Sinulog festival
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The Sinulog festival is one of the grandest and most colorful festivals in the Philippines. The main festival is held each year on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City to honor the Santo Niņo, or the child Jesus, who is the patron saint of the whole province of Cebu. It is essentially a dance ritual which could trace its roots to Cebuano pagan ancestry but which came to be symbol of Cebuano religious piety.
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 and native gongs. The streets are usually lined with vendors and pedestrians all wanting to witness the street-dancing.
Recently, the cultural event has been commercialized as a tourist attraction and instead of traditional street-dancing from locals, Sinulog also came to mean a contest featuring contingents from various parts of the country. The Sinulog Contest is traditionally held in the Cebu City Sports Complex, formerly Abellana National High School, where most of Cebu's major provincial events are held.
Smaller versions of the festival are also held in various parts of the province, also to celebrate and honor the Santo Niņo. There is also the Sinulog ng Kabataan, which is basically Sinulog performed by the youths of Cebu.
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The Festival
The celebration traditionally lasts for nine days, culminating on the ninth day, usually a Sunday when the Sinulog Grand Parade unfolds. The day before the parade, a more solemn procession takes place along the streets from the city wharves towards Magallanes St. and ending up in the Basilica Minore del Santo Niņo. Called the Fluvial Parade, this religious march is actually a water-parade held at dawn from the Mandaue City wharf to Cebu City wharf with the Santo Niņo carried on a pumpboat decked with hundreds of flowers and candles.
At the Basilica, a Holy Mass is held, usually given by the Cardinal with the assistance of several bishops of Cebu. On Sunday, the majority of the Cebu City population would flock to the Basilica to attend another Special Sinulog Mass, before heading out to the streets to watch the Parade.
Background
'Sinulog' comes from the Cebuano adverb sulog which is "like water current movement," which adeptly describes the forward-backward movement of the Sinulog dance. Traditionally, the dance consists of two steps forward and one step backward, done to the sound of the drums. The dance has since been modified and the ones that are actually seen in the streets during the Grand Parade are the modern versions. Candle vendors at the Basilica continue to perform the traditional version of the dance when lighting a candle for the customer, usually accompanied by songs in the native dialect.
History
Pre-Spanish and the First Wave of Spaniards
Historians have noted that before the first Spaniards came to Cebu, the Sinulog was already danced by the natives in honor of their wooden idols called anitos. Then, on April 7, 1521, the Portuguese navigator, Fernando de Magallanes arrived and planted the cross on the shores of Cebu, claiming the territory in the name of the King of Spain. He then presented the image of the child Jesus, the Santo Niņo, as baptismal gift to Hara Amihan, wife of Cebu's Rajah Humabon. Hara Amihan was later named, Queen Juana in honor of Juana, Carlos I's mother. Along with the rulers of the island, some 800 natives were also baptized to the Christian faith.
This event is frequently used as basis for most Sinulog dances, which dramatize the coming of the Spaniards and the presentation of the Santo Niņo to the Queen. A popular theme among Sinulog dances is Queen Juana holding the Santo Niņo in her arms and using it to bless her people who are often afflicted by sickness caused by demons and other evil spirits.
The Coming of Legazpi
After Magellan met his death on April 27, 1521 on the shores of Mactan (ruled by Muslim Rajah Lapu-Lapu), the remnants of his men returned to Spain. However, it took 44 years before the Spaniards achieved some measure of success in colonizing the islands and eventually the whole Philippines.
The Conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in Cebu on April 28, 1565 and destroyed the village ruled by Rajah Tupas. In one of the huts of the burning village, one of Legazpi's men named Juan Camus found a wooden box containing the image of the Santo Niņo lying amongst several native idols. Historians later said that during the 44 years between the coming of Magellan and Legazpi, the natives of Cebu continued to dance the Sinulog but no longer to worship their anitos but to show their reverence to the Santo Niņo.
The Augustinian friars that accompanied Legazpi in his expedition proclaimed the statue miraculous and built a church on the site where it was found. The church was called San Agustin Church but was later renamed to the Basilica Minore del Santo Niņo.
Letter to the King
After Juan Camus found the Santo Niņo in the burning village, Legazpi was said to have included the incident in his report, entitled "Relation of Voyage to the Philippine Islands." It went as follows:
"… Your Excellency should know that on that day when we entered this village (Cebu), one of the soldiers went into a large and well-built house of an indio where he found an image of the Child Jesus (whose most holy name I pray may be universally worshipped). This was kept in its cradle, all gilded, just as if it were brought from Spain: and only the little cross, which is generally palced upon the globe in his hands, was lacking. The image was well kept in that house, and many flowers were found before it, and no one knows for what object or purpose. The soldier bowed down before it with all reverence and wonder, and brought the image to the place where the other soldiers were. I pray to the Holy Name of his image, which we found here, to help us and to grant us victory, in order that these lost people who are ignorant of the precious and rich treasure, which was in their possession, may come to a knowledge of Him."
The Present
The Sinulog continued to be performed by the natives even with the onset of the Spanish colonization. Since 1521, it was considered a small ritual with very little significance, apart from its historical connotations and religious and cultural ties. It was only in 1980 that Sinulog came to resemble the organized celebration that it is now.
It was David S. Odilao, Jr., then Regional Director of the Ministry of Sports and Youth Development (MYSD), who organized the first ever Sinulog Parade. The year was 1980 and Odilao gathered a group of students, dressed them up in moro-moro costumes and taught them the Sinulog to the beating of the drums.
The idea caught and thus, under the direction of the Cebu City Mayor Florentino S. Solon with the help of several influential Cebuanos, Odilao turned over the Sinulog project to the Cebu City Historical Committee under Kagawad Jesus B. Garcia, Jr.. It was the task of the Committee to conceptualize the Sinulog festival and make it into a yearly event from then on.
In 1981 the following year, the concept of the Sinulog Parade was actualized, involving practically every sector in the Cebuano community. Marking its difference from another popular festival, the Ati-Atihan in Aklan, the Sinulog focuses not on the ritual itself but on the historical aspects of the dance, which, as it has been said, represents the link between the country's pagan past and Christian present.
Sinulog Coat of Arms
The committee (Cebu City Historical Committee), which was responsible for the conceptualization of the Sinulog as a provincial event, decided to adopt a logo for the Sinulog to identify it as an institutionalized yearly event. They turned to the coat of arms of the Santo Niņo which consisted of a two-headed hawk that was the mark of the ruling class House of Hapsburg in Europe. The emblem represented the twin purpose of the Hapsburg dynasty as "Champion of Catholicism and Defender of the Faith." At the time when Spain sent expeditions to the Philippines, they were under the Hapsburg dynasty.
The Sinulog committee then incorporated the two-headed hawk to a native warrior's shield. The native shield is supposed to symbolize the country's resistance to colonization while the Santo Niņo's coat of arms printed on its face represented the country's acceptance of Christianity.
External Links
- Sinulog.ph (http://sinulog.ph/)
- Sinulog.com (http://www.sinulog.com/)