SantaCruzan

On Sunday Neil and I headed over to Ermita for some lunch and to try and find some operational phones to call home. Finding public phones that work here in Manila can sometimes be a bit of a challenge - especially because if you buy a phone card, you can only use that card from the same company's public phone - so it can be a bit annoying! Anyway, after lunch Neil went home as he was feeling pretty sick which I walked up along Manila Bay, through Rizal Park and Intramuros to meet some friends to watch the Santa Cruzan parade.

In the month of May, Filipinos hold the Santacruzan. The festival comes from a religious origin, a commemoration of the finding of the Holy Cross by Queen Helena and Constantine. Young ladies dress up in lavish Spanish-style gowns of lace and beads and parade on the streets, together with their escorts. They walk elegantly beneath arches of flowers in a procession while people hold candles and torches as they sing songs of praise. Some people think that the Santracruzan is an obsolete ritual, but there are also those who believe that it is relevant to the Catholic faith. And more than that, they say, the practice of the Santacruzan also adds color to the people’s cultural life.

The procession through Intramuros was a little more tame than I was expecting, but it was still fun to see the women and men in traditional Spanish dress. After watching the procession, we walked down one of the roads in Intramuros where we stumbled across a cultural fair with stalls, food and entertainment from the northern Mindanao region. We stopped for a while and watched some of the traditional dances before grabbing a taxi down to Manila Bay walk for some dinner. It was fun.

posted by batik billy @ 10:58 am