ILOILO -- Dinagyang Festival in Iloilo is an important function in Philippines’ events calendar when famous lines “Hala Bira!”, “Pit Señor!” and “Viva Santo Niño!” echo throughout the Visayas Region. It’s marked on the fourth Sunday of January yearly, right after Sinulog.
The festival is held to show reverence of Santo Nino as well as to mark the onset of the arrival of Malay immigrants. Festivals dedicated to the devotion of the Sto. Nino are held around the islands – Sinulog in Cebu, Ati-atihan in Aklan, and Dinagyang in Iloilo.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Dinagyang. This Iloilo festival commemorates the arrival of the holy statue of the Sto. Nino on Panay shores from Cebu. Throughout the week leading to the Dinagyang festival weekend, the city of Iloilo comes alive with fireworks, food festivals and other events to generate excitement.
In a trip organized by AirAsia Philippines, select media and bloggers got to experience the Dinagyang, which kicked off last January 27 with the Kasadyahan Festival in the morning and the first-ever Parade of Lights in the evening.
The Kasadyahan Festival is a dance competition with contestants from all over the Panay region using the using the entire Iloilo City business district as their stage. Whole companies of competing teams walk around five judging stations set up on street corners and dance their hearts out to different panels of judges and different audiences on makeshift grandstands. The props, the sets, and the cast take up three to four city blocks each as they move towards the next stage.
The dance numbers rival major theater productions complete with a cast of hundreds, dazzling choreography, colorful costumes, and scene changes. The theater saying “It takes a village to stage a play” is very applicable here as the groups bring their own sets, technical staff and equipment, logistical support, and sponsors.
Watching the Kasadyahan routines can be an overwhelming experience to a first timer. The performances are a feast for the eyes and ears. A multitude of colors sway to a cacophony of drum, bass, and woodwinds that just seem to increase in intensity as the acts progress telling their own regional story and end with the audience clamoring for more.
Later that evening, the first-ever Dinagyang “Parade Of Lights” was held on the streets of Iloilo City. This saw Iloilo’s main highway alive with lights as companies who came out to play with their own unique floats.
From cars and SUVs decorated with streamers and lights and massive trucks with a jungle on them, to a plane and a Game of Thrones-esque castle complete with dragon, spectators who lined the 4-kilometer route from the back of the University of the Philippines' Iloilo campus to the new judging area in front of Casa de Emperador in the heart of the new Megaworld IT Park.
Awards for both competitions were given during the concluding ceremonies of the Dinagyang Festival on Sunday evening. M. Lhuillier Financial services won a trophy and P250,000 as grand winner of the Parade of Lights.
Minor awards for Best Musical Director, Best Headdress, Best Street Dancing, and Best Choreographer were given out for the Kasadyahan competitions.
The 2017 Kasadyahan champion Hubon Binagtong sa Manggahan of Guimaras took the grand prize again this 2018 along with a trophy and P250,000.
