The Sinulog Festival

The drums will rumble once again as the Queen City of the South, Cebu, celebrates the Sinulog Festival. Held every year on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City to honor the Santo Niño or the child Jesus, the Sinulog Festival is one of the grandest and most colorful festivals in the Philippines.

The festival is characterized by a very long parade and features some of the country’s most colorful displays of pomp and pageantry. Participants are usually dressed in brightly-colored costumes while dancing the Sinulog to the rhythm of drums, trumpets and native gongs. The dance is rather simple, consisting only of two steps forward and one step backward while swaying to the sound of the drums. "Sinulog" originates from the Cebuano adverb "sulog" which is "like water current movement," which aptly describes the forward-backward movement of the dance. Though the dance itself is very old, the parade is quite new.

According to historical accounts, the Sinulog was already being danced by the natives to honor their wooden idols called anitos even before the Portuguese navigator, Ferdinand Magellan, came to our shores and claimed the territory in the name of the King of Spain. When Magellan came, he introduced Christianity and was able to successfully convert 800 natives along with their rulers. As a baptismal gift to the wife of Rajah Humabon – Cebu’s chieftain, Magellan gave Hara Amihan a Santo Niño image. Magellan’s hope to convert all the locals to Christians, however, was not well received by Rajah Lapu-lapu of Mactan. The chieftain of Mactan engaged Magellan in a fierce encounter which eventually resulted in the Portuguese’s tragic end.

After Magellan met his death, the remnants of his men returned to Spain and reported what had happened and suggested a possible occupation of the islands. However, it took 44 years before the Spaniards came back and achieved some measure of success in colonizing the islands and eventually the whole Philippines. The conquistador, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in Cebu and destroyed the village ruled by Rajah Tupas. In one of the huts of the burning village, one of Legazpi’s soldiers found a wooden box containing the image of the Santo Niño lying amongst several native idols. Historians say that during the time between Magellan’s death and the arrival of de Legaspi, the natives of Cebu still danced the Sinulog but no longer to worship the anitos but to show their respect to the Santo Niño.

Throughout the years, dancing the Sinulog in front of the Santo Niño remained to be a small ritual and practiced only by a few. However in 1980, David S. Odilao Jr., then the Regional Director of the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development (MYSD), organized the first ever Sinulog Parade. Odilao gathered a group of students, dressed them up in colorful costumes and taught them the Sinulog to the beating of the drums. Even if it was just a small parade and only went around the Basilica, it still caught the attention of the locals. They decided to come up with what is now known as the Sinulog Festival.

Since its debut in 1981, the Sinulog Festival continues to be one of the country’s grandest and most awaited events and, although the occasion rivals all the other festivals held in the country in terms of magnificence and splendor, the Sinulog still manages to focus on the historical aspects of the dance, which vividly illustrates the link between our country’s pagan past and Christian present.

We have long been advocating that we should not lose touch with our past for it is in remembering the past that we learn the lessons for our future. The observance and celebration of the Sinulog, and all our other fiestas for that matter, is important for it allows us to keep in touch with events that have conspire to make the Filipino the unique and distinct personality that he is today.