HISTORY OF SINULOG FESTIVAL

On March 16, 1521, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived and planted
the cross on the shores of Cebu, claiming the territory for Spain. He presented the
image of the Child Jesus to the Rajah Humabon. Hara Humamay (or Amihan in some
versions) was later named, Queen Juana after Juana, mother of Carlos I. along with the
rulers of the island and some 800 natives were also converted to the Roman Catholic
faith.
This event is frequently used as basis for most Sinulog dances, which dramatize the
coming of the Spaniards and the presentation of the Santo Niño to the Queen. A
popular theme among Sinulog dances is Queen Juana holding the Santo Niño in her
arms and using it to bless her people who were often afflicted with sickness believed to
be caused by demons and other evil spirits.
The Sinulog dance steps are believed to originate from Rajah Humabon's adviser,
Baladhay.[dubious – discuss] It was during Humabon's grief when Baladhay fell sick. Humabon
ordered his native tribe to bring Baladhay into a room where the Santo Niño was
enthroned, along with the other pagan gods of the native Cebuanos. After a few days
passed, Baladhay was heard shouting and was found dancing with utmost alertness.
Baladhay was questioned as to why was he was awake and shouting. Pointing to the
image of the
Santo Niño, Baladhay explained that he had found on top of him a small child trying to
wake him and tickling him with the midrib of the coconut. Greatly astonished, he scared
the child away by shouting. The little child got up and started making fun of Baladhay. In
turn, Baladhay danced with the little child and explained that he was dancing
the movements of the river. To this day, the two-steps forward, one-step backward
movement is still used by Santo Niño devotees who believe that it was the Santo Niño's
choice to have Baladhay dance.
The expedition led by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi bombarded the native settlement when
they arrived on April 28, 1565. In one of the burning huts, one of Legazpi's men, Juan
Camus, discovered the image of the Santo Niño inside a wooden box beside other
idols. This time however, Legazpi discovered that the natives already dance the Sinulog
honoring the Santo Niño.
The Augustinian friars that accompanied López de Legazpi in his expedition built a
church on the site where it was found. The church was called San Agustin Church, later
renamed to Basilica Minore del Santo Niño.

CHARACTERISTIC

The Sinulog-Santo Niño Festival is an annual cultural and religious festival held on
the third Sunday of January in Cebu City and is the centre of the Santo Niño Catholic
Christian celebrations in the Philippines.
The festival is considered to be the biggest festival in the Philippines, with every
celebration of the festival routinely attracting between 1 million and 1.5 million people
each year.[1] Aside from the religious aspect of the festival, Sinulog is also famous for
its street parties, usually happening the night before and the night of the main festival.
[2]
The festival is nicknamed the "Grandest Festival in the Philippines." [3]
Other places in the Philippines also celebrate their own version of the festival in honor
of Santo Niño, both within Cebu like Carmen, and outside Cebu, including Tondo,
Manila, Kabankalan, General Santos, Maasin, Cagayan de Oro, Butuan, Pagadian,
and Balingasag, Misamis Oriental.
COSTUME
HISTORY OF ATI ATIHAN FESTIVAL

The original celebration was known as the Fiesta de Santo Niño, which dates back to at
least the 17th century. It was part of the Catholic "fiesta system" employed by the
Spanish colonial government to reinforce the reducciones policy that aimed to resettle
natives on planned settlements built around a local church. In the 1950s, the festival,
along with similar fiestas around the country celebrating the Santo Niño (like
the Sinulog) increasingly began to resemble the Brazilian Carnival and the New Orleans
Mardi Gras, incorporating music, street dancing, and body painting. By the 1960s, the
festival became even more commercialized as the Philippine Department of
Tourism heavily promoted local festivals to national prominence. The festival now
included elaborate exotic costumes (inspired by tribal attire from Papua New Guinea,
Africa, and India). It culminated in 1972, when the festival's name was officially changed
to Ati-Atihan.
The festivity is claimed to be originally a native animist celebration of the anito (ancestor
spirits), to which Spanish missionaries gradually added a Christian meaning. The
festival is also linked to the epic Maragtas. The epic claims that a group of
10 Malay chieftains, led by Datu Puti, fled the island of Borneo in the 13th century and
landed on the island of Panay. Datu Puti made a trade with the Ati people and
purchased the lowlands for a golden salakot, brass basins and bales of cloth. They
gave a very long necklace to the wife of the Ati chieftain. Feasting and festivities
followed soon after. Some time later, the Ati people were struggling with famine as the
result of a bad harvest. They were forced to descend from their mountain village into the
settlement below, to seek the generosity of the people who now lived there.
The datu obliged and gave them food. In return, the Ati danced and sang for them,
grateful for the gifts they had been given.
However, the Maragtas epic is now regarded by modern historians as a legend, despite
being once widely included in school textbooks and associated with the Ati-Atihan
Festival. The claim of its origins from the Maragtas or the Ati people is a modern
addition, like its name.
In 2012, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the ICHCAP
of UNESCO published Pinagmulan: Enumeration from the Philippine Inventory of
Intangible Cultural Heritage. The first edition of the UNESCO-backed book included
the Ati-atihan Festival, signifying its great importance to Philippine intangible cultural
heritage. The local government of Aklan, in cooperation with the NCCA, is given the
right to nominate the Ati-atihan Festival in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage
Lists.

