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dinuguanboy
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Posted: Sun Dec 24th, 2006 09:09 pm |
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Has anyone extensively traveled around Negros Occidental? What can you tell me about Bacolod and Dumaquete?
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maven
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Posted: Tue Dec 26th, 2006 10:28 pm |
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anyone who visits negros occidental will be awed at the hospitality shown by the locals. it's unlike any other in the philippines
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maven
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Posted: Wed Dec 27th, 2006 09:04 pm |
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NEGROS OCCIDENTAL FESTIVALS Date Of Events
PANAAD SA NEGROS (Bacolod City; April 12 – 21).
The mother of festivals. It is one grand celebration bringing together all the ten cities and twenty two municipalities in a showcase of trade, tourism, commerce and industry, arts and culture, beauty and talent, as well as games and sports.
Masskara Festival (Bacolod City; every October).
A masquerade balll and beaming images of smiling masks; street dancing and stomping to the frenzied beat of Latin sambas; depicts the Negrenses’ happy disposition despite adversities in life.
Pasalamat Festival (La Carlota City; every May).
Based on the tradition of giving thanks to the Gods of the elements after a bountiful harvest by the ancients in "Buglas".
Kali-kalihan Festival (Don Salvador Benedicto; every November).
Celebration of age-old practice showcasing ancient skills in martial arts and beliefs in the forces of nature; walking on live charcoal is one of the highlights.
Pinta Flores Festival (San Carlos City; every November).
Coined from the words "pinta" and "flores", depicts the tradition of welcoming visitors through dancing as in the "pintados" during the coming of the Spaniards in the Visayas. Flowers instead of tattooes are painted on the bodies and constumes of the dancers.
Cadiz Ati-atihan (Cadiz City; every January).
Festival in honor of the Sto. Nino, patron of Cadiz City believed to have created miracles protecting the city from the invading pirates a long time ago.
Sinulog (Ilog and Kabankalan City; every January).
Re-enactment of the battle between the Christian forces and the invading Moro pirates in the Ilog river; commemorates the defiance of Datu Manyabog against the conquering forces of Gov. Emilio Saravia.
Ugyonan (Snake Festival) (every May 1).
Also known as “cooperation,” it is celebrated through sports competition, street dancing, cultural events, and float parade.
Sinigayan Festival (Sagay City, every 3rd week of March / March 19).
An annual thanksgiving in honor of St. Joseph, showcasing the best of Sagay’s arts, culture, products, and people.
Babaylan Festival (Bago City; Feb. 19).
A unique festival that explores the Babaylan folktales, rediscovers music, dances, rituals, and other artistic endeavors of the early Bagonhons. Held during the city’s charter anniversary celebration.
Al Cinco De Noviembre (Bago City, every Nov. 5).
A historical festival that commemorates the victory of the Negrenses’ bloodless revolt against the Spaniards in 1898.
Bailes De Luces (La Castellana; Dec. 30 – Jan. 5).
The town’s celebration of Charter Day and a befitting culmination of the Christmas season, the festival is conceptualized as a festival of hope and thanksgiving.
Dinagsa Ati Atihan Festival (Cadiz City; 4th Sunday of January).
A revelry from sunrise to sunset, with ceaseless and rhythmic beating of drums. A sea of humanity in cadence with black soot “ati” performing rituals, all in honor of El Señor Sto. Niño.
Kadalagan Festival (Victorias City; March 21).
The festival is in commemoration of the city’s Charter Anniversary which falls every 21st of March and goes with week-long festivities.
Banana Festival (La Castellana; April 1 – 5).
A harvest festival that opens on the first day of April, showcasing the different varieties of banana which is abundant in the municipality.
Hinugyaw sa Hinigaran Festival (Hinigaran; Apr. 25-30).
“Hinugyaw,” meaning rejoice/revelry in the local dialect, is celebrated every 25th to 30th of April every year.
Manlambus Festival (Escalante City; May 30).
“Manlambus” is a Visayan term meaning “to strike with a club” - because its coastal waters were then teeming with fishes that catching them could be done simply by clubbing.
Mudpack Festival (Murcia; June 24).
The festival is a symbolic celebration of man’s return to primitive time when he was closer to nature.
Minuluan Festival (Talisay City; Sept. 4-10).
A celebration honoring the Creator and the Minuluan tribe.
Kansilay Festival (Silay City; Nov. 5-13).
The 9-day celebration starts with the celebration of “ El Cinco de Noviembre “, a one-day bloodless revolution in Silay which caused the surrender of the Spanish civil guards.
Ilonggo Sarsuela Festival (Silay City; last week of Nov.).
The best ilonggo sarsuela scripts written by Silaynon playwrights are produced by independent theater groups, school-based drama clubs, and barangay cultural ensembles.
Festival of Lights and Music (La Carlota City; Dec. 16-31).
The Festival of Lights and Music is the very onset of festival season in La Carlota City.
Pasaway sa Sipalay (Sipalay City)
It is celebrated every last week of March marking the Charter Anniversary of the city. Street dancers of seventeen (17) barangays make the celebration alive and exciting as they wear their exotic costumes in the resemblance of copper mineral.
