Festivals in Honor of the Sto. Niño (Infant Jesus)

The month of January in the Philippines is dedicated to the feast of the Santo Niño or the Child Jesus. The biggest and most impressive celebration is held in the Islands of Cebu and Panay. Cebu's Sinulog Festival is celebrated with the one step backward and two steps forward dancing to the beat of the drums. While in Kalibo,Panay the chants and shouts of Hala Bira! and the banging of tom-toms.

Sinulog Festival

In Cebu, the feast of Santo Niño is celebrated in the 3rd Sunday of January popularly known as the Sinulog Festival. The celebration of the festival is differentiated from the Ati-atihan Mardi Gras of Kalibo because of its used of a thematic parade that symbolizes the seven different periods in Cebu's history.

The word Sinulog is a Visayan term to the local dance that follows the rhythm of the river flow, thus the dance movement follows two steps forward and one step backward to the beat of the drums.

History

The Sinulog Dance is a pagan ritual where natives honor their wooden idols and anitos but when Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish expedition came in 1521 and converted 800 natives on the island together with their chieftain Raha Humabon and her queen Hara Amihan to Christianism the dance was used to honor the image of the Santo Niño.

In between the span of 44 years before the Legazpi expedition came. It is believed that the natives still danced the Sinulog but not for a deity or the anito but for the honor of the Santo Niño.

The expedition under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi came to Cebu but was greeted with some resistance. His bombardments and raids in Cebu led one of his aides a certain Juan Camus to discover the image of the Santo Niño placed alongside the anitos and idols of the native inside a burning hut.

From Legaspi until the end of 333 years of Spanish rule, the Sinulog Dance is being performed according to tradition by a few devotees in front of the Basilica Minore Del Santo Niño not until in 1980 when an organized Sinulog festival caught the attention of many revelers from the outskirts of Cebu, the nearby provinces and tourists from other countries who annually flock to Cebu to join in the fun and revelry

Festival highlight is on the 3rd Sunday of January (January 21, 2001).