CHARACTERISTIC

The Kalibo Santo Niño—Ati-Atihan Festival,[1] also simply called Ati-Atihan Festival, is a
Philippine festival held annually in January in honor of the Santo Niño (Holy
Child or Infant Jesus) in several towns of the province of Aklan, Panay Island. The
biggest celebration is held during the third Sunday of January in the town of Kalibo, the
province's capital. The name Ati-Atihan means "to imitate the Ati people".
The festival consists of religious processions and street-parades, showcasing themed
floats, dancing groups wearing colorful costumes, marching bands, and people sporting
face and body paints. The street parade is known as Sadsad, which is also what the
locals call their way of dancing where the foot is momentarily dragged along the ground
in tune to the beat played by the marching bands. It has inspired other Philippine
Festivals such as Dinagyang of Iloilo and Sinulog of Cebu, thus, it is known as the
"Mother of All Philippine Festivals.
COSTUME
HISTORY OF DINAGYANG FESTIVAL

Dinagyang began after Rev. Fr. Ambrosio Galindez, the first Filipino Rector of the
Augustinian Community and Parish Priest of the San Jose Parish introduced the
devotion to Santo Niño in November 1967 after observing the Ati-Atihan Festival in the
province of Aklan. On 1968, a replica of the original image of the Santo Niño de
Cebu was brought to Iloilo by Fr. Sulpicio Enderez.
"as a gift to the Parish of San Jose. The faithful, led by members of Confradia del Santo
Niño de Cebu, Iloilo Chapter, worked to give the image a fitting reception starting at the
Iloilo Airport and parading down the streets of Iloilo."[5]
In the beginning, the observance of the feast was confined to the parish. The Confradia
patterned the celebration on the Ati-atihan of Ibajay, Aklan, where natives dance in the
streets, their bodies covered with soot and ashes, to simulate the Atis dancing to
celebrate the sale of Panay. It was these tribal groups who were the prototype of the
present festival.[6]

A participant of Dinagyang Festival

In 1977, the Marcos government ordered the various regions of the Philippines to come
up with festivals or celebrations that could boost tourism and development. The City of
Iloilo readily identified the Iloilo Ati-Atihan as its project. At the same time the local
parish could no longer handle the growing challenges of the festival. [7]
Dinagyang was voted as the best tourism event for 2006, 2007 and 2008 by the
Association of Tourism Officers in the Philippines Inc. (ATOP). It is one of few festivals
in the world to get the support of the United Nations for the promotion of the Millennium
Development Goals, and cited by the Asian Development Bank as Best Practice on
government, private sector & NGO cooperatives.[8] Recently, the ATOP once again
declared the 2021 Dinagyang Digital as the Grand Winner of its Pearl Awards.

CHARACTERISTIC

The Dinagyang Festival is a religious and cultural festival in Iloilo City, Philippines,
held annually on the 4th Sunday of January, or right after the Sinulog in Cebu and
the Ati-Atihan Festival in Kalibo, Aklan. It is one of the biggest festivals in the
Philippines, attracting more than a million domestic and international visitors every year.
The festival is the only one in the Philippines that has been awarded by the Association
of Tourism Officers in the Philippines (ATOP) as the best tourism event for three
consecutive years in 2006, 2007, and 2008.[1] It is also the most awarded festival in the
country with both national and international awards because of its legacy, popularity,
and innovation. Recently, it received another back-to-back ATOP's Best Tourism Event
Awards in 2020 and 2021.[2] Dinagyang receives multiple honors and is regarded as the
"Queen of All Philippine Festivals.
COSTUME
HISTORY OF MASKARRA FESTIVAL

