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Sinulog is a dance ritual in honor of the miraculous
image of the Santo Niño. The dance is performed to seek
help from the Santo Niño and to thank Him for favors and
blessings received.
The word Sinulog is a Visayan term to the local dance
that follows the rhythm of the river flow (Sulog). It
has come down in history as the enduring native
expression of prayer bridging the pagan years and
Christian era today.
Sinulog was already danced by the natives in honor of
their wooden idols and anitos when Portugese navigators
came to Cebu on April 7, 1521 to plant the cross on its
shore and claim the country for the King of Spain. When
Magellan came to introduce Christianity, he gave the
Santo Niño as baptismal gift to Queen Juana, wife of
Rajah Humabon. Shortly thereafter Magellan was killed in
the battle of Mactan. It took 44 years before a new
group came and started the formal Christianization of
the islands. Miguel Lopez de Legaspi arrived in Cebu on
April 28, 1565. Historians say that in between years of
the coming of Magellan and Legaspi, the natives
continued to dance the Sinulog. By this time, they
danced not to worship their native idols but to signify
their reverence to the Santo Niño, now enshrined at the
San Agustin Church (renamed Basilica Minore del Santo
Niño). |
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Through the years since 1521, the dance was a small
ritual danced by a few in front of the Santo Niño. Only
the candle vendors could be seen dancing the Sinulog and
making offering. It was not until 1980 when the then
Director of the Ministry of Sports and Youth
Development, David S. Odilao Jr., organized the first
ever Sinulog parade. It was just a small parade which
went just around the Basilica which caught the attention
of the city government and the rest as we say is history
which made Sinulog the country's biggest spectacle.
The celebration traditionally lasts for nine days,
culminating on the ninth day when the Sinulog Grand
Parade unfolds. The day before the parade, the Fluvial
Procession, a water-parade, held at dawn from the
Mandaue City wharf to Cebu City wharf with the Santo
Niño carried on a pump boat decked with hundreds of
flowers and candles. The procession ends at the Basilica
where a re-enactment of the Christianizing of Cebu
follows. In the afternoon, a more solemn procession
takes place along the major streets of the city, which
last for hours due to large crowd participating in the
religious event.
On the feast day, at the Basilica, a Pontifical Mass is
celebrated by the Cardinal with the assistance of
several bishops of Cebu. The majority of the city’s
population and devotees would flock to the Basilica to
attend the mass before heading out to the streets to
watch the Parade. |