Handurawan Festival (Sipalay City)
It is an annual fiesta celebration of the city held every 3rd week of December coupled with the yuletide season. A week-long activities have been scheduled to provide Sipalaynon and guests a time to enjoy.
The artistic heritage of Negros
Silay.... Paris of Negros..
Last edited on Wed Dec 27th, 2006 09:05 pm by maven
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HeyJoe
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Posted: Wed Dec 27th, 2006 09:46 pm |
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dinuguanboy wrote:
Has anyone extensively traveled around Negros Occidental?
What can you tell me about Bacolod and Dumaquete?
Never made it down to Dumaguette but lived in Bacolod for several years. It's a nice town, and alot more laid back than Manila and environs. Not as polluted or crowded either.
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maven
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Posted: Wed Dec 27th, 2006 09:49 pm |
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^^ what kept you busy in Bacolod during those years?
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HeyJoe
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Posted: Thu Dec 28th, 2006 11:36 pm |
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mostly my wife lol... in truth I didn't do a hell of alot while I was there other than drink lots of San Miguel and stay up way too late every night. I had an outside source of income so money wasn't a problem. It was a great time, but in truth being idle for so long makes one actually MISS going to work! 
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maven
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Posted: Fri Dec 29th, 2006 09:37 pm |
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wow! good for you @HeyJoe. living the hacendero lifestyle without having the same financial concerns as they do 
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maven
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Posted: Sun Mar 25th, 2007 04:46 am |
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Bacolod the bountiful
By Constantino Tejero
Inquirer
Last updated 01:17am (Mla time) 03/25/2007
MANILA, Philippines - The fabulous wealth of the fabled island of Negros has its source in its basically volcanic soil, which is ideal for agriculture, says a tourism guide. Eighty percent of its arable land is cultivated.
With the collapse of the textile industry in Iloilo in the 19th century, there was mass migration and movement of capital as the Ilongo elite flocked to this neighboring island across Panay Gulf and fueled the sugar industry.
Touted as the new frontier, the island also attracted Spaniards from Spain and Manila, the French, and people from the neighboring provinces of Cebu, Bohol and Antique. But what are now known as the Negrense hacenderos (sugar barons) are largely from Iloilo in origin or ancestry.
Those migrants from Panay infused not only capital into the booming industry of Negros but also brought along their culture, from cuisine to traditional crafts, language, music, dance. This is evident even to virtual outsiders who can hardly distinguish people from Iloilo from those of Bacolod yet can readily differentiate the Ilongos from their nearest neighbors in Panay (Capiz, Aklan and Antique).
Visitors may want to imbibe of Negrense culture after the Holy Week, when Panaad sa Negros festival will be celebrated in Bacolod on April 9-17. The city, entry point and capital of Negros Occidental, is 50 minutes by plane or 18 hours by fast ferryboat from Manila.
Phenomenal growth
Bacolod is a relatively young city. The island called Buglas was discovered by Spanish explorers and divided into encomiendas (Spanish colonial settlements) in the late 16th century, but it was not until the mid-19th century that the province experienced a phenomenal growth. Bacolod was then a small village along Magsungay River.
Says the guide: "The expansion of the sugar industry in the 1850s and the opening of the Suez Canal flooded Bacolod with European fineries and artworks. Baroque churches and sprawling mansions rose across the Negros landscape, and Spanish culture flowered in the tropics. Evidence of this can be seen in the downtown San Sebastian Church and in the ancestral homes of the Locsins, Lizareses, Aranetas, Gastons, Lacsons and other old families in Talisay, Silay and Bago."
A good way to start one's cultural tour is a visit to the Negros Museum, a neoclassic building on Gatuslao Street formerly occupied by the Ministry of Agriculture and converted by the Negros Cultural Foundation into a museum that houses not antiquities but stories of the Negrense.
Leisure and labor
Upstairs are displayed in dioramas, murals and archival materials the lifestyles of Negros' pygmy aborigines, pre-Hispanic natives, hacenderos and sacadas; models of the molino de sangre (primitive sugar mill producing muscovado), sugar-production laboratory, the typical plantation house; an archive of the hacendero's affairs; lines from folk songs inscribed on swathes of sheer fabric, such as "Ay, ay, Pagkakapoy!" (sung by the bone-weary sacadas) and "Dandansoy" (the original love song composed by Augorio Abeto in the 1930s).
One hall is divided into sections showcasing foreign influences on the natives: Spanish, American, British, Chinese, Japanese. The Spanish section has a photo of La Iglesia de Nuestra Sra. de Magdalena de Hinigaran, built in 1858, the oldest church on the island.
The American section has a locomotive which used to transport sugarcanes from the field to the sugar central. The Japanese section has design photos showing the influence of the Japanese garden and bathhouse in the construction of the Mambucal Summer Resort.
Artworks and artifacts
On the lobby is an authentic batil (small ferryboat) laden with barter goods from Iloilo. There's also a photo of the first airline in the country, the Iloilo-Negros Air Co., which the Aranetas, Lizareses, Santoses and Lopezes started operating in 1936.
