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Hello Travellers!

Its been so long since I posted a travel blog. Today, I will be featuring Tacloban City's Sangyaw Festival. It took more than a month for me to create this post for I couldn't find the time to finish editing all the photos because a lot of things needed my attention at work. Claims, deadlines, reports, activities and all that stuff. Finally, tonight I'm writing this and hopefully I'll be able to finish it before I get too sleepy. Fingers-crossed.

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Just a little background, Tacloban is a first class highly urbanized city, that serves as the capital of the province of Leyte. To some, Tacloban or Leyte, would probably ring a bell,because you might have heard about our place 5 years ago, when it was all over the news during the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan.

Tacloban is one of the hardest hit places when the world's strongest Super Typhoon made landfall last November 2013. The whole city looked dead, similar to what you see in movies like World War Z (minus the zombies. Hehe) During those time, I personally couldn't imagine how Tacloban will be revived again. However, medical teams, relief operations, soldiers, NGOs, and a lot of people from all over the world came to help us. Now, the city has gained back its strength and beauty, because of the massive support we received, and the world didn't abandon us when we needed them the most. Leyteños will forever be grateful and will never ever forget that we were able to stand again, and enjoy celebrations like Sangyaw Festival because of everyone who stayed with us during the toughest time.

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Sangyaw Festival is held every 29th day of June, a day before the fiesta of Tacloban City. This was inaugurated around 1970s, cancelled in 1980s but was revived in 2008. Sangyaw is a Waray-waray term, which means "to announce or herald a news". It boasts the vibrant culture, colorful tradition, cheerful Waraynons and their devotion to their faith. This is evident during parade or presentations wherein you will notice that one of the highlights of each contingents is their festival queen carrying the statue of Señor Sto. Niño as she does ritual dance moves.

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This celebration is participated by the different schools, barangays, municipalities and organizations in Eastern Visayas. The parade would usually start at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, as soon as it started to get dark, to emphasize the beautiful lights of the different colorful floats and customes of the participants.

There will be a massive number of people who will be waiting for the parade so if you wanted to get a good view, be sure to stand in your post before 5:00PM. For short girls like me, I needed to be infront so I'd be able to enjoy and capture photos of the festival, and not just the head of the people before me. LOL.

I'm not used to doing night shots though. I've got about 300 photos in the Sangyaw Festival folder, but only very few shots are usable. I'm not familiar with camera settings that would make me capture sharp photos even in low light. It takes skills, a set of skills I don't currently have but I'm more than willing to explore and learn about it. Patience and persistence is the key.

As you can see in the photo above, that's really a lot of people. And you usually stand really close to each other as all of you wanted to witness the parade. Just as the usual precautions when you're in a huge crowd, watching Sangyaw Festival is not an exception. Though, Tacloban has fewer cases of pick pocketing, but yeah, these guys are also doing their thing during this kind of event so always be mindful of your valuables. Better safe than sorry.

I'm really a fan of the different festivals here in the Philippines. Being able to personally witness these very wonderful Filipino culture is on my bucketlist. Despite the hardships and discomfort of being in a crowd, the sweats, exhaustion, and all the uneasiness that we feel every time we watch a festival on the streets, everything instantly lights up as soon as we see all these dancers on their very creative and colorful costumes.

The last time I watched Sangyaw Festival, was some 3-4 years ago, and I could say that it has notably improved since then. I'm hoping it will continue to get better each year. This kind of event attracts people, and as it slowly gets popularity this will greatly increase the number of tourists visiting Tacloban every 29th of June.

Though Sangyaw is still not as extravagant as Bacolod's Masskara Festival or Iloilo's Dinagyang, guess we Waraynons can dream of having this listed in your bucketlist. Soon it will become one of the talked about festivals in the internet as well, and Sangyaw Festival will be the reason why you will be flying to Tacloban in the future.

By the way, if you'll be waiting for the next seat sale and is planning to book your trip for 2019's Sangyaw Festival. Make sure to get an earlier flight because we also have the Pintados-Kasadyaan Festival which is held every 27th of June. I haven't been able to watch the street parade and take some photos of this festival for two years already, since our municipality has a contingent and I'm on duty during this time as part of the Medical Team. Its hard to carry my camera and take photos when we needed to attend to dancers collapsing every few minutes. Not complaining though, I love being a nurse, its one of the most fulfilling jobs in the world.

Maybe, I'll be able to enjoy the parade next year as we might not be joining the Festival. This means I'll get to fully savor the moment as I watch the street parade and hopefully I'll get to join the photography contest as well. It'll be my first, and I'm pretty sure its gonna be an awesome experience for me. Plus the ID, gets you to access inside the grounds where "actions" happen. I'm excited already. 🤗

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Before I end this blog, here are more shots during Sangyaw Festival:

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Thanks for staying with me until the end of this blog, and I hope you enjoyed the photos.

By the way, Eastern Visayas has a lot of beautiful islands as well. We have Kalanggaman Island, Sambawan Island, Cuatro Islas and other beautiful and exciting tourist spots that will surely take your breath away and fall in love in our province. If you can, book a 5 days trip so you'll be able to visit these gems. You'll love the vibrant culture, the authentic food, the resilient Waraynons, the prestine beaches, the historical places, and you'll understand the reason why - "Once you see Leyte, you shall return." 💙

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