The story
Viva Vigan Binatbatan Festival in Vigan
Held in the last week of April into the first week of May, Vigan's Binatbatan Festival honors the abel iloco hand-loom weaving tradition through a street dance that reenacts the cotton-beating process at the heart of making the fabric. Dancers wear abel-woven costumes and carry bamboo sticks to mimic the cotton-beating motion.
Long before Vigan became known for its preserved Spanish-era architecture, its households were centers of cotton weaving, producing the handloomed fabric known as abel iloco.