Festival of champs

FROM a distance, it should be an explosion of dancing colors throbbing in dizzying choreography. In fact, intricate stomping, booming beats and off-beats, indigenous music, rituals complete with chants and a dose of culture greet thousands of Sandugo 2006 revelers as dancers spill into city streets by 9:30 a.m. in this year's Sandugo's Festival of Champs. A showcase of performers in the most creative, artistic and colorful attires mime dance rituals to the boom and clang usher homecoming Boholanos and guests in Bohol 's mother of festivals.

The Sandugo season is a five-month-long festival commemorating the friendship blood compact. For this, Tagbilaran earns the name as the City of Friendship. Recorded as the first international treaty of friendship between Spanish conqueror Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and local chieftain Si Katuna in 1565, the yearly commemoration transforms Bohol into a “semi-Caribbean” island. Yes, other than its trademark beat, it also has a calypso, courtesy of visiting dancer-performers and guests. Touted to sink an inch every Sandugo season, Bohol becomes a virtual fiesta island in July, the 5-momth festival cap. Sandugo also highlights trade and agri-fairs, product showcases, investment fora and business matching, techno-cascading, reunions and gatherings, concerts, beauty pageants and cultural events to fully sate the gig-starved balikbayan. If they are not dancing with the hip beat, balikbayans today get the front seat. They also get the chance to re-experience the beat of life in the Philippines , courtesy of festival victors all over the country, Bohol Sandugo Foundation (BSFI) Executive Director Loreto Palapos said over the weekly Kapihan sa PIA.

SHOWDOWN OF CHAMPIONS

The Street Dancing Champions of festivals' Basakanon ( Cebu City ), Hambabalud (Jimalalud, Oriental Negros), Masskara ( Bacolod City ), Dinagyang ( Iloilo City ), Ati-atihan (Kalibo, Aklan), Sinanduloy ( Tangub City ) are here today to perform in the Sandugo Festival's “Showdown of Champions”. It was City Mayor Dan Neri Lim's brainchild idea of inviting the champions of neighboring islands. Mayor Lim is the current Bohol Sandugo Foundation Incorporated Chairman this year. Considering the heavy influx of balikbayan joining the Tigum Bol-anon Tibuok Kalibutan (TBTK), “this provides them and all spectators a rare privilege of witnessing the best of Visayan festivals in one sitting,” reasons the BSFI Chairman. Towering rendition is to be expected with these elite performers, based on their credentials. Performing Masskara festival has conquered international scene after coveting the Grand Prize-Foreign Category and 2nd Prize-Local Category during Midosuji Parade in Osaka , Japan last October 2005. They were pitted against countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Masskara has also performed during Shingay Festival in Singapore (1998), the Lunar Festival in HongKong (2001), and Shanghai Tourism Festival in Shanghai , China (2004). This year's festival winner promises to be of the same caliber. Top notching in Sinulog-based category during the Sinulog Festival last January 2006 makes Tangub City 's Sinanduloy the most-sought after performers set to have a Joint Cultural Production in San Carlos University in August this year. In earlier vintage, however, it has performed during the Visit of Australian Ambassador in Misamis Occidental (May 2006), Pagsalabok Festival in Dipolog, Zamboanga Del Norte (May 2006), Visit of Head of European Union Delegation (June 2006), and Pasundayagay sa Region 10 in Osamis City ( July 1, 2006 )

One-million peso richer Basakanon of Cebu City, after winning the Manila Broadcasting Corporation-sponsored Aliwan Fiesta in Pasay City this year, is also a performance to look forward to. It champed the Sinulog two years in a row (2004-2005) while placed second in Street Dancing Category and grabbed Best in Costume this year. Iloilo 's Dinagyang has continually gained national limelight. It placed second in the Aliwan Fiesta at Pasay City this year. It was also the invited guest performers during the Bangus Festival in Dagupan City (April 2006), Pataraday Festival in Santiago (May 2006) and Independence Day in Quirino Grandstand (June 2006). The Jimalalud is the champion in the festival of festivals, Buglasan of Oriental Negros last year. It also clutched the Best in Street Dancing Award in the same competition. Branded as the “Mother of all Philippine Festivals”, the Ati-atihan festival of Kalibo, Aklan has also marveled crowd during the WOW Philippines Opening at Intramuros, Manila (2004) and Aliwan Fiesta at Roxas Boulevard (2004). Another Cebu based-dancing contingent, current Mantawe Festival (Mandaue) ritual and streetdancing winner is also expected to draw audience admiration as it had for the past few years that the festival became institutionalized in Mandaue City in Cebu. BSFI subsidizes the participation of these guests. Two “Hall of Famers” of Sandugo Street Dancing Competition will serve as “Showdown of Champions” local counterparts. Dr. Cecilio Putong National High School (formerly Bohol National High School ) champed three years in a row (1991 to 1993) and Municipality of Panglao which champed for five years, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2003 comprise Bohol Sandugo contingents.

BIGGEST EVER

Sandugo street -dancing parade boasts this year of 52 groups, contingents, establishments, decorated floats and establishments, said BSFI. More than that, this year's festival dancers take a longer route of about 4 kilometers along city's major thoroughfares for a parade that commences at the Tagbilaran City Integrated Bus Terminal to the Carlos P. Garcia Complex, said city traffic consultant and retired police traffic czar Jesus Acullador. Then, the parade starts at the Plaza Rizal to the CPG Sports complex, a mere kilometer long route. The parade mostly participated in by contingents fielded by Tagbilaran City Schools Division will have elementary, high school and college dancers and instrumentalists, festival champion contingents with at least a hundred performers, propsmen, floats fielded in by establishments, Bohol associations abroad, homecoming groups, clans and other organizations. That is also expected to spill thousands into city streets which need a mammoth crowd control team, said City Police Chief Jacinto Cesar. With that, he has to use complimentary help from army reservists and socio-civic volunteers. In the past years, as the street-dancers flow into the streets, onlookers and revelers line up along the parade route to get a glimpse of the champions who could otherwise be only seen performing in their native places. Souvenir shops, drinking stations, tattoo and body painters are also expected to put up booths along the way to lend a mardigras ambiance to the celebration. City Mayor Dan Neri Lim, this year's Sandugo Chairman said he has allowed the release of at least a million pesos to coordinate the Sandugo activities including a massive production and reenactment drama of the blood-compact that happened more than 300 years ago in an unnamed shore in Bohol. With the festival, organizers hope that the friendship pact sealed in blood would also bond not just Boholanos as brothers but the whole nation and the whole humanity as well.

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