Cebu City, Philippines – Today, literally millions will be flocking the city streets of Cebu, the Oldest City in the Philippines, for the grandest festivities this nation of people has known.
Sinulog as the locale would have coined, is a mardi gras that culminates the week-long celebration of the Senyor Sto. Nino (Holy Child Jesus). Politically, this street parade started out in the early 1980′s during the incumbency of then Mayor Florentino Solon. Its glaring success of cultural revitalization and increase influx of commerce during this particular season of the year contributed much to the perpetuation and consolidation of this event. In fact, it may have grown to become institutionalized and engrained in the psyche of both public officials and the Cebuanos.
Historically, however, the event finds its roots to the pivotal event back in April 1521 when Magellan, a Portuguese conquestador sailing under the name of Spain, befriended the local royalties – Rajah (King) Humabon and her wife – by giving a carved image of the Sto. Nino as a gift.
That gesture and act of acceptance of a local head officially signaled the first welcome of Christianity in the archipelago. Ironically, Magellan didn’t receive same warm welcome from the adjacent island of Mactan where Lapu-lapu and his men resisted being subjugated in their hearts and minds by the hands of a foreign ruler. Lapu-lapu then went into the annals of Philippine History as the First National Hero.
Almost 500 years have passed and where some 333 years of that had been under the Spanish colonial regime, the Filipinos cultivated a culture mixed with its own and others (e.g. Americans, Chinise, etc.).
To this point, hardly can anyone claim of pure native Filipino ancestry, saved probably to the Negritos, Etas or Ifugaos. Who are we really, then? Who are the true Filipinos?
That very simple questions carry some deep introspection on the individual who is posed to answer such. Eventually, the questions themselves may not be relevant after all.
As technology progresses exponentially so does the cultural inter-mingling of people of similar interests, even as if they’re separated by space and time. The role of territorial borders is becoming less and less important as information (e.g. pictures, videos, music, movies, sounds, etc.) and commerce are reduce to bits of zero’s and one’s criss-crossing undersea fiber optics or wirelessly across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Subcultures, virtual or real, are then created in every part of this world. Indeed, this world has become a global community of people. Some may not agree to this notion, more particularly to the xenophobics and the bigots, but technology are so disruptive that those who won’t find a way to work around with it will be condemned to drown themselves in the abyssmal depths cultural retrogression and technological idiocy!