The Festival first began in 1980. The province relied on sugar cane as its primary
agricultural crop and the price of sugar was at an all-time low due to the introduction of
sugar substitutes like high fructose corn syrup in the United States. This was the first
MassKara Festival and a time of tragedy; on April 22 of that year, the inter-island
vessel MV Don Juan carrying many Negrenses, including those belonging to prominent
families in Bacolod City, collided with the tanker Tacloban City and sank in Tablas
Strait off Mindoro while en route from Manila to Bacolod, which resulted in 18 lives lost,
and 115 missing.
In the midst of these events, the local government then headed by the late Mayor Jose
"Digoy" Montalvo appropriated a seed fund and enjoined the city's artistic community,
civic and business groups to hold a "festival of smiles", to live up to the City's moniker
as the "City of Smiles". They reasoned that a festival was also a good opportunity to pull
the residents out of the pervasive gloomy atmosphere brought by the Don Juan
Tragedy.[3] The initial festival was held during the City's Charter Day celebration on
October 19, 1980 and was steered by an organizing committee created by City Hall
which was headed by the late councilor Romeo Geocadin and then city tourism
officer Evelio Leonardia. It was a declaration by the people of the city that no matter
how tough and bad the times were, Bacolod City was going to pull through, survive, and
in the end, triumph.
The festival has evolved into one of the major annual tourism attractions of the
Philippines over the next four decades. Held in typical Oktoberfest and Mardi
Gras fashion, the MassKara Festival served as a catalyst for far-reaching growth and
development of the city's tourism, hospitality, culinary, crafts and souvenirs and services
sectors. In later years, the Electric Masskara was added as another attraction of the
Festival. For several nights leading to the highlight weekend, tribes of MassKara
dancers garbed in colorful neon and LED lights on illuminated floats make their way up
and down the Lacson Strip, a one kilometer stretch of merrymaking dotted with band
stages, souvenir stands, exotic car displays and roadside bars and food set-ups put out
by restaurant and hotels along the strip. It is said that beer consumption during the
festival is so high that at one time during the first few stagings of the festival, it bled dry
the Mandaue brewery of San Miguel Corporation on nearby Cebu island. The company
eventually built its Bacolod brewery to serve the city and Negros Island.
The 2019 marks the 40th celebration of the festival, aptly called Ruby Masskara.

CHARACTERISTIC

The MassKara Festival (Hiligaynon: Pista sang MassKara, Filipino: Pista ng

MassKara) is an annual festival with highlights held every 4th Sunday of October [1]
[2]
in Bacolod, Philippines. The most recent festival was held last October 30, 2021 (with
only virtual audience, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic). The festival sites
include the Bacolod Public Plaza, the Lacson Tourism Strip and the Bacolod City
Government Center.
The word "Masskara" is a portmanteau, coined by the late artist Ely Santiago
from mass (a multitude of people), and the Spanish word cara (face), thus
forming MassKara (a multitude of faces). The word is also a pun on maskara, Filipino
for "mask" (itself from Spanish máscara), since it is a prominent feature of the festival
and are always adorned with smiling faces, giving rise to Bacolod being called the "City
of Smiles".
COSTUME
HISTORY OF PEÑAFRANCIA FESTIVAL

What began as a practical expedient during the time of Manuel Grijalvo, Bishop of
Caceres (1848-61), that is to accommodate more devotees and pilgrims, has evolved
into a leitmotif that portends a week of religious enthusiasm and energy.
The traslacion from the Spanish transladar, meaning to translate or to transfer, is the
opening salvo for nine days of prayers. On the afternoon prior to the first day of the
novena the images of the Ina and the Divino Rostro are brought in procession to the
Cathedral. Formerly, these images were kept in the shrine built by Francisco Gainza,
Bishop of Caceres (1862-79), but with the consecration of a new Basilica in 1982 at a
site on the opposite bank where the shrine stands, the traslacion today begins at the
Basilica. The images mounted on andas or palanquins are carried aloft by men
called boyadores. The procession does not move easily but starts and stops, weaves
left and right, as other men push their way closer to take their turn in bearing
the cherished images. Once arrived at the Cathedral, a good hour or so later, the
images are enthroned on altars for the Masses that follow.

For the next eight days, the Cathedral is the center of religious rites. As early as five in
the morning, masses are celebrated, the solemn pontifical masses presided by the
Bishops of Sorsogon, Legaspi, Masbate, Daet, Libmanan and Virac, regions once part
of Caceres but now independent bishoprics. For the Bicolanos, the feast of the
Peñafrancia is an occasion for a reunion.

