Cebu Province: Home to a Myriad of Town Festivals

Cebu is known for its fun-loving, and sometimes happy-go-lucky, people. However, if you think Cebu only has the Sinulog Festival, then clearly you still know very little about the province. This is because Cebu has more than forty festivals celebrated in its many towns and municipalities at different times of the year. After all, Cebuanos love merry-making, dances, and, of course, food.
However, a lot of these festivals were born just recently. These festivals are in response to incumbent Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia’s call for each town in the province to hold an annual festival as a way of enriching Cebuano culture and promoting tourism.  In that, each town and municipality brainstormed and came up with their festivals that reflect their area’s culture, products or values.

Here are some of Cebu’s most popular town festivals:

1. Kadaugan sa Mactan, Lapu-Lapu City

The Kadaugan sa Mactan is probably the most famous of Cebu’s “minor” festivals. This is a yearly reenactment of the Battle of Mactan, which is known in world history as the battle that killed Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the hands of the native chieftain Lapu-lapu. These event honors local chieftain Lapu-Lapu, who stood up against the Spaniards when they landed on the shores of Mactan Island, now called Lapu-Lapu City, in 1521. This festival is a week-long affair, with the reenactment as the highlight. Usually, they get popular actors or celebrities to play the parts of Lapu-Lapu, his wife Bulakna, and Magellan.  One of the recent stars included boxing legend Manny Pacquiao and actor Dennis Trillo.  Other activities during this event include band concerts, a food fair, and a bazaar.

2. Lechon Festival, Talisay City

Lechon or roast pig is always a part of any special event or major gathering among Filipinos. No Filipino wedding, baptism, fiesta, and even birthday will ever be complete without this delicacy. And Cebu is known throughout the country as having the tastiest and most crispy-skinned lechon. When it is from Cebu, it is bound to be yummy. However, Cebuanos know that when it comes to lechon, the ones from Talisay City are the best, with golden brown and crackling skin and with tender, juicy and delicious meat. This is why on October 15 of each year, the feast of Talisay’s patron saint – Saint Teresa of Avila, the Talisaynons hold the Inasal (Cebuano term for lechon) Festival, where there is a good supply of lechon for everybody.

3. Kabkaban Festival, Carcar City

The Kabkaban Festival is the highlight of Carcar’s annual fiesta in honor of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who is the town’s patron saint. The Kabkaban Festival is celebrated with street dancing and gay and colorful parades. There is also a religious procession with carrozas (carriages) holding life-size statues of characters that make up Saint Catherine’s life and martyrdom.

4. Mantawi Festival, Mandaue City

The Mantawi Festival is celebrated in May of each year in the city of Mandaue. The festival’s name came from a kind of tree that grew abundantly on the shores of Cebu at the time the Spaniards came to visit the area in 1521. The festival is held to celebrate the founding of the historical Spanish settlement in Mandawe. The highlight of the Mantawi festival is a parade of street dancers and dioramas that showcase Mandaue’s history and culture. There are also food fests, floats, a trade fair, and some sporting events.

5. Kinsan Festival, Aloguinsan

The Kinsan Festival is held in the southern Cebu municipality of Aloguinsan every second Sunday of June, during the Kinsan season. Kinsan is the local term for a big, gray-colored fish believed to be abundant only in Aloguinsan waters. The festival features dances by colorfully clad contingents and showcasing original dance steps imitating the movement of the Kinsan fish.

Other noteworthy festivals in Cebu include:

* Bodbod Festival in Catmon

* Bonga Festival in Sibonga

* Caballo Festival in Compostela

* Camotes Cassava Festival in Tudela, Camotes Island

* Dinagat Bakasi Festival in Cordova

* Haladaya Festival in Daan Bantayan

* Kabanhawan Festival in Minglanilla

* Kabayo Festival in Mandaue City

* Kabuhian Festival in Ronda

* Karansa Festival in Danao City

* Kawayan Festival in Alegria

* Kuyayang Festival in Bogo City

* Palawod Festival in Bantayan, Bantayan Island

* Pitlagong Festival in Argao

* Sadsad Festival in Oslob

* Sarok Festival in Consolacion

* Semana Santa sa Bantayan, Bantayan, Bantayan Island

* Silmugi Festival in Borbon

* Siloy Festival in Alcoy

* Sinanggiyaw Festival in Dumanjug

* Soli-Soli Festival in San Francisco, Camotes Island

* Tagbo Festival in Poro, Camotes Island

* Tartanilla Festival in Cebu City

* Tostado Festival in Santander

Indeed, Cebu province is home to colorful festivals celebrated with high spirits and great excitement. Visitors can fill up a year’s calendar visiting various places and at the same time witnessing all these festivals.

