...STO. NINO (Pit Senor!)

Sinulog '08....i thank GOD for friends & another life.

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 Niño, or the holy child Jesus,the patron of the whole province of Cebu. The word “santo” means “holy” (in this case) and not “saint”. A similar example is Santo Rosario, meaning Holy Rosary and not Saint Rosary. It is essentially a dance ritual that 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 usually 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. There is also a Sinulog sa Kabataan, which is performed by the youths of Cebu a week before the Grand Parade.

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, where most of Cebu’s major provincial events are held.