Zubiri invites local, international tourists
to join Bukidnon's Kaamulan Festival

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri is inviting everyone to join and witness the annual festivities of Kaamulan in Bukidnon beginning Saturday.

He encouraged the public, as well as the local and international tourists to participate in the celebration of Kaamulan Festival which coincides with the foundation of Bukidnon.

Among the activities and highlights of Kaamulan festival includes street dancing, fireworks display, garden show, food festival, bazaar, agri-fair, and livestock show.

The Bamboo Band together with actor John Pratts will also be there to spice up the celebration of the only ethnic festival in the Philippines.

Kaamulan is Bukidnon's ethnic-cultural festival held every last week of February to the first week of March in remembrance of the seven prominent ethnic tribal groups of the province the Bukidnon, Higaonon, Talaandig, Manobo, Matigsalug, Tigwahanon and Umayamnon.

The Kaamulan festival began on May 15, 1974, during the fiesta celebration of then municipality of Malaybalay, until it became the regional festival of Northern Mindanao due to its popularity and national coverage.

Kaamulan was originally celebrated on the first week of September but was move to the present date in 1996 to coincide with the foundation celebration of Bukidnon.

The word Kaamulan was derived from the word Binukid which means "social gathering."

The indigenous people of Bukidnon performs the rituals of ethnic tribe such as the pangampo (general worship), the tagulambong ho datu (a political ritual marking one's formal ascendancy to the datuship), the panumanod (spiriting ceremony), the panlisig (edging away of evil spirits) and native horse fights.

Dance clinics are performed in the afternoon while the chants of Bukidnon epic olaging, recitations of the lyric poetry limbay, the singing of ballad song idangdang and other literary verses, riddles, folk tales and the tracing of one's genealogy in the form of debate are conducted in the evening.