CHARACTERISTIC

The Penafrancia festival in Bicol honors the miraculous Nuestra Senora de Penafrancia,
also known as Our Lady of Penafrancia or Ina, to her devoted followers.

During the event, devotees take her out of the shrine and carry her in a procession. The
procession takes place along the Naga River every year on the third Sunday of
September.

At this time, Naga resembles a gathering of people who come to the more than 300-
year-old festival. They usually come with the hope of receiving an answer to their
prayer, for healing, or just to express gratitude. Discover more about this holy holiday as
we provide you with all the information you require, including its history, date, and
events you should attend.

September marks the start of the joyful Christmas season for Filipinos. However, for
Bicolanos, it marks a month-long celebration in honor of the province’s patron saint, Our
Lady of Penafrancia.

The Bicolanos and devotees affectionately refer to her as Ina. Her statue currently
resides at Basilica Minore in Naga City. This month of September, people hold a variety
of religious events in her honor. They also recognize her magnificence and the
innumerable favors and miracles she performed for her followers.
COSTUME
HISTORY OF HIGANTES FESTIVAL

More than a century ago, when Angono was still a Spanish hacienda, the hacienda
owners prohibited the townspeople from holding any celebrations. Aside from the costly
preparation, they also wanted to restrict pagan festivities. They allowed only one annual
celebration -- the town fiesta in honor of its patron saint, San Clemente.
The townspeople took advantage of this sole festivity, prepared lots of food, wore
colorful costumes, and held a big procession featuring big paper-mâché caricatures of
their Spanish landlords -- an art form imported from Mexico by Spanish friars. These
multi-colored, humongous, comical and sometimes scary 12-footers were called
"Higantes" or giants.
Before, only two or three higantes were made, representing a "mag-anak" (father,
mother and son/daughter). In 1987, Mr. Perdigon Vocalan suggested that all thirteen
barangay must have two or three higantes, symbolizong the barangay’s industry or
personality. This idea materialized with the help of the Department of Tourism and
Provincial Tourism Office. Since then, the towns folk maintained this practice and
elevated it into an art form. This colorful celebration boasts of around 40 different
higantes representing each barangay and attracting local and foreign tourists.
In olden days, the heads of the higantes were made of paper-mâché. A model of the
head was carved out of clay. Once the clay mold was dry, strips of newspapers would
be glued together, one strip on top of the other. Once the right thickness was achieved,
the paper-mâché would be cut open to separate it from the mold and the hollow head
was glued back together, ready to be painted with the details of the face.
Bamboo strips or yantok were used as the skeleton frame for the body. It would then be
covered with yards of cloth resembling their characters. The head was attached to the
body and a person could go inside and carry the higante around.
In modern times, clay was changed into Plaster of Paris and resin. Tougher material like
fiberglass is applied to the mold instead of paper and thin strips of aluminum are used
for the body frame for durability purposes.

CHARACTERISTIC

Higantes Festival, also known as the Feast of San Clemente, is celebrated every
November 23 in the town of Angono, Rizal. This is a major festival in honor of San
Clemente, the patron saint of fishermen. His image is carried by male devotees during a
procession accompanied by "pahadores" (devotees dressed in colorful local costumes
or fishermen's clothes, wearing wooden shoes and carrying boat paddles, fish nets,
traps, etc.) and "higantes" (paper-mâché giants measuring 10-12 feet in height and 4-5
feet in diameter). This street event ends in a procession to Laguna de Bay until the
image is brought back to its sanctuary.
COSTUME
HISTORY OF PANAGBENGA

Panagbenga Festival (Ilocano pronunciation: [pɐnɐgˈbɯŋaˈ]) (transl. Flower Festival)

