An estimated 20,000 people attended the 16th annual Filipino Fiesta celebration yesterday that began with a joyous, loud and extraordinarily colorful charity walk parade from Fort DeRussy to Kapi'olani Park, via Kalakaua Avenue.

The parade included 54 units and about 1,000 marchers, who sang, danced and shouted with enthusiasm.

From there the activities shifted to Kapi'olani Park's bandstand, where the cultural activities continued throughout the day.

Ten food booths featured everything imaginable in the way of Filipino cuisine — from crepes to roast pork and bread pudding to longanisa on a stick. There also were game booths and information booths highlighting the Tagalog, Ilocos, Cordillera, Bicol, Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines.

"This is the biggest event in the entire Filipino community in Hawai'i," said state Rep. John Mizuno, D-30th (Kamehameha Heights, Kalihi Valley, Fort Shafter). "It's sure a great cultural and religious event. And I hope someday that this can become a tourist attraction."

Eddie Flores Jr. and Roland Casamina reminisced about how years ago each man realized the need to unify the Filipino community in Hawai'i and set out to make it happen. The irony, they said, is that neither achieved the goal until they united themselves in the common purpose.

"One day about 17 or 18 years ago I came here and saw a Thai festival," Flores said. "And I said, 'Why don't the Filipinos have a festival?' So I rounded up a lot of my friends and we started the Fiesta. And a year later, I said, 'Well, they like parades too,' so we started the parade. So, this is the 16th festival and the 15th parade."

Meanwhile, Casamina was working to start a Filipino Community Center in Waipahu.

"The whole purpose of the fiesta and the parade is to unify the whole Filipino community to one goal — to build the Filipino Community Center," Casamina said.

"This event is the unifying thing that brought all the people together," Flores said. "Which is why, independent of each other, we needed each other's success — even though we didn't realize it at first."

Today, the FilCom Center, as they call it, is a reality, and the Filipino Fiesta and Parade are bigger than ever.

Toy Arre, president of the Filipino Community Center, said the festival never really ends.

"We've already scheduled a meeting a week from now to discuss what went right, what went wrong, what changes we can do to make it better next year, " he said. "And then we start looking for a new chairman and then start the planning all over again."

One new change this year, said Arre, was a festival within a festival — a Santacruzan, a colorful and popular religious May fiesta introduced by the Spaniards that's a re-enactment of the search for the holy cross by Queen Helena, who was the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine.

The event features a procession that's marked by historic and religious figures in colorful costume and many songs. The Santacruzan likely will become an annual attraction itself.

Juan Pascual, 74, of Salt Lake said he had attended a Filipino festival once before, but he was almost overwhelmed with delight by yesterday's lineup of costumes, songs, dances, food and other attractions.

His favorite part? Pascual thought hard for a moment. Then his face lit up.

"I love it all!" he shouted with a laugh.