Top Five Must-see Visayan Philippines Festivals

Festivals are a fun way to discover the culture of a people. And the islands of the Visayas are hosts to a variety of festivals that deserve any traveler’s attention. The many islands of the Visayas come alive every so often with festivals and fiestas that are marked with merry-making, color, pomp and pageantry, so much so that these events have come into world-wide acclaim.

Festivals are also a time when natives now living abroad come home to relive their pasts and re-experience their roots. Tourists from other areas or countries also visit to get a taste of the best of Philippine culture. The influx of tourism became the very fuel that made organizers think of new activities to spice up and differentiate their festival and attract more tourists.

However, there are five festivals that have stood out in recent years. Here are the Top Five Visayan Festivals that you should not miss in your lifetime!

1.    Sinulog Festival
Location: Cebu City Philippines

The Sinulog Festival is held in Cebu and lasts well over a week, culminating in the street parade or Mardi Gras that falls on the third Sunday of every January. The feast venerates the Senyor Santo Nino de Cebu. For many years, Cebu’s Sinulog has featured different activities such as the Miss Cebu beauty pageant, the fluvial procession, the solemn street procession, the film-making contests, the arts contests, among others. But most people, especially non-locals, equate Sinulog with the Grand Parade.

During the Grand Sinulog Parade, dozens of contingents representing the different locales of Cebu City and Cebu province take part in different categories: free interpretation dance, traditional Sinulog dance, best float and best “higantes”. In the recent years, guest contingents have been allowed to participate and join the Cebuanos in the fun dancing, including contingents from Manila, other provinces and even other countries. Major thoroughfares of the city are closed for this parade, as people flock the streets and the Abellana Sports Complex to watch the pomp and pageantry, the burst of color and the lively beat of drums.

It is rare that an entire city joins in the celebration of one festival, but Cebu has always primed its citizenry to celebrate as a whole during Sinulog. No wonder that even as 20 years have gone by, Sinulog is still the most looked-forward event for all Cebuanos.

2. Ati-Atihan Festival
Location: Kalibo, Aklan Philippines

Aklan plays host to the annual Ati-atihan festival, coinciding with the third Sunday of January. Like the Sinulog Festival of Cebu, the Ati-atihan celebrates the many miracles of the Child Jesus or Santo Nino.

The festival is probably more well-known for the black paint that most participants put on their bodies. The black paint that covers the whole body contrasts starkly with the colorful costumes and ornaments.

The Ati-Atihan, though honoring the Santo Nino, has tribal and pagan origins.  But together with the city’s Christianization, the festival has taken a new meaning.

3. Dinagyang Festival
Location: Ilo-ilo City Philippines

If you have the Sinulog or the Ati-atihan on your travel itinerary to catch the colorful Visayan Festivals in January, then surely your next stop would be Ilo-ilo, where the Dinagyang Festival is held on the fourth Sunday of January.

The Dinagyang Festival still venerates the Child Jesus, but also commemorates the conversion of Filipino tribes to Christianity.

Today’s Dinagyang Festival is much anticipated with several events serving as highlights, including the search for Iloilo’s prettiest ladies in the Miss Dinagyang pageant, the Atis street dancing, and the Kasadyahan street dancing. Like the Sinulog and Ati-atihan, prayers, drum beats and colorful costumes litter the streets of Iloilo for the Dinagyang.

4. MassKara Festival
Location: Bacolod City Philippines

Bacolod City holds its Charter Day on the 19th of October every year. Coinciding with its Charter Day is the MassKara Festival, a week-long activity that is currently dubbed as the Festival of Smile, a take on Bacolod’s own monicker as the City of Smiles.

Unlike other festivals in the Visayas, however, the MassKara is not religious or tribal in nature. Instead, the Festival ironically traces its roots on tragedy. The festival was first held in 1980, at a time when sugar cane and sugar prices plummeted and the livelihood of Bacolenos suffered. It was also during that year that a terrible maritime tragedy left more than 700 Negrenses dead when the Don Juan and the tanker Tacloban City collided with each other and sank.

To eclipse the tragedy and the sorrow, Bacolod held its first MassKara Festival. The term MassKara was coined by Ely Santiago, meaning many faces. It also became the festival’s trademark: smiling masks worn by the participants.

Today’s Masskara features the search for the festival queen, street carnivals, competitions, food fests, sports and music events, garden and agricultural shows and other activities.

5. Pintado-Kasadyahan Festival
Location: Tacloban City Philippines

Lasting a whole month, Tacloban City holds the Pintados-Kasadyahan Festival culminating on June 29. The current festival also includes the Leyte Kasadyaan Festival of Festivals, the Pagrayhak Grand Parade, and the Pintados Ritual Dance Presentation. The festival commemorates and fleshes out how the Spaniards saw the early Filipinos when they arrived in Leyte: bodies filled with tattoos and holding weapons which were previously heated in open fire. In fact, pintados is how the tattoo-covered natives were called, and that’s how the festival got its name.