is a month-long annual flower occasion in Baguio. The term is of Kankanaey origin,
meaning "season of blooming".[1] The festival, held in February, was created as a tribute
to the city's flowers and as a way to rise from the devastation of the 1990 Luzon
earthquake.[2] The festival includes floats that are covered mostly with flowers, not unlike
those used in Pasadena's Rose Parade. The festival also includes street dancing,
presented by dancers clad in flower-inspired costumes, that is inspired by the Bendian,
an Ibaloi dance of celebration that came from the Cordilleras.
The Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), in collaboration with he John
Hay Poro Point Development Corporation's (JPDC) [3] annual Camp John Hay Art
Contest, gave its official logo from one of the entries: a spray of indigenous sunflowers
from an artwork submitted by Trisha Tabangin, a student of the Baguio City National
High School. The festival was set in February to boost tourism as it was considered as a
time of inactivity between the busy days of Christmas season and the Holy Week and
the summer season.[4]
In 1996, archivist and curator Ike Picpican suggested that the festival be renamed
Panagbenga, a Kankanaey term that means "a season of blossoming, a time for
flowering".
In February 2020, the festival was initially postponed due to the threat of COVID-19, it
was later then canceled in March 2020.[5][6]
The festival was later cancelled again in 2021, citing the severity of the Pandemic in the
city. The funds on both cancelled events were diverted to the health situation.
On March 6, 2022, the festival returned after the last 2 years of cancellation due
to COVID-19 pandemic, but with limited events due to the ongoing crisis, and the events
were exclusively funded by private companies and organisation donors, as government
funds was diverted towards COVID health situation. [7][8]
The event resumed in full in 2023, restored all events, including the crowd generating
events liek botht he street dancing and float parades.

CHARACTERISTIC

Panagbenga Festival is a cultural, flower, and environmental festival held in Baguio City
in Benguet, Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines beginning in the first of
February every year. The only festival in the city, its calendar of activities lasts over a
month and likewise celebrates indigenous people in Cordillera. It is singularly marked
with colorful grand floral float and street parades. The festivities attract over 1.5 million
visitors annually.
Panagbenga dance is performed to the tune of the official hymn created by Macario
Fronda from Saint Louis University. Its movements reflect the celebration practices
called Bendian dance of the ethnic Ibaloi group.
COSTUME
HISTORY OF BANGUS FESTIVAL

Bangus Festival comes from the word bangus, the local name for milkfish (scientific
name chanos chanos). It can be raised in salt, fresh, or brackish water and available to
either fresh or frozen. It is prepared in various ways such as smoked, fried, filleted or
dried.
Bangus is considered one of the most cultivated fishes that can be found in all regions
in the country except for Cordillera Administrative Region, placing the Philippines
second place in terms of its production. Milkfish is also popularly considered the
Philippines’ national fish, although there is no legislation that officially declared such
statement according to National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

The province of Pangasinan is dotted with aquaculture ponds that cultivate the fish and
produces over 27% of the country’s supply annually.

In Dagupan City, Bangus Festival was started by then mayor Benjamin Lim in 2002. It
was established as the city’s annual festival and as a celebration of its production
of bangus. It is renowned for tasty quality that is said to be brought about by its waters
and the presence of algae called lablab that grows in the bed of the ponds.
The timing of the festival coincides with Pangasinan’s Pistay Dayat that happens every
first of May. On the other hand, the town of Dumangas in Iloilo also
celebrates bangus in their Haw-as Festival.
On May 3, 2003, organizers were successful in their bid to break the Guinness World
Record of the longest barbecue grill. They failed in their first attempt the previous year
in breaking the record then held by Peru of 613 meters with 536 grills. They achieved
the feat by extending the grill line up to 1,0007.56 meters. Their record was later broken
by the town of Bayombong, also in Pangasinan.

Bangus Festival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to coronavirus pandemic.

CHARACTERISTIC

The festival commences with the lighting of 1,000 barbecue grills lined up to cook
thousands of bangus, which stretches up to two kilometers. This also serves as a
competition for hundreds of cooks, whose dishes are judged not only by the grilling but
also their taste and the creativity with which they are served. The contest was
eventually called “'101 Ways to Cook Bangus” and won for the city a recognition in the
Guinness Book of World Records for the longest barbecue in 2003.
Aside from the grilling challenge, the festivity showcases a bangus eating contest, a
search for the biggest and heaviest bangus, the Gilon-Gilon dancing festival, the Pigar-
Pigar festival, the Halo-Halo festival, and the Bangusan street party, where several local
and Manila-based bands perform along Jose R. De Venecia Expressway Extension.
COSTUME
HISTORY OF T’NALAK FESTIVAL

