Festivals / Events

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandugo Festival (Tagbilaran City) - Whole month of July Bohol’s annual commemoration of the Blood Compact between Rajah Sikatuna and Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. The Sandugo street dancing & mardi gras highlights the Sandugo festivities.These dances shall depict the theme of “friendship among equals and international diplomacy” expressed in the participating group’s traditional culture.

 

Sinu-og Estokada Festival (Municipality of Jagna) -29th of September ‘Sinu-og Estokada’ portrays the victory of the Christian militia over the marauding pirates and likewise depicts the celestial conflict of good and evil. Estokada means fencing or fighting with bladed instruments. The fencing movements were modified to keep in time with a regular beat. The street dancing participants are costumed either as good or rebellious angels.

 

Katigbawan Festival(Catigbian, Bohol) June 15 - 17 Katigbawan, coined after Katigbi, Tigbaw and Kabawan is a festival of culture and tradition conceived by the town leadership as tool for promotions in tourism, ecology, agriculture, folk beliefs and natural environment.

 

Hambabalud Festival (Municipality of Jimalalud) - 15th of January The festival focuses on the town’s most treasured trees called Hambabalud located in a beautiful forest with cool waters and colorful flowers that bloom and was believed to be the realm of the enchanted guardian of the trees, the mountain nymph they called, Diwata. The Hambabalud tree has becom the symbol of God’s natural gift to the inhabitants, a part and parcel of the lives of the Jimalaludnons which they celebrate in the festival.

 

Langob Festival (Municipality of Mabinay) - 25th of January Mabinay, an elevated interior municipality in the north, is also known as “Cave Town”, referring to more than a hundred caves beneath the town. The festival promotes these unique caves as tourism lures. Field presentation and street dancing components reflect geographic features of the caves and the creatures of fact and legend that inhabit it.

 

Tawo-tawo Festival (Bayawan City) - 18th of February Street dancing and showdown competitions the day before the fiesta. They celebrate the scarecrows (tawo-tawo) through paper mache higantes as guardians of the town’s crops.

 

Pasayaw Festival (Canlaon City) - 19th of March A combined word of “Pasalamat Pinaagi sa Sayaw” (a thanksgiving through dance). This Pasayaw expresses the joys and jubilations in praise and thanksgiving to the Almighty God through the intercession of St. Joseph. The “Pasayaw Street Dancing & Parade” is participated in by 12 contingents from the 12 barangays.

 

Yag-yag Festival (Cangmating, Sibulan) - last weekend of April Yagyag is the vernacular for spawning. The process refers in particular to the crabs and other marine creatures which gather during the months of October to December in Sapa, one of two springs found in Barangay Cangmating of Sibulan. The creatures lay and float their eggs during high tide, to mature in the swamps. In the coming months, people from the neighboring barrios from Agan-an to Maningcao would come in groups for nature’s marine bounty which are harvested for food and as materials for crafts. This is also an occasion for trading and barter, and celebration. The festival is a showcase of local arts and culture, fashion and unity. It features a mardi gras-type street dancing and related events.

 

Sipong Festival (Bais City) - 10th of September A colorful and lively mardi gras festival participated in by the different barangays, local and national offices in a choreographed street dancing. Magnificent floats and spectacular head dresses can also be viewed during this event. This biggest annual merry making marks the Charter Day celebration of Bais City.

 

Buglasan Festival (Oriental Negros) - month of December The time when established festivals in Negros Oriental gathered for a show down and street dancing to highlight the week-long fiesta. Various events lined up were trade fairs, nightly cultural shows, kumbira or food festival and a lot more.

 

Sandurot Festival (Dumaguete City) - Movable, 2nd week of November Derived from the Visayan “pakig-sandurot” for the offering and enjoyment of hospitality. Begins with a beach ceremony welcoming the various cultural stains that enriched the city’s character. Street dancing follows.

 

Kinaiyahan Festival (Municipality of Dauin) - 10th of September Celebrating the bounties of nature and underscoring Dauin’s campaign to conserve its natural resources and attractions. Street dancing and field presentations by all the clustered barangays of the municipality.

 

Guihulugan Festival (Municipality of Guihulngan) - 25th of May 'Guihulugan' relates a gruesome time in the 19th century when moro pirates regularly sacked the town and captured, beheaded and flung men, women and children into the sea. The depradators learned that a bell was used by sentinels to warn the villagers when danger approached. They took the bell down and threw it into the sea as well, thus, in reference to a place where a thing or things were dropped, Guihulugan.

