The Ati-Atihan Festival

The Ati-Atihan, held every January in the town of Kalibo in the province of Aklan on the island of Panay, is the wildest among Philippine fiestas. Celebrants paint their faces with black soot and wear bright, outlandish costumes as they dance in revelry during the last three days of this week-long festival.

The Ati-Atihan, a feast in honor of the Santo Niño, is celebrated on the second Sunday after Epiphany. Catholics observe this special day with processions, parades, dancing, and merrymaking. The Santo Niño has long been the favorite of Filipinos and devotion to it has been intense ever since an image was first presented to Juana, Queen of Cebu, in 1521.

Although the Ati-Atihan seems to show only revelry, a closer look shows that it has historic origins.

By midmorning, small groups gather in their respective neighborhoods. They are prodded by drums as they dance their way to the town center. They grow in numbers as different groups from outlying areas merge into one as they get closer to the center of town. Sometimes the crowd thins as a few drop out to worship in silence and offer themselves to their own gods. But they always come back to rejoin the group to disappear in the gyrating mob. The dancing never stops.

All week long, celebrants arrive by land, sea, and air. As inter-island boats dock, they are greeted by pseudo-New Guinea tribal drummers. Tourists are ferried across rice fields and coconut plantations to Kalibo hotels while others are accommodated in private homes and public buildings. Others camp on the beach. By weekend all accommodations are gone although there seems to be no need for them as nobody bothers to sleep anyway. There is music everywhere and the rowdy crowd often finds itself inside improvised halls dancing all night long.
The steady beat of drums can sometimes be heard late in the night as a lone drummer is suddenly inspired to pick up the rhythm. Or perhaps it is only the drum in his own head that one hears as alcohol begins to numb the senses.

VIVA EL SEÑOR SANTO NIÑO!

Celebrants ape the dance of the Atis, hence the name Ati-Atihan which means "make-believe Atis." This ritual is said to be the result of the sale of land in Panay by the Ati chieftain Marikudo to Datu Puti and the Borneans so that they can have a place to settle. How did the Santo Niño come into this pagan celebration? Is this a Christian feast or a pagan ritual where devil-outfitted participants dance hand-in-hand with old ladies in sarongs and young colegialas, arm-in-arm with dirty naked men, swig San Miguel beer and White Castle whiskey as their fathers in miniskirts and their mothers in elaborate headdresses watch? An uncle in a World War II guerilla uniform and a brother wearing a rubber Nixon mask may also be watching, unconcerned.



In spite of the remoteness of some native settlements, the fiesta enabled the religious orders to reach out to their scattered flock. "There were three fiestas of consequence to the Filipinos, namely, Holy Week, Corpus Christi, and the feast in honor of the patron saint of the locality." The natives would flock to the cabecera and it was also an opportunity to indoctrinate them in Christianity. Fiestas offered religious processions, dances, music, and theatrical presentations to the people. Although it may be "sacred or profane blended together...it is highly doubtful that the Filipino were aware of the ceremony's elaborate liturgical symbolism, but they evidently relished the pageantry involved." (Phelan, 73) This statement seems particularly appropriate for the Ati-Atihan. Wherever the flock may be, they can hear the drumbeats from far-away Kalibo calling them at the start of every year.

Kalibo's Ati-Atihan has become so popular that similar festivals have cropped up all over Western Visayas. Antique has its Binirayan and Handugan festivals while Iloilo City has a more lavish and choreographed edition called Dinagyang. Bacolod, not one to be left behind, has also started its own version. (Hoefer, 255) In Cebu, it comes as Pit Senyor, a hopping dance to drums, (Joaquin, 18) or Sinulog. Today, Ati-Atihan is celebrated in the Aklan towns of Makato, Altavas, and Ibajay, a small town northeast of Kalibo which claims to be the original site where the Negritos came down from the hills to celebrate with the lowlanders. Of course, this claim is recounted in various towns along the northeast coast of Panay but through the years, Kalibo has established itself as the Ati-Atihan center.