page_title: Cebu
section_title: Festivals
hierarchical_section_title: Cebu / Tourism / Festivals
caption_attribution_description: Sr. Sto Nino Annual Fiesta Sinulog Festival 2009 Cebu City, Philippines For more pictures click here Sinulog 2009
context_page_description: Cebu is a province of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas region, and consists of a main island and 167 surrounding islands and islets. Its capital is Cebu City, "the Queen City of the South", the oldest city and first capital of the Philippines, which is politically independent from the provincial government.
  The Cebu Metropolitan Area or Metro Cebu is the second largest metropolitan area in the Philippines with Cebu City as the main center of commerce, trade, education and industry in the Visayas. Being one of the most developed provinces in the Philippines, in a decade it has transformed into a global hub for business processing services, tourism, shipping, furniture-making, and heavy industry. Mactan–Cebu International Airport, located on Mactan Island, is the second busiest airport in the Philippines.
context_section_description: Sinulog
   
  Sinulog Festival is the largest fiesta (festival) in the Philippines. Held every third Sunday of January, it commemorates the Child Jesus (Santo Niño), the Lord and Protector of Cebu. The Sinulog is a dance ritual of pre-Hispanic indigenous origin. The dancer moves two steps forward and one step backward to the rhythmic sound of drums. This movement resembles the current (sulog) of what was then known as Cebu's Pahina River. Thus the name Sinulog.
  
  The Sinulog Festival 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 Christianization of the Philippines on the island 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 crowds participating in the event.
  
  When the Spaniards arrived in Cebu, the Italian chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, sailing under convoy with the Magellan expedition, offered the wooden figure of the Santo Niño as a baptismal gift to Hara Amihan, wife of Rajah Humabon who was named Juana after her baptism together with the Rajah, who was also renamed, Carlos. Juana, together with the natives, according to tradition, danced and worshipped the Santo Niño de Cebu in their indigenous Sinulog dance ritual. The Sinulog ritual was preserved, focusing on the worship to the Santo Niño. Once the Santo Niño church was built in the 16th century, the Catholic Malay people started performing the Sinulog ritual in front of the church, the devotees offering candles and indigenous dancers shouting "Viva Pit Señor!", which means to "Trust in the Lord".
  
  In the province, the festival is shared by both Cebu City and Carmen. The festival is said to have originated in Carmen and was once a localized version of the Ati-atihan Festival introduced by Jose Motos, the then rector of the Parish of St. Augustine, the town parish of Carmen, but was then changed to "Sinulog sa Carmen" after Sinulog became an established Cebuano festival. The Sinulog dance was first introduced to Cebu City by a woman named Estelita Diola, who would otherwise be referred to as "Titang Diola". Her family were skilled with the original form of the dance of Sinulog and the tradition was eventually passed on to her by her father.  Because of her great contribution and propagation of the Sinulog dance of Cebu, she was referred to as the "Heritage Keeper". The original Sinulog dance and her legacy of devotion to the Child Jesus through dancing continues today even after her death and is still continued through her former students who now teach the youth of Cebu the original dance moves of Sinulog. Sinulog had since very much diversified from the original dance of Titang Diola. Today we can see the Sinulog danced everyday at the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño performed by the candle vendors. The version they perform is called "Sinug" and is only for worship and prayer to bless the candles for prayers to the Holy Child. The Sinulog Festival dance performed by contingents in the City Sports Center is still religious and devotional since dancers often include personal supplications, petitions, thanksgivings, intercessions, or any other prayers in their dance for the Child Jesus and their dance performances in street dance and ritual showdown are still centered on the Holy Child. There are mainly two types of Sinulog dances performed in the festival, namely the "Sinulog-Based Category" and the "Free Interpretation Category". The Sinulog-Based Category refers to the Sinulog dance based on the Church Sinulog performed by candle vendors while the Free Interpretation Category refers to the Sinulog dance interpreted in any way, outside Church Sinulog, for as long as it is acceptable in the festival. In recent years, the festival gained commercialization which made the f
caption: Sinulog's annual maritime procession.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "EOS 450D", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "492", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7555", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/25", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF FNumber": "32", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:01:17 00:06:34", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "135", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "533", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2136000/439", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "362", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "217", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "5755321897ea4f1607fad74dcf5a7a6d"}