Celebrating Fiestas The Filipino Way

As a full-pledge Filipino, it is in our bloodline to celebrate events and important dates for us and our loved ones. We find every excuse to bring out the bilaos and kawas, cook pancit and our well-known sweet Filipino spaghetti with hotdogs. No one else likes to party as much as Filipinos and it is very evident with how we celebrate birthdays, binyags, and salu-salos, even with a simple food spread such as palabok, puto, and kaldereta, Filipinos will very much enjoy every bite of it.

The celebrations of our fiestas differ from dates, patron saints, and how devotees celebrate them. One of the most awaited fiestas in the Philippines is the San Juan Festival, where devotees, locals or not, join in on basaan. Basaan is the part of the festival where people will splash everyone— kids, adults, students, employees, with water from tabo at timba. The local government usually supplies the devotees with fire trucks full of water to get everyone equally dripping wet. San Juan Festival is celebrated every 24th of June, every year.

Filipinos also celebrate the Fertility Rites of Obando where people gather after the morning mass for a procession wherein devotees dance fandango, a lively couples dance from Spain while singing the fiesta’s hymn. Obando Fertility Rites are believed to bring good fortune to those who attend the festivities, especially those who are trying to have a child or bearing a child.  The fiesta is observed within three different days: 17th of May for St. Paschal Baylon, 18th of May for St. Clare of Assisi, and 19th of May for Our Lady of Salambáo.

With a plethora of fiestas in the Philippines, there is one thing in common with them. Almost everyone welcomes people— from neighbors to dayo, Filipinos celebrate their festivities with everyone they can invite with open arms.

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