Sinulog Festival: A beat of the sentimental beginnings

“Pit Senyor kang Mama kini, Pit Senyor kang Papa kini””. 

A deafening chant by the street dancers can be heard on the streets with their bright coloured costumes dancing to the rhythm of drums, trumpets and native gongs that opens the official beginning of the Sinulog Festival in Cebu.

Every third Sunday of January is a joyous day for the people of Cebu City. It is the month when one of the grandest festivals of the Philippines is celebrated. The Sinulog Festival is the most colorful one, too. The Sinulog Festival is celebrated in honor of the Santo Niño, which is the patron saint of Cebu. It is a dance ritual that reminisces the time when Filipinos embraced Christianity.

This celebration lasts for nine days, culminating on the final day with the Sinulog Grand Parade. The day before the parade, the Fluvial Procession is held at dawn with a statue of the Santo Niño carried on a pump boat from Mandaue City to Cebu City, decked with hundreds of flowers and candles. The procession ends at the Basilica where a re-enactment of the Christianizing (that is, the acceptance of Roman Catholicism) of Cebu is performed. In the afternoon, a more solemn procession takes place along the major streets of the city, which last for hours due to large crowd participating in the event.

Group of people raising the Sto.Niño during Sinulog Festival

The word Sinulog comes from the Cebuano adverb sulog which roughly means "like water current movement;" it describes the forward-backward movement of the Sinulog dance. The dance consists of two steps forward and one step backward, done to the sound of drums. The dance is categorized into Sinulog-base, Free-Interpretation. 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 language.

Tracing back the history when it started, On April 7, 1521, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived and planted the cross on the shores of Cebu, claiming the territory for Spain. He presented the image of the child Jesus, the Santo Niño, as baptismal gift to Hara Amihan, wife of Rajah Humabon. Hara Amihan was later named, Queen Juana in honor of Juana, mother of Carlos I. Along with the rulers of the island, some 800 natives were also baptized to the Christian faith. At the moment of receiving the image, it was said that Queen Juana danced with joy bearing the image of the child Jesus. With the other natives following her example, this moment was regarded as the first Sinulog.

Colorful costumes in Sinulog Festival

This event is frequently used as basis for most Sinulog dances, which dramatize the coming of the Spaniards and the presentation of the Santo Niño to the Queen. A popular theme among Sinulog dances is Queen Juana holding the Santo Niño in her arms and using it to bless her people who are often afflicted by sickness caused by demons and other evil spirits.

Through the years since 1521, the dance was a small ritual by a few in front of wooden idols or before the Santo Niño. In fact, at the Santo Niño church where the image is consecrated, only the candle vendors could be seen dancing the Sinulog and making offerings.

During the Santo Niño fiesta, which falls on the third Sunday of January, children dressed in moro-moro costumes also dance the Sinulog. This was really no big event for Cebu City.

In 1980, however, David S. Odilao, Jr., then Regional Director of the Ministry of Sports and Youth Development (MYSD), organized the first ever Sinulog parade. He gathered a group of students, dressed them up, and taught them how to dance the Sinulog to the beating of the drums. It was a small parade really which went just around the Basilica, but it caught the imagination of the City of Cebu, which then thought of making the Sinulog a festival that would rival all other festivals being held yearly in the country.

Thus, under the direction of then Cebu City Mayor Florentino S. Solon, the Sinulog organization came into being. The first task of the organizing committee was how to conceptualize the festival and make it a big event.

In 1980, the local government had a grand and lucrative idea. The Sinulog fiesta at the time was an affair of local color. Held at the Basilica del Santo Niño, the feast-featured Sinulog dancing performed by various groups to fulfill religious obligations.

Now, this event began to attract an increasing number of tourists that boost the Cebu’s sector of tourism. Something must be proud of for the Filipinos.