Festivals in the Philippines

[Robert E Lee 0]

Every day in the Philippines is a festival while I am there

Same here, bubba. Everytime I'm in Moncada, Tarlac, there's a fiesta at my wife's house with pots of calderreta, dinuguan, afritada, kilawen, pinapaitan, etc. and jugs of Ilocano moonshine on the table!

[honeysweet 1]

Dinagyang festival

Dinagyang Festival is the major festival in Iloilo, which every Ilongo is proud of.

The Dinagyang Festival is celebrated every fourth weekend of January to honor the Christianization of the natives and to respect the Holy Child Jesus. On this day, streets of Iloilo City will once again come alive as the Ilonggos celebrate the annual festivity. It is a very colorful parade coupled with a dramatization in honor of the patron Saint Sto. Niño as the object of performs offerings and prayers amidst the cracking of drums and shouts of "Viva Señor Santo Niño." The thundering of "Hala Bira" by the tribe members makes the celebration a lively one. It is also a very popular tagline used by Ilonggos to express their warm participation during the "Dinagyang" celebration. A tribute in honor of Señor Sto. Niño whom Ilonggos believe was very miraculous in times of famine and drought.

Dinagyang is an annual event, when the whole town rejoices, shouting their pride of being an Ilonggo and telling their culture. It is a wonderful looking back to the past. It is not just a celebration, it is a religious evangelization. Going back to Iloilo is more like a past fulfilled and a looking forward for future celebrations. It is our culture. The Aeta culture. That's why it is painting the town black.

The Birth and Evolution of Dinagyang

The root word is dagyang. In Ilonggo, it means to make happy. Dinagyang is the present progressive word of the Ilonggo word, meaning making merry or merry-making. A religious and cultural activity, it is a celebration of Ilonggos whose bodies are painted with black in effect to imitate the black, small and slender Negritos who are the aborigines of Panay. The warriors are dressed in fashionable and colorful Aeta costumes and dance artistically and rhythmically with complicated formations along with the loud thrashing and sound of drums.

Before, Dinagyang was called Ati-atihan like that of the Kalibo festivity. History tells that it started when a replica of the image of Señor Sto. Niño was brought to the San Jose Parish Church in Iloilo from Cebu. The people of Iloilo honored the coming of the image and then became devotees. Until they made the day of the Image's arrival as his feast day which falls on the 4th Sunday of January. Since 1968, it was already considered a yearly celebration, culminated by a nine-day Novena, an Ati-ati contest and a fluvial procession on the last day.

Recognized now to the annual, socio-cultural-religious festival of Iloilo City, the word Dinagyang was made up by an old-timer, Ilonggo writer and radio broadcaster, the late Pacifico Sumagpao Sudario, and first used to name the festival when it was launched in 1977, to make it unique from other Ati-atihan celebrations.

Iloilo City's Dinagyang has its early beginnings in 1968, when a model of the image of Sr. Santo Ni¤o was brought from Cebu City to the San Jose Parish Church by Fr. Suplicio Ebderes, OSA with a delegation of Cofradia del Sto. Niño, Cebu members. The image and party were enthusiastically welcomed at Iloilo City by then parish priest of San Jose Church, Fr. Ambrosio Galindez, OSA, then Mayor Renerio Ticao, and the devotees of the Sto. Niño in Iloilo City. The image was brought to San Jose Parish Church and preserved there up to this time, where a novena in His honor is held every Friday. The climax of the nine-day novena was the Fluvial Procession.

In the early morning light of dawn, the respected Santo Niño image is borne on a decorative banca in a fluvial procession, starting from the mouth of the Iloilo River at Fort San Pedro, winding all the way to the Iloilo Provincial Capitol which stands on the bank of the Iloilo River.

If the festival had to be developed into a major tourist attraction, it would be so big in magnitude and the Confradia thought that it could no longer cope with the demands of a tourist come-on. The year 1976 also brought another feature of the festival. Street celebrations and audience participation were introduced and encouraged.

At that point, the Santo Niño is met by the Hermano-Hermana Mayor devotees, and Ati-atihan tribes. With the Santo Niño leading, the foot procession starts, passing through the main streets of the city and ending up at San Jose Church, where a high mass is then celebrated. As years went by, the celebration continued to be highlighted by a mass at San Jose Parish at the break of the dawn; by a "Kasadyahan" which is the opening event of the celebration, also a merrymaking but is a dramatized dance presentation about the Aeta's survival, the landing of the 10 Bornean Datus in Panay and the colonization; and by dances and more merry making which have become a tourist attraction.

As more and more tribes from the barangays, schools and nearby towns and provinces participate, the contest became more competitive in terms of costumes, choreography and sounds. The tribes compete for the following Special Awards: Best in Discipline, Best in Costume, Best in Performance, Best in Music and Best in Choreography. These are aside from the major awards for the champion, first runner-up, second runner-up, third runner-up and fourth runner-up. Participating tribes learn to design artistically and with originality in making use of Ilonggo native materials like dried anahaw leaves, buri or coconut palm leaves and husks and other barks of Philippine trees. Choreography was studied and practices were kept secret. Sounds were seen as an authentic medium that keeps the tribes going in uniform.

They also include a brief dramatization of how Christianity was brought to Panay and the arrival of the 10 Bornean Datus telling about the exchange of the Aetas of their land for the Borneans' Golden Salakot (native hat) and a long pearl necklace which is also parallel with the Kasadyahan celebration. During the celebration, people participate with the Kasadyahan. Some dressed in Aeta costumes, some paint their faces with black paint, some put on colored artificial tattoos and wear other Aeta ornaments. At night, there is public dancing on selected areas.

