The Bottomline

Buglas grass was then abundantly growing in the island. Negritos, Malays and Chinese long inhabited the island called Buglas, before the expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi. In 1565, when Legaspi ordered to explore and scout the island, the Spaniards on the expedition reported seeing dark-skinned inhabitants with kinky hair, thus renaming the island Negros.

Occupying a modest southeast fraction of Negros Island, Negros Oriental has 5,402.30 square kilometers, and constitute the largest land area of the Central Visayas provinces. It provides 60% of Region VII’s total forest cover. Its coastline is a tropical fringe, in most places just a short walk up into green mountains.

Negros Oriental showcases its alluring natural resources and hospitable people. With its beautiful beaches, crested mountains, and exciting urban life, it has various festivals happening all throughout the year.

Negros Oriental is a province full of year-round fiesta. We have 24 fiestas each dedicated to their respective patron saints and topping it off is the BUGLASAN FESTIVAL, the fiesta of the entire province, taking place on the 3rd week of October of each year.

Buglasan Festival is the Negros Oriental’s Provincial Fiesta. The event showcases various booth presentations projecting the different cities and municipalities’ finest tourism and agricultural products.

Another feature of the festival is the indigenous culinary competition, locally called Lutong Garbo, whereby it presents the culinary treasures of the province.

Dumaguete City, the Capital City, has been popularly known as The City of Gentle People.

The city comes alive every September by celebrating its Sandurot Festival, which means “fellowship and reaching out” is a commemoration of Dumaguete’s rich history dating back from the pre-Hispanic period when people of different foreign cultures converged and created a varied community that is Dumaguete City today.

Through the course of history and to the present time, the people of Dumaguete have always been known to welcome strangers from different shores and countries, and to live with them in complete peace and understanding. The celebration started with the Paghimamat, a re-enactment of how people from different cultures and races came to the shores of Dumaguete, bringing gifts of rich cultures

Pasigarbo followed, gracing the City streets with dancing to drumbeats and other instruments participated by different barangays and schools in Dumaguete. The street dancing ended at Quezon Park after which the participants prepared for the grand Pasundayag, a display of dances portraying different stories of the Dumaguete tradition.

Amlan is not only known for its tourist attractions but also for its meaningful festivals. One of their most noted festivals is the Wayboga Festival.

In the small little town of Amlan, the celebration of the Wayboga Festival not only marks the modern culture that developed Amlan, but also the importance the festival has brought to the municipality to other neighboring towns. This festival is celebrated annually in the last week of July.

The Kapaw Festival of Basay is another of these most colorful and vibrant festivals here in Negros Oriental. With the theme of underwater wonders, the festival is taken into a new perspectives point of view. This festival reflects on the abundant marine resources of the Municipality of Basay

Kapaw is a Visayan word that refers to the “overflowing” catch of fishes. Some also refer to it as the “Tingkapaw” Festival due to the shimmering scales of the fish produces once it reaches the surface. In honor and celebration of the abundant harvest the Kapaw Festival was created. This festival is celebrated during the surrounding days of March 19.

Bayawan City is very well known for their Tawo-tawo Festival, also known as the Scarecrow Festival, which the people of Bayawan annually celebrate on the 18th of February. They give honor and praise to their city patron saint Santo Tomas Villanueva as they celebrate this festival.

Began as a post-harvest celebration by workers in a hacienda, recognizing the scarecrow (tawo-tawo) as traditional sentinels of the town’s rice fields and, therefore, guardians of the town’s future.

The festival features giant papier mache scarecrows (tawo-tawo in the vernacular) and street dancers costumed as denizens of the rice fields, i.e., carabaos and maya birds. Recent showdowns included a brief dramatization of the legend surrounding the town’s place name, where a fierce native slays the priest at the height of the Mass, during the elevation, or bayaw.

Canlaon City’s Pasayaw Festival, derives from pasalamat diha sa mga sayaw. It blends legendary, historical, and socio-cultural materials with religious traditions of the early inhabitants of this mountain city.

Dance sequences are an off-shoot of barangay-based cultural events of the city. Footwork includes the Pagtugbong, to go down the slopes, Pagkatin, to step off the murky trail, Pagtabok, to cross the river, and Paglinas, to extract the seeds. Hand movements include Paghunos, to harvest leguminous plants, and Pagdawat, to receive the bounty.

Street dancing and showdown in honor of the patron, St Joseph the Worker. The presentation is highly-influenced by the MassKara Festival of Bacolod, where a common recorded music, usually a samba, is used by all contingents.

Past Pasayaw Festivals used vegetables and other crops, by way of thanksgiving for the bountiful harvests that make Canlaon City the vegetable bowl of the Province.

Pandanyag Festival is an annual celebration held during the last week of April in La Libertad, Negros Oriental.

