There’ll be no parang in Paramin this year because of the spread of COVID-19.
The Paramin Development Committee has confirmed it will keep the cuatros, guitars and maracas hung up this December.
The parang festival would have been in its 43rd year.
Founding member of the Paramin Development Committee, Mavis Sylvester told Guardian Media, “We are grieving that we can’t have the parang but we are trying to see if things can work in our favour so that we can have a house to house with at least about ten members but we are looking forward to that because we are hurting that we really can’t have parang.”
“We will keep within the restrictions. People have been calling and asking, however, we had to disappoint them that this year it will not happen,” she said.
She added, “We are hoping and praying that COVID-19 will not be around next year. We are hoping that you know, next year when we’re having our meeting in January we will discuss it and see how we can do something. At least we can’t just let the parang die out so...we can’t let COVID-19 do us that but we got to respect it,” she said.