Sinulog Festival

Cebu City (Third week/Sunday of January)

Sinulog Festival is annually celebrated for cultural
and religious purposes. This event is celebrated in
other parts of the country where the local
government arranges the festival. The event will
consist of a street party, dancing, and performing
locals in traditional costumes. The Catholic Santo
Niño is the centre of this celebration, but the
Sinulog dance ritual also commemorates the
Filipinos’ pagan past, along with their acceptance
of Christianity.

Ati-Atihan
Kalibo, Aklan (Third week/Sunday of January)
Another celebration to honour the Santo Niño,
Ati-Atihan is where people go to the streets
parading their traditional costumes and weapons,
and painting their bodies black. Participants
march and dance in the town, matched with loud
drumbeats. This festival will definitely make you
dance your heart out while enjoying a true
Filipino atmosphere.

Dinagyang Festival
Iloilo City (Fourth weekend of January)
Dinagyang Festival is one of the largest festivals in
the country. It’s when Iloilo takes the street
festivals to the next level. The city converts all its
streets into a massive open-air festival and
everyone is invited. Mouthwatering local dishes
are overflowing whilst there are bands playing in
every alley you turn to. Every barangay and
school will come together and have an
extravagant dance competition.

Panagbenga Festival
Baguio City (February)
One of longest festivals in the Philippines, Panagbenga is celebrated throughout
the month of February. This month highlights the season of blooming flowers, at
the same time, this is also to commemorate our rise from the disastrous 1990
earthquake in Luzon. Marvellous floats, designed with various types of flowers,
conquer the streets of Baguio City. Tourists can expect street dancing by dancers
wearing flower-inspired costumes. Expect it to be even colder in Baguio when you
visit as this festival is celebrated in February.

Moriones Festival
Marinduque (Holy Week/March or April)
This is a festival that lasts for a week in
Marinduque. Moriones is the celebration of the
life of St. Longinus whose eye was healed by the
blood of Christ. Since most Filipinos don’t work
during the Holy Week and this event follows the
schedule of the Holy Week, a lot of locals stay in
Marinduque to celebrate the festival. Morion
refers to the helmet of the people dressed as
Roman soldiers, while Moriones refers to the people who dress as these Roman
soldiers. These costumed Moriones roam the streets for seven days, scaring
children and making noise to reenact the search for Longinus, the centurion who
pierced Jesus on the cross with a spear.

Pahiyas Festival
Lucban, Quezon (May 15)
May 15 is when the locals of Lucban decorate
their houses extravagantly with vibrant and lively
colours. Vegetables are hung as decorations
because this festival celebrates the season of
harvesting. People are allowed to bring their
own basket and pick fresh vegetables from
the walls, with no charge – happy fiesta and
shopping at the same time!

Pintados-Kasadayan Festival
Tacloban City (June 29th)
Pintados-Kasadayan Festival is another religious celebration in the name of the
Santo Niño held in Tacloban City. It showcases the rich culture and colourful
history of the province of Leyte. The dancers paint their faces and bodies with
vibrant colours of blue and green to depict Leyte’s ancestral people. Some
dancers are also painted with designs that look like armour to represent the
warriors that lived in Leyte long ago.
The folk dances they perform portray the many traditions people of Leyte
practised before the Spanish era. Among these is the worship of idols, indigenous
music, and epic stories, to name a few. The term, pintados, is derived from what
the tattoed native warriors of Leyte were once called, while kasadayan means
merriment in the Visayan tongue.

Sirong Festival
Surigao del Sur (August 15th)
Sirong Festival is another cultural and religious
celebration. Various towns claim that it
originated in their municipalities in Surigao del
Sur. Most of these towns were founded during
the pre-Spanish occupation and were attacked
by the Moros. Sirong Festival features a war
dance between the Muslims and the
Christians. It marks the Christianisation of the
early Cantilangnons. Whoever wins the best
dance in the festival brings home a cash prize.

Masskara Festival
Bacolod City (October)
A festival that is celebrated from the city of
smiles – Bacolod City. Mass (crowd) kara (face)
Festival is filled with people wearing colourful
smiling masks designed with feathers, flowers,
and native beads. The festival allows tourists to enjoy 20 days of beer drinking,
street dancing, and merrymaking. Every street is filled with locals wearing their
smiling masks and festive costumes while dancing around and spreading the
happy atmosphere throughout the city.
During the festival, locals are encouraged to forget the economic struggle brought
about by the dead season of the sugar harvest. They also see the festival as their
way of escapism and obscurantism. The sugar harvest is important to the people
of Bacolod since Negros Occidental, where Bacolod is found, is known as the
Sugar Bowl of the Philippines.

Giant Lantern Festival

San Fernando (the weekend before Christmas
Eve)
San Fernando organises the biggest festival in
the country. It features a competition of giant
lantern making, which is why it has been
called the “Christmas Capital of the
Philippines”. This is also to celebrate the
Christmas season, where participants produce
up to fifteen-foot diameter lanterns. It is a
rule that each lantern should be made out of
locally available materials. These lanterns are
showcased in a parade in each barrio before
the midnight mass on Christmas Eve.