Tacloban dazzles with a Parade of Lights

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — Every year, the last week of June is the busiest for Taclobanons as they prepare for the Sangyaw Festival in honor of their patron saint, Sto. Niño de Tacloban.

This year, the city government came up with various activities for a more joyous and grander celebration. World’s jet ski champs from Japan, Dubai and Thailand, and the country’s pride, Paul del Rosario flew in for the first international jet ski competition in this city. A series of cultural performances, Balikbayan Night, Miss Tacloban Pageant and fluvial parade were also held during the week-long celebration.

Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez expressed delight in holding such events saying, “That’s one of the advantages of having a councilor-wife (Cristina “Kring” Gonzalez-Romualdez). She’s actually the one behind all the events here and my job is to make sure they happen.”

But what set the mood totally festive happened on the vesper day of Tacloban’s June 30 fiesta when the first Sangyaw Parade of Lights gathered to the streets foreign and local tourists to get a closer look at the 20 well-designed and brightly-lit floats. The Sangyaw Parade of Lights is a unique festival event created for Tacloban City which signifies the city’s progress. The floats, designed by Jose “Gogoy” Avelino, took three months to complete. Gogoy, who also executed Araneta Center’s Christmas motif last year, accentuated the floats with LED lights for a modern look yet still maintained the parade’s religious aspect.

Cristina (second from left) with Sen. Bongbong Marcos, Rep. Teddy Casiño and other city government officials during the Parade of Lights

This year’s celebration, Mayor Alfred shared, was much different from before. “In previous years, we’re always depicting cultures of a hundred years ago but not really touching on what it is now today. So we have to do something for the youth to be involved. We encouraged them to inject their ideas until we came up with the Parade of Lights. We also combined it with a street-dance parade with a modern type of music.”

The grand parade likewise illustrated some of the country’s historical events. The first float that brought us back in history was the Spanish Galleon symbolizing the Spaniards’ discovery of the Philippines and the propagation of Christianity with an image of the Sto. Niño. What came next was the World War II military tank-designed float representing McArthur’s Landing in Leyte. Another eye-catcher had the details of Leyte’s famous landmark, the San Juanico bridge. The float carrying the Seal of Tacloban depicts the transformation of Tacloban into a highly-urbanized city in Region VIII. The abundance of flora and fauna in the province was also well-represented by marine and floral-designed floats.

 “The Parade of Lights was similar to Disneyland’s Electric Parade. It also symbolized Tacloban being the light of the region and being the most progressive city,” explained Cristina regarding the purpose of hundreds of colorful lights to each float.

How about the giant swan float? “It symbolized how Tacloban transformed from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan,” replied Gogoy.

“I’ve been here before and I saw how Tacloban rose to progress,” he added, proving true the festival’s theme, “Rise and shine Tacloban for your light has come.”

That’s me (fourth from left) with Cristina and the other members of the entertainment press (from left) Remy Umerez, Jojo Gabinete, Allan Diones, Jun Lalin, Aster Amoyo, Mario Bautista, Ian Fariñas, Eugene Asis, Walden Belen and Noel Orsal.

Even Leyte Gov. Carlos Jericho Petilla, Mayor Alfred related, is impressed with the tremendous growth of the city.

“In terms of money circulation, we rank No. 4 among the regions. In fact, there are about P42B deposits in the banks here in the city of Tacloban,” the mayor said. “For the last four years, we’ve been averaging in about 1,100 new business establishments yearly.”

Malls are starting to sprout, too. Robinsons had recently extended its building to accommodate more shoppers and is planning to acquire more properties to build another branch. SM’s Savemore will soon rise.

 “What makes all the employees happy is that we were given the seal of good governance by the DILG and because of that we were awarded P25M last December and we were also given additional funds (the past week) as we are able to keep up with the standard of good governance,” Mayor Alfred happily shared. “I’m glad in spite of us not belonging to the same party with the administration, they recognize our good work.”

Another marked indication of the city’s progress is the influx of tourists. According to a recent study conducted here, Tacloban would hit the 1M-passenger mark by 2020 or eight years from now. “But last year, we already hit the 1M-passenger mark,” Mayor Alfred emphasized. “That’s why we’ve been pushing for our airport because we are having problems about it and finally the DOTC has pledged about P600M to P800M for its renovation.”

Tacloban also offers varied attractions that kids and kids-at-heart can truly enjoy. So the next time you go out of town, why not spend a night or two in this city and see for yourself how tremendously progressive it has become.

Among the 20 floats that showcase Tacloban’s rich flora and fauna, history, landmarks and progress are HUC float, the San Juanico Bridge, swan, nemo, dragon and butterflies.