Considered by some as Asia’s answer to Rio’s Mardi Gras, the yearly Ati-atihan festival is a party like no other. With a long history of 798 years of celebration this festival has also become an interesting hybrid of cultural influences. But nowadays the Ati-atihan in Kalibo has evolved into a celebration with religious undertones where anything goes as long as it’s in the name of fun.
Boac, the capital of Marinduque is being touted as the butterfly center of the Philippines due to the emergence of butterfly farms in the town. In order to promote the industry, the local government created the Bila-Bila Festival in conjunction with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (the town’s patron saint) on December 8. On [...]
The agricultural town of Mogpog in the northeastern portion of the island is indebted to their patron saint San Isidro Labrador for their annual harvests. To pay tribute to the saint and to the farmers whose tools labored the land for many months, the local government adopted the Kangga Festival which is celebrated annually to [...]
The artistic town of Angono celebrates the feast of Pope St. Clement I every November 22 to 23 of each year. There are times that this coincides with the feast of Christ the King. The celebration starts with the novena mass on the 14th till 22nd day of November, the devotees in prayer and thanksgiving, dance in the church patio after the novena mass. The dancing was accompanied by the Angono band with the the church bell ringing after playing the music.
Most festivals in Philippines are religious in origin, but nowadays the religious component is usually secondary to the general spirit of celebration.
Philippines has dozens of festivals and most towns have their own in addition to the national ones. Filipino hospitality is legendary and at no time is it more in evidence than at festival time.
A classic Tagalog quiet farming town that sits on the foothills of the sacred mountain of Banahaw, Lucban literally explodes with a kaleidoscope of colors, gastronomic feasts and religious fervor during the annual Pahiyas Festival, perhaps one of the most festive, most significant and most colorful of all the festivals in the world.
Celebrated every third weekend of January (Ati-atihan peaks on the last three days but people start dancing on the streets as soon as the New Year’s Day hangover is finished), one can hear the echoes of the drums in the distance the moment one steps on the tarmac of the Kalibo Airport. The entire town center erupts in frenzied, non-choreographed dancing and shouting “Hala Bira! Puwera Pasma!” to the beats of snare drums, bass drums, trumpets, xylophones and a cacophony of other instruments seemingly playing from all the corners of this sleepy little boomtown of Kalibo.
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Manila is one of the Philippine’s oldest cities, and glimpses of cultures past and present blend together to give you an experience which is sometimes gritty, sometimes pleasant, but unmistakably authentic. [...]