T'nalak weaving is part of the intangible cultural heritage of the Tboli people,[1] an
indigenous people group in the Philippines whose ancestral domain is in the province
of South Cotabato, on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.[5]
The production of the cloth is particularly associated with the shores of Lake Sebu,
which is in the municipality of the same name as the lake.
Dreamt designs from Fu Dalu
The weaving of traditional T'nalak cloth begins when a T'boli woman has a damgo
(dream)[1] in which they encounter Fu Dalu, the T'boli Goddess of abacá[2] and guardian
of the T’nalak.[1] During these dreams, Fu Dalu shows the woman the designs that
would eventually be woven into the cloth.
The dyeing and weaving processes are approached with extra care because the T'boli
believe that Fu Dalo comes to inhabit each individual yarn. [1]
Selection, stripping
The broader community, including the T'boli men, participate in the production of cloth
during the abaca fiber selection and stripping process. [2] The fibers are taken from the
stalk of the abacá (Musa textilis),[1] a banana plant species native to the Philippines. The
fibers, which are very thin, are carefully stripped from the stalk with the use of a
mounted blade, and then sun-dried.[1][2]
Ikat dyeing
The fibers are then sun-dried, and then dyed using the indigenous dye-resist technique
called "ikat." Sections of the abaca thread are coated by the weaver with a wax-
resistant substance so that they will resist the dye. The process is repeated several
times in order to suit the requirements of the design. [1]
Weaving process
The weaver then implements the design on a backstrap loom, a process that can take
up to two months, depending on the design revealed in the dream. [1][2]
Offerings, such as woven blouses and jewelry, are traditionally left in the weaving area
as tribute to Fu Dalo.

CHARACTERISTIC

This traditional cloth is hand-woven from carefully selected, stripped, and sun-
dried Abaca fibers.[1] The colorant of the materials are natural dyes produced by boiling
the bark, roots and leaves of plants.
Unlike many of the colorful cloth patterns in Mindanao, T'nalak is distinctive in using
only three different colors - black, white, and red. [1] Black serves as the background
color, and is the dominant color of the cloth, while white is used to create different
motifs. Red is typically used to accentuate the patterns. [1] Common motifs include the
human, the crab, the shield, the lizard, and the traditional frog.
COSTUME
HISTORY OF MORIONES FESTIVAL

In Valencia, Spain there is a similar celebration called Festival de Moros y Cristianos

(Moors and Christians Festival). It is almost certain that the word Moriones was derived
from Moros. Another possible derivation is from the Spanish word "murió" (root
verb:morir) meaning "(3rd person singular) died". The origin of the festival is traced to
Mogpog and the year 1887 when Dionisio Santiago, the parish priest of said town,
organized it for the first time
The term Moriones was concocted by the media in the 1960s, but local inhabitants have
kept the original term as Moryonan. Many practitioners are farmers and fishermen that
engage in this age-old tradition as a vow of penance or thanksgiving. Legend has it that
Longinus pierced the side of the crucified Christ. The blood that spurted forth touched
his blind eye and fully restored his sight. This miracle converted Longinus to Christianity
and earned the ire of his fellow centurions. The re-enactment reaches its climax when
Longinus is caught and beheaded
The Moriones refers to the masked and costumed penitents who march around the
town for seven days searching for Longinus. Morions roam the streets in town from Holy
Monday to Easter Sunday scaring the kids, or engaging in antics or surprises to draw
attention. This is a folk-religious festival that re-enacts the story of Saint Longinus, a
Roman centurion who was blind in one eye. The festival is characterized by colorful
Roman costumes, painted masks and helmets, and brightly colored tunics. The towns of
Boac, Gasan, Santa Cruz, Buenavista and Mogpog in the island of Marinduque become
one gigantic stage. The observances form part of the Lenten celebrations
of Marinduque.

CHARACTERISTIC

The Moriones is a lenten festival held annually on Holy Week on the island
of Marinduque, Philippines. The "Moriones" are men and women
in costumes and masks replicating the garb of biblical Imperial Roman soldiers as
interpreted by locals. The Moriones tradition has inspired the creation of other festivals
in the Philippines where cultural practices is turned into street festivals. [1]
It is a colorful festival celebrated on the island of Marinduque in the Philippines. The
participants use morion masks to depict the Roman soldiers and Syrian mercenaries
within the story of the Passion of the Christ. The mask was named after the 16th and
17th century Morion helmet.
The various towns also hold the unique tradition of the pabasa or the recitation of
Christ's passion in verse.[3] Then at three o'clock on Good Friday afternoon, the Santo
Sepulcro is observed, whereby old women exchange verses based on the Bible as they
stand in wake of the dead Christ. One of the highlights of this festival is the Via Crucis.
A re-enactment of the suffering of Christ on his way to the calvary. Men inflict suffering
upon themselves by whipping their backs, carrying a wooden cross and sometimes
even crucifixion. They see this act as their form of atonement for their sins. This
weeklong celebration starts on Holy Monday and ends on Easter Sunday.
COSTUME