The festival focuses on the town’s most treasured trees called Hambabalud located in a beautiful forest with cool waters and colorful flowers that bloom and was believed to be the realm of the enchanted guardian of the trees, the mountain nymph they called, Diwata. The Hambabalud tree has becom the symbol of God’s natural gift to the inhabitants, a part and parcel of the lives of the Jimalaludnons which they celebrate in the festival.
Langob Festival (Municipality of Mabinay) - 25th of January
Mabinay, an elevated interior municipality in the north, is also known as “Cave Town”, referring to more than a hundred caves beneath the town. The festival promotes these unique caves as tourism lures. Field presentation and street dancing components reflect geographic features of the caves and the creatures of fact and legend that inhabit it.
Tawo-tawo Festival (Bayawan City) - 18th of February
Street dancing and showdown competitions the day before the fiesta. They celebrate the scarecrows (tawo-tawo) through paper mache higantes as guardians of the town’s crops.
A combined word of “Pasalamat Pinaagi sa Sayaw” (a thanksgiving through dance). This Pasayaw expresses the joys and jubilations in praise and thanksgiving to the Almighty God through the intercession of St. Joseph. The “Pasayaw Street Dancing & Parade” is participated in by 12 contingents from the 12 barangays.
Yag-yag Festival (Cangmating, Sibulan) - last weekend of April
Yagyag is the vernacular for spawning. The process refers in particular to the crabs and other marine creatures which gather during the months of October to December in Sapa, one of two springs found in Barangay Cangmating of Sibulan. The creatures lay and float their eggs during high tide, to mature in the swamps. In the coming months, people from the neighboring barrios from Agan-an to Maningcao would come in groups for nature’s marine bounty which are harvested for food and as materials for crafts. This is also an occasion for trading and barter, and celebration. The festival is a showcase of local arts and culture, fashion and unity. It features a mardi gras-type street dancing and related events.
A colorful and lively mardi gras festival participated in by the different barangays, local and national offices in a choreographed street dancing. Magnificent floats and spectacular head dresses can also be viewed during this event. This biggest annual merry making marks the Charter Day celebration of Bais City.
Buglasan Festival (Oriental Negros) - month of December
The time when established festivals in Negros Oriental gathered for a show down and street dancing to highlight the week-long fiesta. Various events lined up were trade fairs, nightly cultural shows, kumbira or food festival and a lot more.
Sandurot Festival (Dumaguete City) - Movable, 2nd week of November
Derived from the Visayan “pakig-sandurot” for the offering and enjoyment of hospitality. Begins with a beach ceremony welcoming the various cultural stains that enriched the city’s character. Street dancing follows.
Kinaiyahan Festival (Municipality of Dauin) - 10th of September
Celebrating the bounties of nature and underscoring Dauin’s campaign to conserve its natural resources and attractions. Street dancing and field presentations by all the clustered barangays of the municipality.
Guihulugan Festival (Municipality of Guihulngan) - 25th of May
'Guihulugan' relates a gruesome time in the 19th century when moro pirates regularly sacked the town and captured, beheaded and flung men, women and children into the sea. The depradators learned that a bell was used by sentinels to warn the villagers when danger approached. They took the bell down and threw it into the sea as well, thus, in reference to a place where a thing or things were dropped, Guihulugan.
Ayuquitan Festival (Municipality of San Jose) - 10th of May
Oral tradition has it that a group of conquistadores came to a barrio of Amlan where natives were resting near a pile of husks and chaff, the inokitan, left-overs of rice-loving mayas. When they inquired what the name of the barrio was, the natives thought the strangers were pointing at the left-overs, and so replied, “inokitan.” The Spaniards thereafter referred to the place as Oquitan, to which the natives prefixed the more positive Maayo, hence, Ayuquitan. The town would remain so until it was formally separated from Amlan and established as the independent municipality of San Jose.
Kapaw Festival (Municipality of Basay) - 18th of March
The town’s festival transpires deep in the heart of the Visayas, in a sleepy fishing town, and deep in the waters fringing its coast. Day breaks, the village fishermen sail out hopeful of a good catch. In the fishing grounds, they chance upon a duot, the extraordinary press of huge schools of fish of all sizes and colors. Their expedition is blessed with an overflowing harvest, a kapaw, creating another opportunity for merrymaking, celebrating the proper co-existence with nature.
Baolan Festival (Municipality of Zamboanguita) - 15th of May
The 'Baolan' is the ancestral heritage of the townspeople of Zamboanguita, who consider the baol their source of sustenance, and therefore the staple of their existence, the primordial symbol of their life. As a highlight of their annual fiesta, a festival was organized for the townsfolk to thank the Almighty for His goodness that nurtures the farms and the communities. It is a spirited collaboration of the people to celebrate in farming and dancing.
Masulog Festival (Municipality of Sibulan) - 13th of June
A people, a culture, a place. A place where people enjoyed life’s greatest gift – nature. Water, food, fresh air, such boundless sustenance. In times of hunger and misery, the place became a refuge. But as time passed by, more and more people came, and greed overcame them, and they plundered the land, felled trees, misused the gift. The gods became angry and sent great floods, and the strong currents, the sulog, took everything away. The villagers mourned their ravaged landscape and offered what they could in the hope of appeasing the gods and regaining what was lost. Their offering was rejected. Another great sulog came and left behind a barren land. The people suffered until a merchant from anther village came, bringing what seemed to be their only hope – the image of the Señor Santo Niño. And indeed, the land blossomed and once more bore crops, and prosperity returned. In thanksgiving, the people celebrate each year the Holy Child’s blessings that brought back the life and abundance of their home town.
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