SANDUGO
Just a month after the whole country celebrated its 100 years of freedom, last June 12, Boholanos commemorated a historical event which made them known all over the world, the Blood Compact, more popularly known as Sandugo. The Sandugo Festival, as it became to be known, is a month-long celebration with several activities lined up. Highlights of the celebration, aside from the search for the Miss Bohol Sandugo, included a trade fair which displayed the native products of the province, the fluvial procession, a nightly rock concert competition among school bands, and street dancing/ritual dance contest which was held last Sunday.
The streetdance featured the Sandugo dance which gave the activity its distinct character. Just as the basic steps of Cebu's Sinulog dance originated from the forward and backward movement of the current (sulog), the Sandugo dance is basically a combination of the kuradang, the itik-itik and the linambay, all traditonally popular and to a large extent Bohol originals, which explains the sidewards, the somewhat erratic zigzag movement of the dancers who during the performance feature the up and down movement of arms as in the flapping of the duck's wings.
The contingents from Panglao Island was declared champion in the street dancing/ritual dance. Second place went to the Municipality of Loon while the Cycle Tribe from Cebu City bagged the third place, with as performance distinctly Sinulog in character.
Getting Started
The Sandugo Festival was conceived in early 1989 by enterprising Boholanos as Walter Sultan, then marketing manager of the Bohol Beach Club, Loy Palapos, a professional public relations man and newspaper columnist, and former provincial board member Joseph Sevilla, who headed the PB committee on tourism. Former President Corazon Aquino, at that time, launched the Fiesta Islands tourism promo through the Department of Tourism and the Philippine Tourism Authority which identified the tourist destinations throughout the country. Sultan, Palapos and Sevilla, through their own initiative, met several times to plan out a festival unique for Bohol. They were encouraged by the success of the Sinulog Festival in Cebu City which has become a tourism event complementing the traditonal celebration of the Fiesta in honor of the Senor Santo Nino.
Historical Significance
Bohol is not wanting in religiosity, history and cultural heritage. The province's contribution to history cannot be denied for it was in barangay Bool, Tagbilaran City that the first international treaty of friendship and brotherhood was inked in blood on March 16, 1565 with the Blood Compact between the Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi and Datu Sikatuna. It was because of the Blood Compact that Tagbilaran has been known as the City of Friendship. It was also because of that contribution to world diplomacy that its festival was dubbed Sandugo - Blood Compact.
No Ordinary Fiesta
When Sultan, Palapos and Sevilla approached then governor Constancio Torralba with the idea that Bohol join the Fiesta Islands promo of DOT and PTA, the latter commented, saying, "There are already several fiestas in Bohol." Of course, Torralba was thinking that the Fiesta Islands promo was another town or barangay fiesta which the province is famous for celebrating all year round, particularly in May when from the first day of the month to the last, a municipality, barangay or sitio, and Tagbilaran City itself, a fiesta is celebrated daily. "This is not a town fiesta or a barangay affair," Sevilla had pointed out to Torralba.
"The Fiesta Islands is the key for the province to become a tourist destination." So the concept was formalized into a plan to systematically link Bohol's famous tourist spots as the fabled Chocolate Hills in Carmen, the centuries-old Baclayon Church, the Hinagdanan Caves in Dauis and the white sand resorts of Panglao Island and Anda, or the Punta Cruz watch tower in Maribojoc, to mention a few. The linkage of tourist spots, the improvement in accessability through sea and air and a central festival, the Sandugo Festival enrolled the province of Bohol in the Fiesta Islands promo to become a tourist destination in 1990.
So on March 16, 1989, the yearly observance of the Blood Compact became the launching date of the first Sandugo Festival - an effort spearheaded by the province under Torralba and was supervised by Sevilla, his private sector friends Palapos and Sultan and a Sandugo executive committee with both public and private sector participation, the antecedent of the Sandugo Foundation which now runs the yearly festival - which is now part of the Boholano tradition.(With FRANCIS S. SAVELLON) .