The Sinulog Festival is Cebu City’s grand feast in honour of the Santo Niño de Cebú, held every January and climaxing on the third Sunday of the month. Its name comes from sulog — the movement of water currents — echoed in the sinulog dance: two steps forward, one step back, candles in hand, prayed to the beat of drums. Devotion to the Santo Niño in Cebu reaches back to the 16th century, and Sinulog is where that devotion fills the streets.
Across the festival week, three events define Sinulog for a photographer: the Solemn Foot Procession on Saturday, when a sea of devotees walks the image of the Santo Niño through the city; the fluvial procession on the Mactan Channel; and the Grand Parade on Sunday, where contingents from Cebu and neighbouring provinces compete in street dancing, and the Festival Queen leads each tribe in honour of the Child Jesus.
Sinulog in photos, 2010–2020
This gallery gathers a decade of my Sinulog coverage — the 2010 grand parade, fluvial parade and festival queen; the solemn procession and grand parade of 2014; and the Sinulog 2020 weekend, from the solemn foot procession to Magellan’s Cross beside the Basilica. Click any photo to open the original post.
Sinulog shares the January Santo Niño season with Iloilo’s Dinagyang Festival — photographing both, a week apart, is a pilgrimage in itself.