The Festival of all Festivals

By JIMS VINCENT T. CAPUNO

MANILA, Philippines — Every third week of August, Davao City comes alive as it celebrates Kadayawan Festival.  Now on its twenty-fifth year of celebration, it has become Mindanao’s festival of all festivals. 

As the longest-running community festival in Mindanao, Kadayawan has metamorphosed into a grand celebration that honors Davao’s rich cultural heritage and the many blessings bestowed on the city. Kadayawan’s sights and sounds remain unparalleled.

This year, Dabawenyos and visitors can expect a more colorful and exciting Kadayawan Festival as the budget has been increased to P12.5 million compared to last year’s P11 million.  The bulk of the budget comes from the private partners which contributed P9.5 million. The city government allocated P3 million for the celebration.

“We can assure the Dabawenyos that they can expect a merrier, more exciting and more colorful Kadayawan this year,” said Maria Felisa C. Marquez, festival director.  

For the first time, the city’s prime festival will be organized by the private sector.  “The private-public partnership is very visible in this year’s Kadayawan,” said Dr. Maria Lourdes C. Monteverde of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc.

Jason Magnaye, chief of the City Tourism and City Investment Office, said some 250,000 people are expected to flock to the city.  “Local, national, as well as international visitors are expected to come to celebrate the festival of all festivals in the city,” he said.

This year, instead of adopting a theme, the organizers launched the tag, “Ten tribes, one vibe.”  The 10 tribes refer to the indigenous peoples that inhabit the city, namely: Uvu-Manuvu, Ata, Tagabawa, Matigsalog, K’lata, Sama, Maranao, Maguindanao, Tausug, and Kalagan.

“I consider Kadayawan as the festival of festivals since it has the most number of cultural activities compared to other festivals in the country,” comments Serapion Metilla, who is from Manila and has seen to the festival several times.  “For example, there’s dancing on the streets, the floral float parade, horse fight, durian festival, cultural minorities encounter, flower and garden shows, and many other activities which other parts of the country could not show.”

Indeed, Kadayawan has gone a long way since it started in the 1970s when then Mayor Elias B. Lopez initiated tribal festivals featuring the lumad (native) and the Muslim tribes of Davao City where they showcased their dances and rituals of thanksgiving.  Lopez himself was from the Bagobo tribe.

In 1986, the government initiated a program called “Unlad Proyekto Davao,” whose main objective was to unite the Dabawenyos after the turbulent Martial Law era.  The festivity was called “Apo Duwaling,” in honor of the three royalties Davao is famous for: Mount Apo (the country’s highest peak), durian (the controversial fruit that smells like hell but tastes like heaven) and waling-waling (touted to be the queen of Philippine orchids).

At that time, “Apo Duwaling” was meant to showcase Davao City as a peaceful destination for other people from all over the country to visit and to do business.  This was after the People Power revolution of 1986.

In 1988, then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte renamed the festival as “Kadayawan sa Dabaw.”  Kadayawan is derived from the friendly greeting “Madayaw,” a term taken from a Dabawenyo word dayaw which means “good.” It is also used to describe anything that is valuable, superior or beautiful, such as “Kadayawan,” a celebration of life, a thanksgiving for the gifts of nature, the wealth of culture, the bounties of harvests, and the serenity of living.

The Kadayawan Festival honors Davao’s artistic, cultural and historical heritage, its past personified by the ancestral lumads, its people as they celebrate on the streets, and its floral industry as its representatives parade in full regalia in thanksgiving for the blessings granted to the city.

Actually, the celebration interfaces three aspects: tribal, industrial, arts and entertainment.  It is a week-long celebration, but the two big parades are often held during weekends.  The street dancing, called Indak-Indak sa Kadalanan, is held on Saturday while the floral float parade falls on Sunday.

The street dancing has two main components. The first is the street parade, where performers groove it up while parading along selected points of the city. The second is the showdown, where the very same people perform on the same venue, which has traditionally been San Pedro Street. The parade normally takes place in the morning, the showdown from the afternoon to evening.

The floral float parade, called Pamulak Kadayawan, is a spectacular finale – patterned after the Pasadena Parade of Roses in the United States – where flowers and fruits are set on colorful floats by business establishments, community assemblies and peoples’ organizations as they parade on the streets symbolizing all the bounty sustainably enjoyed by the city’s residents. 

Here’s what Dabawenyos will tell you about their festivity: “Kadayawan is an art form in itself. A festival fit for a local government that tries to position itself as the cultural capital of the Philippines. This is the best time to catch the sights, the sounds, the colors and the scents all mixing together to encapsulate the rich diversity of a place which was long ago described as the garden of the gods.”

Madayaw!