#sinulogvibe

Modern culture has made it so to commercialize holidays. Christmas is celebrated for the gifts, the weather, the parties and all that jazz. Valentine's is for buying presents for your romantic partner such as cardboard hearts, flowers, chocolates, teddy bears which eventually lead to the romantic dinner dates and then the romantic sex. So yeah, basically you may have already gotten my point so far: holidays are being commercialized and sometimes people lose the sense of the spirit of the holiday.

Why am I going on about this? Well, lately I've seen posts against Cebu's Sinulog Festival. Criticisms say that it has become wild. It is no longer a holiday it has become a city-wide party. There's a lot of booze and sexual energies are high. The essence of Sinulog is to celebrate the feast of Sto. Nino therefore it is surprising to see people nowadays celebrating Sto. Nino in ways devoid of religiosity. Is this bad? Well, yes but there are reasons why this is becoming the case nowadays.

Sinulog promotes economic gain for Cebu. It promotes tourism inviting foreigners to witness and participate in this event. It promotes businesses in making Sinulog merchandise such as the Sinulog shirts in a variety of styles and designs. The event also elicits economic gain as people pay for the concerts and entrance to parties. Because of the Sinulog celebration, Cebu is a widely-known city and ranked in lists of places to visit. In this case, commercializing the holiday is beneficial.

Like any holiday the essence remains for as long as the person celebrating it remembers to honor the spirit of it. Christmas may be commercialized but people are still capable of knowing, as well as putting into practice what Christmas truly means. It's a time for family. It's a time for thanksgiving. It's a time for prayer, peace and love. You can actually have the best of both worlds: you can buy all the gifts you want, give all the gifts you want, throw all the parties and attend all of them and still remain faithful to what the holiday means. The same goes for Sinulog. You can attend all the parties, dress in however manner you want to, throw paint at each other, drink, go wild, but at the end of the day you've remembered Sto. Nino. People have different ways of celebrating. Maybe this is how Cebu does it.