 

Ayuquitan Festival (Municipality of San Jose) - 10th of May Oral tradition has it that a group of conquistadores came to a barrio of Amlan where natives were resting near a pile of husks and chaff, the inokitan, left-overs of rice-loving mayas. When they inquired what the name of the barrio was, the natives thought the strangers were pointing at the left-overs, and so replied, “inokitan.” The Spaniards thereafter referred to the place as Oquitan, to which the natives prefixed the more positive Maayo, hence, Ayuquitan. The town would remain so until it was formally separated from Amlan and established as the independent municipality of San Jose.

 

Kapaw Festival (Municipality of Basay) - 18th of March The town’s festival transpires deep in the heart of the Visayas, in a sleepy fishing town, and deep in the waters fringing its coast. Day breaks, the village fishermen sail out hopeful of a good catch. In the fishing grounds, they chance upon a duot, the extraordinary press of huge schools of fish of all sizes and colors. Their expedition is blessed with an overflowing harvest, a kapaw, creating another opportunity for merrymaking, celebrating the proper co-existence with nature.

 

Baolan Festival (Municipality of Zamboanguita) - 15th of May The 'Baolan' is the ancestral heritage of the townspeople of Zamboanguita, who consider the baol their source of sustenance, and therefore the staple of their existence, the primordial symbol of their life. As a highlight of their annual fiesta, a festival was organized for the townsfolk to thank the Almighty for His goodness that nurtures the farms and the communities. It is a spirited collaboration of the people to celebrate in farming and dancing.

 

Masulog Festival (Municipality of Sibulan) - 13th of June A people, a culture, a place. A place where people enjoyed life’s greatest gift – nature. Water, food, fresh air, such boundless sustenance. In times of hunger and misery, the place became a refuge. But as time passed by, more and more people came, and greed overcame them, and they plundered the land, felled trees, misused the gift. The gods became angry and sent great floods, and the strong currents, the sulog, took everything away. The villagers mourned their ravaged landscape and offered what they could in the hope of appeasing the gods and regaining what was lost. Their offering was rejected. Another great sulog came and left behind a barren land. The people suffered until a merchant from anther village came, bringing what seemed to be their only hope – the image of the Señor Santo Niño. And indeed, the land blossomed and once more bore crops, and prosperity returned. In thanksgiving, the people celebrate each year the Holy Child’s blessings that brought back the life and abundance of their home town.

 

Bugwas Festival (San Juan, Siquijor) - Last week of August The festival is San Juan’s way of celebrating a bountiful and abundant harvest in honor of their patron saint, St. Augustine. Bugwas means a spurt of water coming from an underground source, which flows freely in the open ground. Since San Juan is blessed with abundant spring waters, these waters give the farmers bountiful harvest, the fisher folk with an abundant catch and making and making the life of the people of San Juan happier and fruitful because of a good and bountiful harvest each year.

 

Dila-ab Festival (Siquijor, Siquijor) - 1st of October ‘Dilaab’ suggests the distinct hospitality that the Siquijodnons are popularly known for, and the name the island was once-known for “Isla de Fuego” because of the swarm of fireflies nestled in the island at night. The festival also gives due recognition to the natural assets of Siquijor and in honor of the town’s patron saint, St. Francis of Asisi who is known as a lover of nature.

 

Solili Festival (Siquijor, Siquijor) - 17th of September is the highlight of the Araw ng Siquijor celebration. One of the traditions valued to this day by the people of Lazi, Siquijor is the SOLILI BINALAYE, where the groom's kin size-up and get to know the bride. The celebration is to reminisce the courtship period between Tukmo and Punay, and as a tribute to the newlyweds, merrymakers dance the Solili, capping the festivity with shouts of "Solili Binalaye".

 

Lubi Festival (Municipality of Maria) 21st of May The verdant edges and the fertile lands of Maria can not be more alive that the commanding spectacle of its coconut trees. "Lubi" has been a constant staple in the life of "Mariajanons". From the meat of copra or to the drop of "tuba", and the instance of households implement, every "Mariajanons" knowhow indispensable "LUbi" has been to one's survival. Indeed Lubi is life itself, then let us join together in making perennial value through the neats and dances of the Lubi festival