"Hala Bira Iloilo"

[♥JOHN♥JULIE♥ 0]

The feast of Our Lady of Peñafrancia is celebrated on the third Saturday of September in Naga City, Bicol Philippines. All roads and routes will lead to Naga City in Camarines Sur where six million Bicolanos from here and abroad will flock to that progressive city to pay honor to the Virgin of Peñafrancia, miraculous patroness of the Bicol Region. Bicolanos from all walks of life will be in Naga City to meet their relatives and partidarios, share food, drinks, and prayers with them, and most of all, to pay homage and make thanksgiving to the Virgin of Peñafrancia, whom the Bicolanos fondly call Ina. Viva la Virgen, they will shout to high heavens. The feast day is headed by a novena, nine days of prayer, in honor of the Virgin. On the first day, the image of the Virgin, a copy of the Madonna in Peñafrancia, Spain, is brought from its shrine to the Naga Cathedral where the novena is held. On the last day, the image is returned to her shrine following the Naga River route. The colorful evening procession is lit by thousands of candles from followers in boats escorting the image. When the flatboat reaches its destination, the devotees shout "Viva la Virgen" (Long live the Virgin!) and the image is carried back in a procession to the cathedral.

Millions of Bicolanos will once again show to the whole Christian world their strong faith and loyalty to their Heavenly Mother. amongst triumphant sounding shouts of Viva la Virgen , Bicolanos and pilgrims, with lighted candles in their hands, will kneel on the ground and bow their heads in prayer as the colorful fluvial procession carrying the Virgin plows through the Bicol River in downtown Naga.

A multicolored pagoda carrying the images/icons of the Virgin of Peñafrancia and the Divino Rostro will pass through the Bicol River. Male, sunburned devotees of the Virgin will adhere to the huge pagoda in a heartwarming display of faith and devotion. Actually, the fluvial procession marks the return of the Virgin from the Naga Metropolitan Cathedral to her home shrine at the Basilica. Upon its arrival, the Virgin will be received in formal religious rites by Roman Catholic dignitaries of the Bicol Region led by Cardinal Jose T. Sanchez.

Considered the biggest and most popular religious event in the Philippines, the Peñafrancia fiesta is in fact a one-week affair that starts on the second Friday of September when the miraculous Ina is transferred from her shrine to the centuries-old Naga Metropolitan Cathedral where a nine-day novena and prayers are held in her honor. Ranking government officials, Cabinet members, ambassadors, governors, mayors, senators, diputados , business/industry leaders, landlords, etc., vie for the distinct honor of sponsoring a nightly novena and prayers at the Naga Cathedral.

A procession, locally called traslacion (is the transferring of the miraculous Image of the Virgin, Our Lady of Peñafrancia and of the Divino Rostro to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Naga City for a Novena and Holy Masses. This begun in 1885.), ushers in the weeklong festivities which include civic and military parades, sports competitions, agro-industrial fairs, cultural shows, and the coronation of Miss Bicolandia beauties.

During the traslacion, which passes through the main streets of Naga, the miraculous Ina of the Bicolanos is borne on the rugged, muscular shoulders of barefooted voyadores who form a human barricade to protect the Virgin from the unruly crowd. Call it absolute coincidence or plain superstition, but any Bicolano will swear to high heavens that the presence of a woman, Filipina or foreigner, aboard the merrily decorated pagoda will surely spell disaster. Whether this belief is true or not, only the Bicolanos know. But past events and experiences support their claim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ud5-sEb1WY

[Nelly228 0]

Check-out this video of the 2008 Masskara Festival:

Enjoy...Kasadya gid!

"What started as "just a new activity" to spice up an otherwisese routine civic-military parade, awarding ceremonies and a literary-musical program for a city charter anniversary, Bacolod City's MassKara Festival is now 3 years short of its third decade and has already become of the entries of the Philippines to the global tourism community.

The MassKara Festival of Bacolod City has repeatedly represented the country in some major festivals in Asia, notably in the Chinggay Festival in Singapore in 1998, the Lunar Festival of Hong Kong in 2001, in the International Tourism Festival of Shanghai in 2004 and in the Midosuji Festival Parade of Osaka, Japan, emerging as champion in the foreign category and first runner-up in the local category - the first award to be given to a foreign participant in the 10-year history of that Japanese festival.

Among the Philippine festivals, MassKara is one that has also been to almost all major festivals in the Visayas and Luzon. mostly on exhibition performances. During the 23rd Asian Games held in Bacolod City in November 2005, the MassKara dance got the most applause from the athletes, visiting dignitaries and the international press covering the event.

The word MassKara has a double meaning. First, it is a fusion of the English word "mass" or many and "kara", the Spanish word for "face." MassKara then becomes a "mass of faces," and these faces have to be smiling to project Bacolod already known in the late 70's as the City of Smiles. MassKara also is the dialect "maskara" for the English word mask, which gives rise to the use of giant smiling masks in varied hues, colors and brilliance which the gaily costumed dancers wear as they stomp, swing, pulsate and gyrate in the major streets of the city every third weeded nearest to the 19th of October, which is the City Charter Anniversary of Bacolod. "

Read more - > MassKara : A Thousand Smiles Per Minute

Bacolod MassKara Photos

I missed Bacolod Masskara Festival especially a Dance Parade and bacolod chicken inasal.

thanks for sharing. kasadya. baw galing pila na ka tuig nga ila music law-ay. bungol pa na sang sounds nila. this year ayhan ano ila music? anyway, madamo gid nga salamat.