3156 PHILIPPINES (National Capital Region) - Feast of the Black Nazarene

The Black Nazarene is a life-sized image of a dark-skinned, kneeling Jesus Christ carrying the Cross enshrined in the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in the Quiapo district of the City of Manila. It was carved by a unknown Mexican from a dark wood in the 16th century, and arrived in Manila via galleon from Acapulco, on May 31, 1606. It depicts Jesus en route to his crucifixion, and was housed in several churches near Manila in the early decades, arriving in Quiapo Church in 1787 where it has been enshrined ever since.

2212 PHILIPPINES (CALABARZON) - Maglalatik

 

The Maglalatik is a dance from the Philippines in which coconut shell halves are secured onto the dancers' hands and on vests upon which are hung four or six more coconut shell halves. The dancers, all male, perform the dance by hitting one coconut shell with the other, and sometimes the shells worn by another performer, all in time to a fast drumbeat. The name comes from the latik, which means "fried coconut milk curd", a coconut product that is used in Filipino cooking, particularly in snacks.

2065 PHILIPPINES (Western Visayas) - Dinagyang Festival

The Dinagyang is a religious and cultural festival in Iloilo City, on Panay island, which takes place on the fourth Sunday of January, or right after the Sinulog in Cebu and the Ati-Atihan Festival in Kalibo. It is held both to honor the Santo Niño and to celebrate the arrival on Panay of Malay settlers and the selling of the island to them. It isn't as ancient as the one in Kalibo, but is definitely impressive in choreography and striking in terms of the attires worn by participating tribes.

1762 PHILIPPINES (Southwestern Tagalog Region) - Pandanggo sa Ilaw dance

Pandanggo dance evolved from Fandango, a Spanish folk dance, which arrived in the Philippines during the Hispanic period. This dance, together with the Jota, became popular among the illustrados or the upper class and later adapted among the local communities. In the early 18th century, any dance that is considered jovial and lively was called Pandanggo. Ultimately, it has become popular also in the rural areas. There are many versions of this dance and each locality has its own version, but there is one thing in common between different versions: they have gay and sprightly figures.

1731 PHILIPPINES (Cordillera Administrative Region) - Balangbang Dance of Kankanaey people

The Kankanaey live in western Mountain Province, northern Benguet and southeastern Ilocos Sur, and are part of the Filipino indigenous group known as the Igorot people. They are one of the larger tribes the region, and, like most Igorot ethnic groups, built sloping terraces to maximize farm space in the rugged terrain of the Cordillera. Therefore, most of their income comes from tilling the fields, but they are also into mining since the territory yields lots of minerals, particularly gold. Hunting is also practiced by the people with the use of spears and dogs, while fishing is done with the use of bamboo traps. The women are said to be the best weavers in Benguet province.

1249 PHILIPPINES (CALABARZON) - Kumintang

The kumintang is the name given to several distinct styles, techniques and forms in music and dance, probably originating in the areas used by early Spanish chronicles to denote a province centering around what is known as Batangas, on the southwestern part of Luzon. Early 19th-century travelers' accounts often mention the kumintang as a Tagalog "chant national", describing them as dance-songs performed by pairs of men and women, with texts concerning love and courtship. All accounts mention a glass of coconut wine passed from hand to hand by the dancers as they sing. Jean Baptiste Mallat describes it as a pantomimic dance where the man runs around and gestures to a woman, and finally pretends illness to get the woman's full attention. In the 20th century, Francisca Reyes-Aquino dubbed as kumintang the circular hand and wrist movement also known as the kunday. Among present-day afficinados of musical and dance events called awitan and pandangguhan in and around the city of Batangas, kumintang also refers to a guitar-plucking style, considered the most melodious and beautiful of all guitar styles accompanying the old kinanluran style of pandangguhan dance songs.

0942 PHILIPPINES (Northern Mindanao) - A Talaandig solemn ritual

 

Mindanao is the most culturally diverse island in the Philippines where people of different languages, tribes and races meet. The native Maguindanaon, Moro or Lumad groups have a culture that is different from the main culture of the Philippines. There are 17 ethnolinguistic groups Lumad (shortening for Katawhang Lumad, which in Cebuano literally means "indigenous peoples"), which at the beginning of the 20th century controlled an area covering now 17 of Mindanao’s 24 provinces, but by the 1980 census they constituted less than 6% of the population of Mindanao and Sulu. Katawhang Lumad are the un-Islamized and un-Christianized Austronesian peoples of Mindanao (about 20 general hilltribes). One of this tribes is the Talaandig, estimated to comprise about 100,000 people or more, who live in the province of Bukidnon, around the mountain of Kitanglad, their sacred "temple" and ancestral home. They have continued to preserve and promote its customs, beliefs and practices, despite the strong influx of modernization.

0847 PHILIPPINES (Cordillera Administrative Region) - An Ifugao dance

Ifugao is a landlocked province in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon, covering a mountainous region characterized by rugged terrain, river valleys, and massive forests, and is famous for its rice terraces (about which I wrote here), included among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1995. The terraces were constructed by the ancestors of the Ifugao people (people of the hill), who still live and work as in the past. They are named Igorot (mountain people) by non-Cordilleran, and are different from other tribes in the area in culture, tradition, language, and idealism. In the past they were feared head-hunters, just as other tribes in these mountainous regions. Igorots may be divided into two subgroups, who prior to Spanish colonisation didn't considered themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group: one who lives in the south, central and western areas (adept at rice-terrace farming), and one who lives in the east and north. They may be further subdivided into five ethnolinguistic groups: the Bontoc, Ibaloi, Isnag (or Isneg/Apayao), Kalinga, and the Kankanaey.

0170 PHILIPPINES (Central Visayas) - Sinulog Festival

As I said here, the spaniards left to Filipinos the name and Christianity. If the name not undergone any change, the Christianity (more precisely Roman Catholicism), essentially the same as anywhere else of course, dressed forms of manifestation adapted to the local specific. Among these manifestations are traditional festivities, known as barrio fiestas (district festivals), which commemorates the feast days of patron saints, but also the pagan origin of the inhabitants. The Moriones Festival and Sinulog Festival are the most well-known. The second of these festivals, that honors the Santo Niño (the child Jesus - the patron saint of the province of Cebu), is held on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City and lasts nine days.