Philippine Festivals

The Kapampangan locals or natives call this festival “Ligligan Parul” which is an annual festival that is being held during the Saturday before Christmas in December. This is a century-old festival in the Philippines that started in the year 1904 but the old locals believed and as far as they can recall, that the event was inaugurated in 1904 but it was initialized or instantiated during the later years of 1908. The festival celebrates the Christmas spirit by making different large and giant lanterns designed with different colours and lights. During the event period, you’d see the City sparkling with rainbow colours during the night. It may seem just like any other festivals in the country that has lanterns and Christmas lights during the season but before all of that became a Christmas trend, it was actually a religious activity called the Lubenas or what we usually know as Novena.

Back in the days, the lanterns local people used were just about 2 feet in diameter. But as the annual festival takes place every year, improvements are being made and it gets getting larger and larger with more lighting. In fact, there are now rotors on these lanterns to allow lantern movements as well as optimize the lighting effects. Today, the lanterns being used do not measure below 15 feet in diameter. That’s 5 times larger than the original size and up to this date, there are people who want to perfect and create a much larger lantern to continue breaking the record. People during this time or event take every resource they have to win the lantern competition which is being put to contest during the main event date of the festival. There are some who use recyclable materials from their previous designs and some just want to create a new and better model from new parts ordered and made. Some don’t even care about expenses where winning cash prizes wouldn’t even come close to all their expenditures. There are some participants who just aim for the glory and fame as well as bragging rights of being the winner of the annual lantern festival. However, back in the days, Giant Lantern Festival isn’t that bright and vibrant at all. There was no electricity during the early years of the event as electricity was introduced to San Fernando, Pampanga around the year 1931.

The Buglasan Festival is Negros Oriental’s movable provincial fiesta, participated in by the Province’s six component cities and 19 municipalities. “Buglasan” is derived from buglas, the tall, napier-like reeds which once covered the entire island of Negros. Natives and residents of the neighboring islands are said to have called the place Buglas. The highlight event is the Buglasan Festival of Festivals, which gathers the finest performing contingents of Negros Oriental’s established and emerging festivals