It is said a fiesta is happening somewhere in the country practically every day of the year. This tradition found renewed expression at the annual Pista sa Nayon in Montréal, Canada on 19 July 2015, where the Filipino community came out in full force to celebrate Filipino hospitality.

Organized by the Filipino Association of Montréal and Suburbs (FAMAS), which is also marking its 50th anniversary this year, and with support by the City government and the borough of Côte-des-Neiges,the Pista saw the participation of a wide array of regional and professional groups in the City at the
Mackenzie King Park, and serving to highlight and elevate the profile of a growing Filipino ethnic community in Canada.

The Philippine Embassy in Ottawa, led my Consul General Eric Gerardo Tamayo and Consul Anthony Aguirre, also lent its support, with members of the staff and their families joining in the festivities and the thousands who came to celebrate. Promoting overseas voter registration, the Embassy's enabling also drew attention to the long-running Embassy collaboration with FAMAS, as other consular services guidance and advise were provided to the general public at the Embassy tent.

Various groups and talents provided song and dance entertainment, while popular Filipino sports were also played in various areas of the sprawling park.

Consul General Tamayo extolled the Filipino notion of pokikipogkopwo, or an awareness of a shared inner-self, manifesting in the way Filipinos show kindness and respect to another. The contribution of Filipinos to Canadian society would be unmistakable, in a land of tolerance, multi-ethnicltv and diversity. Filipinos were called upon to take on an active participation in the coming electoral exercises that would define the future of the FAMAS organization, their adopted country Canada, and their mother country the Philippines.

The Consul General recalled how Montréal was a stopping point for the first Filipino diplomat Felipe Agoncillo who was on his way to Paris to negotiate with American and Spanish authorities. More than 100 years later, Filipinos comprise almost 5% of the total population in Montréal, numbering almost 33,000 as of the official household survey of 2011. Filipinos in Montréal primarily belong to various professional, skilled, and semi-skilled groups in the medical, engineering, and social and other services sector of the City. END