Tap Seac crowds roar in delight to Sinulog Festival

The Sinulog 2016 Grand Parade and Festival was held yesterday in Tap Seac Square to roaring crowds of Filipinos, Chinese, and Westerners.
The religious procession began at around 2 p.m. from the square, circling throughout downtown Macau, before returning to Tap Seac for the “big showdown,” which pitted the various groupings against each other to the crowd’s delight.
The festival, which began in Macau in 2003, has become a widely anticipated event for the community. Some even regard it as the biggest Filipino event in Macau. Many of the performers started rehearsing as far back as November in preparation for the event that customarily takes place on the third Sunday of January.
The festival is a celebration of the time when the Filipinos embraced Catholicism in the 16th century and rejected their former animist beliefs.
In the Philippines, the celebration, which originated in Cebu, begins nine days before the grand parade. The parade itself can last up to 12 hours, and sees a traditional Sinulog dance in which participants take two steps forward and one step back, swaying to the rhythm of the drums.
The movement is intended to resemble the current of the main river in Cebu.
“Sinulog fiesta or celebration is very popular in the Philippines, especially in Cebu because it is a form of thanksgiving and praise to the infant Jesus. This is because this Saint Nuno, according to history, was a gift,” Father Agustin Datu, a member of the organizing committee, told TDM news.
Some of the procession participants could be seen holding little statues of Jesus Christ as they danced to the drums and music. The infant Christ is the patron symbol of the festival.
In Macau, the festival was organized by the “Santo Nino de Cebu in Macao Association,” in cooperation with the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, the Macau Foundation and the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO). Staff reporter