By Sylvia L. Mayuga
When Howie, the investigative journalist married Ipat, the environmental lawyer, their wedding memento was worthy of two visionaries – a tiny Sto. Niño, right hand raised in blessing, lying on shiny coils of sinamay fiber tucked into a festive native basket.
This Niño was not only portable. Its basket-nest gave it the look of an egg –-a symbol of new life so devoutly to be wished it could land only at the foot of the household Sacred Heart, its grown-up version.
Then one day a baby girl abandoned by her mother landed in this household – and quickly discovered the Niño’s playtime possibilities. No one ever stopped her from picking up “the baby” for an afternoon tea party with Winnie the Pooh, Big Bird and Elmo, or giving Him echo seminars on the alphabet. Can you think of a better prelude to adult discovery of love divine than a dear and intimate playmate?
She’s growing up Pinoy. The Niño is a very old spiritual lodestone among us. Spanish chroniclers say it all began when the queen of Cebu took a shine to the first Sto. Niño ever to land in our islands – an enamored first encounter with God-as-infant that led to her christening as Queen Juana, the mass baptism of her husband Humabon’s fiefdom, and the beginning of four centuries of Filipino Christianity.
SINULOG is a pageantry of faith, a festival held in honor of the Santo Nino, celebrating the origin of the island of Cebu. Sinulog is a dance ritual in honor of the miraculous image of the Santo Niño. The dance moves two steps forward and one step backward to the sound of the drums. This movement resembles the current (Sulog) of what was known as Cebu’s Pahina River. Thus, in Cebuano, they say it’s Sinulog.
