is a solid place for the Filipino community all over to gather.
“I think the fact that the monument is in a public space like Cooper River Park, the monument itself is a permanent fixture here,” Rivera explained. “It goes to demonstrate how strong and vibrant of a community within Cherry Hill (and the) Pennsauken area really is. And that it draws a large group like us, at least the once a year when we do this.
“It really shows in a public space we are part of the community.”
The Rizal monument was unveiled in 1998 by the Philippine Independence Centennial Commission, and refurbished in 2019. While it was initially part of Philadelphia’s FDR Park, its placement at Cooper River Park prompted the Filipino Executive Council to move its festival there.
And just like the monument is now permanent, so, too, is the Filipino community, Rivera observed.
“The impact is that we’re part of the community,” he pointed out. “We say we’re the Filipino community, but really we’re embedded here in this community, just like the monument is embedded in the park.
“We’re embedded in the greater community.”
Filipino Independence Day has been celebrated in the township for 25 years at Cooper River Park.