Grateful for the bountiful harvest of crops, bananas, pandan and other agricultural products, the celebration of Pandanyag Festival makes La Libertad an even more colorful place to visit.

Proud to be known as the “Cave Capital of the Philippines”, Mabinay is indeed a cave wonder municipality not only here in Negros Oriental but to the country. In celebration of the wonders of these caves, the municipality stages the festivities of the Langub Festival.

Back when Mabinay was still unknown, aborigines would travel and find caves as means of shelter. They lived within the protection of the caves for many years until the tribes slowly spread out to the lower valleys for a more civilized lifestyle. Since then, the caves played an important role in the culture and history of the municipality of Mabinay

On the surrounding days of May 24, the annual celebration of the Langub Festival is held in the town center of Mabinay.  During the showdown and the street dancing, the dancers would dress in indigenous costumes and native clothes to emphasize the lifestyle of the aborigines during their stay in the caves. After the festival, the town celebration concludes with a fiesta in honor of the patron saint, Santo Niño or Child Jesus.

The Inagta Festival of Siaton is considered one of the oldest folk-dancing tradition here in Negros Oriental. The aborigines of Siaton, called “Agta”, were known to be the first settlers of Negros Island. This historical ritual celebration is held on the surrounding days of December 5.

The Inagta Festival is a celebration for the courageous act of a male Agta who disguised himself well to claim a magical flower antidote that could save the leader of the village. He stole the clothes of his wife and went to the forest to bargain with the Fairy Queen known as Reyna Diwata who held a magic flower that could cure their tribe chief. The male Agta succeeded and went back to the village with the flower antidote for his leader. The leader was cured and ordered his fellow Agta to make a dancing celebration for the courage of this one male Agta.

The celebration of this ancient culture has been handed down as generations passed. With the invasion of the Spaniards, the introduction of Catholicism may have added Saint Nicolas de Bari, however, the gist of the original myth still remains in the celebration of the Inagta Festival.

With the meaningful history of the festival, Inagta is indeed a mystifying tradition that should never be forgotten culture by all the Negrense family.

Yag-yag Festival, came from the vernacular term Yag-yag which means "for spawning", "to lay eggs or spread", "propagate", "and grow." The process refers, in particular, to the crabs and other marine creatures, which gather during the months of October to December in Sapa, one of the springs, found in Barangay Cangmating of Sibulan.

The creatures lay and float their eggs during high tide, to mature in the swamps. In the coming months, people from the neighboring barrios from Agan-an to Maningcao would come in groups for nature’s marine bounty, which are harvested for food and as materials for crafts. This is also an occasion for trading and barter, and celebration.

The festival showcases local arts and culture, fashion, and unity. It features Madri gras-type street dancing and related events.

The Yamog Festival of Pamplona, Negros Oriental was recently introduced to the public in the year 2017 during the celebration of the Buglasan Festival 2017 of Negros Oriental.

The festival is quite new, however, it is unique and super positive. With heavy and fast beats of the drum, the performers of the Yamog Festival give a great positive spirit to the people watching the said festival. It is characterized with different colorful costumes and props; mostly of leaves and white to plate blue circles to represent dews.

Every fiesta and festival must have a queen to rule the event. The search for Miss Pamplona is also celebrated during the festival celebration of the said municipality. Live bands, singing, dancing and acting competitions are highly awaited during the said celebration.

Baslay Coffee of Dauin, Negros Oriental

The coffee beans originating from Baslay in Dauin, which is known as Baslay Coffee, comes in two varieties, Arabica and Robusta, and has been evaluated to have a high cupping grade good for specialty coffee.

Budbud sa Tanjay is a delicious delicacy that originates from Tanjay, a city located in the province of Negros Oriental, Philippines. The name “Budbud” is derived from the Visayan word “budbod,” which means to wrap or roll something. It is a sticky rice cake wrapped in banana leaves and cooked using traditional methods. 

Much like the Chinese giving red packets of money to their loved ones during their New Year's celebration, fireworks on the fourth of July for those that live in the United States, or even the pamanhikan that Filipino couples continue to practice to this day as a remnant of the classic courting rituals of the Philippines' early colonial era, PICPA Negros Oriental Chapter has its very own cultural tradition that only true-blooded PICPAns know to do—and that is the PICPA Putos Committee.

One thing that does not go unnoticed during any of PICPA NegOr's activities is the buffet tables of delicious food offered to the participants. The promise of creamy pasta, crispy lechon skin, or comforting, hot soup makes any tangent of a particularly long-winded speaker or topic seem not that bad, after all. Indeed, it is one of the more significant things that the global pandemic put a stop to in terms of the Chapter's activities during those difficult times—and this past year, the PICPAns were all too happy to finally see each other again over scrumptious, steaming plates of good food.