In another room are heirloom pieces consisting of the three kinds of fan (silk, feather and ivory) respectively wielded by the doña according to the occasion; a 150-year-old dress of piña-jusi from the Montinola Silos family; mementos from the Kahirup Ball that Ilongos and Negrenses annually held in Manila Hotel before martial law; pictures of that legendary Negrense beauty, Susan Magalona.
There is a scale model of the original Luzuriaga Mansion, now the old City Hall. There is also a footnoted picture of Farmacia Locsin in Silay, where the Republica Cantonal de Negros was declared in 1899 by the revolutionaries with Gen. Aniceto Lacson as presidente - a republic that lasted for three months.
Downstairs is a gallery for changing exhibits, at this time showing artworks by Negrense artists Lino Severino, Jess Ayco, Larry Tronco and Eliazar Santiago. One hallway is adorned with photographs of the 54 churches built by the Augustinian Recollects in Negros.
Near the museum shop is the Jose Garcia Montelibano Gallery of International Folk Arts and Toys, a mazelike room touted as the biggest toy gallery in the country. It has 22,400 items ranging from dolls from all over the world to national costumes and playhouses. Museum assistant curator Raymond Bayot says it takes them two weeks to clean the pieces.
Culture high and low
The house of Bamboo Tonogbanua, an art instructor at La Consolacion College, has a similar display called Christmas Village, a roomful of kinetic miniatures celebrating Yuletide in snow country. Culture snobs may dismiss such as kitsch, but, really, it does not fail to impress.
Tonogbanua also has an impressive collection of artworks by the so-called Black Artists in Asia - Nunelucio Alvarado, Charlie Co, Dennis Ascalon.
Another epitome of folk art that doesn't fail to impress is the chapel in Sta. Clara Subdivision at Mandalagan (referred to as Bacolod's Forbes Park). On the central wall of the altar is a mural mosaic of a native Madonna in tapis carrying a Child Jesus with rosary, done in capiz-shell squares of varying sizes.
That and all the other mosaics and statuary of the Stations of the Cross, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Virgin of Guadalupe, the St. Joseph, the San Lorenzo Ruiz, and even the altar table are done in 95,000 squares of capiz shell in the 32 shades found off the Negros coast.
Barangay sang Virgen Chapel was designed by Norman Campos. The mural mosaic was created by Leticia Ledesma.
The rich and the famous
Trying to resist the flux of time and the vicissitudes of fortune are the hulking edifices dotting the Negros landscape, foremost of which are the heritage structures of Talisay and Silay.
Many of these mansions, such as the Aniceto Lacson House, also known as the Claparols Mansion, in Talisay, 7 km from Bacolod, may be crumbling now, but they have been duly recorded in films such as Lino Brocka's "Gumising Ka, Maruja" and Negrense Peque Gallaga's "Oro Plata Mata."
Balay ni Tana Dicang, or the Lizares Mansion, also in Talisay, shows a similar decrepitude, and the saddest part is, it hasn't been declared a heritage structure by the National Historical Institute yet.
And it contains treasures: Art Nouveau rosette wall ventilation of tindalo; Moorish window patterns; an angel of molave retrieved from the family cemetery and now guarding the stairway's descando(landing); Placido Mapa's desk; artworks, including early drawings by National Artist Arturo Luz.
Silay City, 14 km from Bacolod or a 20-minute ride away, is known as the Paris of the South for its 31 ancestral houses identified by the NHI. It is the hometown of National Artist for Architecture Leandro Locsin, opera singer Conchita Gaston, culture writer Doreen Gamboa Fernandez, Celia Diaz Laurel, Sen. Jose Locsin.
Silay's most famous landmark is the Church of San Diego, with its Romanesque architecture, silver dome and big clock. Even El Ideal Bakery itself is part of the Negrense cultural heritage - the Cesar Lacson Locsin Ancestral House, declared a heritage structure in 1993 by the NHI.
Living the good life
The Bernardino Jalandoni Museum, often referred to as the Pink House, was declared by the NHI as Silay's first National Historical Landmark. About 90 percent of the existing structure is still the original, from its ceiling of embossed metal sheets from Hamburg to its calado ventilation.
In the kitchen is a primitive refrigerator of hardwood lined with metal. In those days, 10 pounds of ice, brought by steamboats from Massachusetts, was delivered daily to the household for P5 a month (equivalent to P3,500 today).
On the stairway's caeda is a hardwood rack for hats and canes, carved in the form of the Mexican eagle. There is a 1910 rotary telephone at the top of the stairs.
The lampshade in the sala is of Baccarat crystal. The chamber pot in the bedroom is of precious porcelain from Europe.
There is, of course, the much-written-about Balay Negrense, the Don Victor Gaston Ancestral House, which was converted into Negros' first lifestyle museum in 1990, showcasing how sugar planters lived at the turn of the 20th century.
Enter this domain and see that those Negrense hacenderos weren't just boasting of their wealth. Why, they actually lived it.
Last edited on Sun Mar 25th, 2007 04:48 am by maven
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