THE Sinulog festivity should, ideally, be in a wider avenue (for the street dances and parade) and bigger venue (for the grand parade’s culminating program). Or haven’t we heard, for example, organizers’ post-Sinulog assessments claiming how each year’s festivity crowd is always bigger than that of the previous one? The problem there, however, is where. [...]

IT warms the heart to hear nice things happening to your home province, warmer still when they happen two years in succession. I was a 15-year-old fresh high school graduate when I left Masbate more than 40 years ago. To describe the community that I left behind as backward is an understatement. There was no [...]

AFEW thoughts on Fiesta Señor 2011: Solemn procession. That rain didn’t dampen the Cebuanos’ devotion to the Sto. Niño is not surprising. Our old beliefs don’t actually consider rain pouring as bad; rather, we take it as God “showering” us with his blessings. So when the rain falls when, say, we are in a procession, [...]

THE Cebu Pop Music Festival is one of the highlights of the Sinulog festivities. Conceptualized by the Gullas family and implemented by them for the past 31 years, Cebu Pop has produced quality Cebuano songs, some of them becoming popular and best sellers in the recording industry. Recently, I received an email from a certain [...]

IT IS only apt and fitting that the theme of this year’s Sinulog festivities mentions Chinese culture. Touches of Chinese influence have been with us long before Ferdinand Magellan came to our shores. When I was in China in 1987 as guest of the Chinese writers union, I learned that the Chinese had long visited [...]

BECAUSE a ritual like the feast of the Sto. Niño is held every year, being repetitive is expected. That applies to both the church activities (the novena masses, traslacion, fluvial procession, solemn procession, etc.) and the cultural one, with the Sinulog grand parade being the main fare. Actually, new things also crop up within the [...]

FROM the preparation being done and the international pull it has gained, it looks like this year’s Sinulog is going to surpass previous years’ celebrations. National Geographic and a French TV station have sent teams to find out what it’s all about. Sinulog is experiential, and to understand it is to live it for a [...]

SINCE my second child Eldrick Khan was born, and that was four years ago, we were no longer able to see the culmination activity of the Sinulog grand parade at the Cebu City Sports Center. Rick-rick throws up during long trips and is difficult to contain in such a place as a cramped grandstand. I [...]

SINULOG top honcho Ricky Ballesteros said his goal of making the country’s biggest cultural event and tourist drawer global is slowly happening. National Geographic and other global news organizations are coming in, he said. Well, Ricky, just build on the successes of Sinulogs past, and they will come. *** Sinulog organizers chose the Chinese motif [...]

I WAS eight or nine years old when my late mother brought me and my sister to Cebu for the first time for the feast of the Sto. Niño. There were eight of us, including members of another family of pilgrims and the motorized banca operator. The little boat groaned from our collective weight but [...]