Municipality of San Joaquin and the Baluhay & Pasungay Festivals

San Joaquin Chruch

Let’s Hangout in the Town of San Joaquin

San Joaquin is an immense town within the coastal area, and the last municipality of Iloilo Province. Known as the “Seat of the Barter of Panay”, it is endowed with tourismpotentials, offering a wide variety of beaches ideal for swimming, fishing and other water sports, and rich marine life suitable for vacation over the beach where coconut trees are sorrounding the area in a relaxed, and friendly atmosphere. Most beach locations are good targets for investors.

The heritage sites make unique contribution to the history of Spanish Colonization in the province. The San Joaquin Roman Catholic Church is one of a kind in the country and pictures the historic battle between Christians of Spain and Moors, in Tetuan, Morocco in 1859, and even expression of the wounded soldiers are precisely displayed on the facade of the church.

Built in coral rock in 1892, the San Joaquin Cemetery is well-known for its unique hexagonal shape otherwise known as the “camposanto”, with stone windows of rose designs and a twenty-step staircase, reliving the peopleís lives of the past, in hardship, struggle, and ingenuity.

(article source: Philippinefiestas.com., photos by mediaphotbucket.com)

The Festivals

Bayluhay

Seen through the lens of time, the Aeta inheritance has the more cultural glow, and the Malay retain a sentimental attachment to it. The Barter of Panay became the point of origin of San Joaquin’s history and its first common culture and laid down the first lasting foundations of any significance. Without its past, Ilonggos and San Joaquin’s culture would almost certainly have developed differently. Though San Joaquin has enjoyed a clear sense of its own identity in the modern period, these influences were given a tremendous boost through a cultural presentation that truly reflects the community’s celebration of life’s bountiful blessings. A festivity showing how grateful and proud the people of San Joaquin are with their history.

The Bayluhay Festival celebrated every third week of January, reflects the town’s unique mixture of races and cultures. Historical and religious themes, mostly anchored from the Barter of Panay, such as efforts with the preservation of rituals are reflected mostly through their dances. Since that time, the Malays and Aetas have assimilated most important cultural trends as seen through the different rituals that are still being observed in some of the town’s barangays. These rituals are authenticated by the maarams or “medicine men or healers” in the area. Common is the rites of passage that evolved from the war dance or dinapay was performed during the Malay-Aeta exchange, to ward off evil and protect them from harm.

(Source: Sun Star Iloilo, by Bombette G. Marin, January 2006, sunstar.com)

Pasungay

Pasungay is the festival of bullfight, a feature during the San Joaquin fiesta and one of the thrilling festivals in Western Visayas, in honor of the Holy Child Jesus. The fighting bulls raised in town and the neighboring areas are handpicked by the bullfighting experts and pit against each other by weight category for this annual BullDeby. This spectacular activity brings lavishnes to the celebration of San Joaquinístown fiesta where people in all walks of life gets to witness the ferocious display of power and skills of the bulls.Cheering spectators thunder over the hillside as raging bulls compete, testing their strength, vying to be the most prized bull.

Betting are also placed during the event which made Pasungay sensational and exciting as prominent people of the town try their luck. Unlike the bullfight of Spain, the Pasungay is a fight between two bulls, until one tires out or gives up and run away. Instincts tell the fighting beasts when to give up thus nothing really is gory about this fighting event. Through rounds of elimination, the best bulls get to fight with each other as the most exciting clash of which the fun-loving Ilongos expect to witness every year in this celebration of the bulls.

The Pasungay sa San Joaquin is the final part of a week long attraction of the town ís Bayluhay Festival, reflecting the history of Panay of which the ancestor Aetas bartered to the datus of Malay in the 13th century. Celebration of the Bayluhay is carefully planned and series of rituals are solemly conducted as one goes through many facets of life.

(source: Philippinefiestas.com, photo source: iloilo.gov)

Hangout in Iloilo and join us in the celebration of Ilonggos and San Joaquinians’ pride: The Baluhay and Pasungay Festivals….