Sinulog Festival - Cebu
This island province of Cebu, more than 200 km long and just 40 km across at its widest point, is at the center of the Visayas. Cebu has in recent years become a model for independent industrial development. With its splendid deep-water port, international airport and attractive beaches and resorts, the city and province of the same name are magnets for investment. The City of Cebu is the oldest in the Philippines, the commercial and education center of the Visayas, and the hub of air and sea travel throughout the south.
The Sinulog festival is one of the grandest and most colorful festivals in the Philippines with a very rich history. The main festival is held each year on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City to honor the Santo Niño, or the child Jesus, who used to be the patron saint of the whole province of Cebu (since in the Catholic faith Jesus is not a saint, but God). It is essentially a dance ritual which remembers the Filipino people’s pagan past and their acceptance of Christianity.
The festival features some the country’s most colorful displays of pomp and pageantry: participants garbed in bright-colored costumes dance to the rhythm of drums, trumpets, and native gongs. The streets are lined with vendors and pedestrians all wanting to witness the street-dancing. Smaller versions of the festival are also held in various parts of the province, also to celebrate and honor the Santo Niño. For more information please check .
One of the most remarkable religious landmarks of the province aside from the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño is the Magellan’s Cross. It is a wooden cross said to be the same structure that Ferdinand Magellan planted in the seashore upon his arrival in the Philippine soil in 1521. The coral gardens at Pescador Island near Moalboal and around Sumilon Island are well worth seeing, as are the guitar factories on Mactan Island. Treks into the interior are growing in popularity, coupled with a few lazy days near the refreshing waterfalls.
|
