The Ati-atihan is a festival in honour of the Santo Niño.

During the last three days

of this week-long festival (fiesta), a parade is characteristic. A colourful happening with
celebrants who paint their faces in different ways and dressed in the most outstanding
costumes. The Ati-atihan festival is named after the Ati, the indigenous natives of the
island before the arrival of the Malay in the 10th century and the Spanish in the 16th
century. the festival is held on the third week of January every year on the second
Sunday after Epiphany in Kalibo in the Aklan province on the island of Panay. The
festival is to rejoice the arrival or the gift of the Santo Niño by Magellan to the native
Queen of Cebu in 1521and is manifested by hyperactive merriment on the streets. The
dancing on the rhythms of the drums makes this festival very similar to the murdigras
celebration in Rio, Brazil.

The experience I had during the festival was great and really fun. During the
“sadsad sa kalye”, I noticed that some of the students were dancing and having fun with
their friends and some of them were going somewhere else such as a food stand to buy
food. In the middle of the parade, we saw two foreigners taking a picture then we decide
to approach them so we can interview one of them for the video but when we asked
them for an interview, they told us that they don’t speak English because they were
French. Then after the parade, our group went out to look for some foreigners to
interview. We looked around the park and found a few of them and interviewed each of
them. We asked them of what they think of the festival, they said that it is very enjoyable
and loud. Next, we asked of what they felt on celebrating the festival with Filipinos and
they said that it is really fun and they think that the Filipinos were very nice and friendly.
Next, we asked them of how is Ati-atihan different from other festivals, their answers
were somewhat similar, they said that Ati-atihan has more bands, more people and that
the festival lasts longer than other festivals. Then, we asked them if it is their first time
celebrating the festival in Kalibo and most of them said that it is their first time
celebrating in Kalibo.