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First of the festivals
Cebu Pacific flies to Kalibo from
Manila, Cebu and Hong Kong.
honor the groups with the best
costumes. These tend to be made by
hand over several painstaking weeks,
using materials ranging from feathers
to plastic string, glass fragments and
even
capiz
shells.
When Sunday rolls around, the
festivities reach their heated climax.
After a solemn mass to start the day,
the revelers blast off into their wildest,
loudest state. The main avenues are
transformed into a sea of humanity, the
crowded mass bristling with bobbing
heads, waving arms and floating (no,
make that dancing) Santo Niño statues.
Everyone’s invited to join in and they
all do, some even unwittingly.
While photographing the occasion
some years back, I found myself
shuffling involuntarily to the incessant
drumbeats. An hour passed and my
face became smeared with soot. Two
hours after that I was chugging a bottle
of beer and watching the (hopefully
dry) parish priest shimmying along
with his partying flock. The huge open-
air shindig lasted well into the night,
leaving the Aklanons either blissfully
inebriated or physically spent. An eerie
calm ruled Kalibo the next morning.
Streets that had been chaotic the day
before were now silent, save for the
sound of tricycles carrying blackened,
drowsy residents back to their homes.
No doubt the townspeople of Kalibo
have learned to quickly shake off
the hangover of the yearly festival
weekend. By Tuesday each year,
with all their costumes tidied up and
tucked away, they’re inevitably back
at work. Still, while tackling the once-
again-mundane matters of everyday
existence, they no doubt smile and
remember the crazy weekend that was.
At this point, all they can do is wait
patiently ’til next year.
The image of the Santo Niño — in full costume,
of course — joins one of thousands of revelers on
the streets of Kalibo. From its humble beginnings
as a local event, the Ati-atihan has grown to
become one of the country’s most eagerly awaited
festivals, its spirit sparking countless other “ati-ati”
celebrations elsewhere in the Philippines
